Niger and Chad are two of the poorest countries on the planet. The first is administered by a military junta that deposed the democratically elected president in July and has been keeping the former head of state and his family in confinement ever since. The latter is basically a family-run enterprise, with the current president, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, taking over from his father, who ruled the nation for three decades, after he was killed in a battle with insurgents.
Even so, the United States, the wealthiest country in the world, has been on its hands and knees for weeks, all but begging the Nigerian and Chadian governments to allow U.S. forces to remain in their respective countries.
Last month, a senior U.S. delegation visited the Nigerien capital of Niamey to find a way to bring the generals around. The meeting was a dumpster fire. The Nigeriens viewed the U.S. demands as disrespectful and akin to a violation of sovereignty. Shortly after, the junta tore up the decadelong security agreement Niger had with Washington and ordered the roughly 1,000 U.S. troops in the country to leave. The only negotiations occurring now center on how long it will take for the U.S. military to pull out.
Chad, thought to be a reliable U.S. security partner in the Sahel, is putting pressure on Washington as well. A senior Chadian general sent a letter to U.S. officials telling the U.S. military to “immediately stop” activity at a French base in N’Djamena, the capital city. According to the Pentagon, roughly 100 U.S. special operations troops will be repositioned. U.S. defense officials feel somewhat confident that any misunderstandings will eventually be cleared up with the Chadian government. Of course, the U.S. likely thought the same in Niger.
Many counterterrorism officials inside and outside the U.S. government are petrified about all of this. The Sahel is now the world’s preeminent terrorist hot spot, with a multitude of local jihadist groups fighting governments that are highly unpopular with their citizenry.
The Global Terrorism Index, an annual report covering terrorist incidents worldwide, finds that over half of the deaths caused by terrorism last year happened in the Sahel. Of the 10 countries most affected by terrorism, five were in the Sahel. Burkina Faso, for instance, registered 1,907 fatalities from terrorism in 2023, a 68% increase. Niger’s terrorism problem has gotten worse, not better, since the generals overthrew the civilian-led government.
Should Americans be concerned about any of this?
On the surface, the answer would seem to be “yes.” Remove the U.S. military presence in Niger and the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets that go with it, and you can make a reasonable assumption that the Sahelian country and the region writ large will likely see more attacks. That, of course, is troubling on a moral level. Nobody wants to see more innocent people die from acts of indiscriminate violence, no matter where it occurs.
Deep down, however, it’s not entirely clear why the U.S. should be freaking about leaving Niger and possibly Chad. For one thing, if both countries order U.S. forces out, it’s not like the Biden administration can just ignore the orders or stonewall a redeployment. Either option would expose the U.S. as a hypocritical power, one that preaches about the sanctity of state sovereignty on one day but ignores what it preaches the next. Also, realistically speaking, staying in a country whose government no longer wants U.S. troops there is an unsustainable situation.
One also needs to understand the nature of the terrorism problem in the Sahel specifically. While it’s true that many of the groups in this region have tied themselves to al Qaeda or the Islamic State, it’s also true that their objectives remain primarily local: that is, to overthrow the governments currently fighting them. Those governments, again, are, for the most part, predatory on the populations they are meant to protect, highly incompetent in basic service provision, riven by resource constraints, and oftentimes detached from developments outside of the capital city.
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This isn’t to suggest that a jihadist-run alternative would be any better — far from it — but it does help explain why these jihadist groups are now an ingrained part of the social fabric in these countries. It’s not a problem the U.S. military can fix.
We hear the term “threat” in U.S. security parlance all the time. But it’s important to define what a threat is: capability and intent. Some terrorist groups have an intent to strike the U.S. but lack the capability. Others have the capability but lack the intent. The cornucopia of jihadists in West Africa and the Sahel might not have either.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.