THE GEOPOLITICAL SHIFTS IN THE SAHEL: THE SINO-RUSSIAN STRENGTHENING VS THE FRANCO-AMERICAN DECLINE

Abstract

The objective of this research paper is to evaluate how the context of insecurity in the Sahel has impacted the international geopolitical scenario. The exhaustion of the Euro-American cooperation model in security issues and its failure to contain terrorism caused a wave of coups d'état in opposition to the French military presence in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The coup governments assumed a nationalist anti-French narrative that has had repercussions on the former Western allied countries, such as Senegal, Chad and Ivory Coast, which have requested the withdrawal of French troops. The political crisis affected ECOWAS, when the military junta decided to abandon this integration bloc due to its attempt to organize a military intervention in Niger: thus, the Alliance of Sahel States emerged. We are in the presence of a region of the Global South where the traditional France hegemony has been eroded. On the other hand, these modifications have allowed the consolidation of Chinese and Russian positions in the Sahel. China has managed to completely displace traditional actors such as the U.S. and also began promoting its own security agenda in the Sahel. Secondly, these political changes have allowed a greater Russian influence on security issues to combat terrorism. We demonstrate that, in the last five years, the Sahelo-Saharan zone has become the African epicenter of the modifications of the international geopolitical order. The short- and medium-term scenario is presented to us as the strengthening of the Chinese-Russian axis in detriment of the France-U.S. “bloc” in Africa.