On September 17, 2023, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger signed a treaty establishing the Alliance of Sahel States.  All three governments were recently installed by popular nationalist military coups. Their treaty creates a jointly-coordinated defense system for a population of 75 million in a region with vast strategic raw materials and importance. The treaty activates joint efforts to defend these nations from a potential Western-sponsored military intervention by ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) that is being promoted by France, the EU, some in the United States, and their “democratic” regimes in the region—ostensibly to reinstate the former leader of Niger. Perhaps more important, the new military alliance is meant to deal effectively with the growing revival of an Islamic insurgency on the common border area of these three nations.

This process began with a coup in Mali that has been developing since August 2020; followed by a coup in neighboring Guinea in September 2021; then a coup in Burkina Faso in September 2022; and last a coup in Niger in July 2023. It is notable that Guinea is supporting the new alliance, offering access to the Atlantic Ocean to the other three nations, which are landlocked. Much further south, on the Atlantic Coast, there was a coup in Gabon in August of 2023.

Perhaps the most salient feature of these coups and the Alliance just created, is that it appears that no external entities were involved, whether overt or hidden. All French troops stationed in these nations to fight the Islamic insurgencies are leaving or have already left. Throughout the three nations, there are expressions of a genuine nationalism which appears to be asserting itself against neo-colonialism, the Islamic insurgency, the “non-sustainable” development NGOs, the UN, and externally funded, globalist-compliant, corrupt “democracy” governance that buys votes from a desperate population.

An example of Western “soft power” intervention into the Sahel since 2017, which goes by a similar name, is the Alliance Sahel, originally launched with the hope of stemming the waves of African immigration into Europe. Alliance Sahel originated with France, Germany, the EU, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the United Nations Development Program.  Following its inception, an additional ten full members were added, including Spain, Italy, the UK, and the US as well as the European Investment Bank. Five other nations are observers, including Japan, along with the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Tony Blair’s “Institute for Global Change.” Their main stated objectives are to bolster border stability and foster overall development. Well over 1,000 projects have been financed in the Sahel. None of these projects appear to have anything to do with developing the national infrastructure and industry that would lift a population out of poverty. The projects appear to be small and local, and seem to be a financial recycling scheme of donor funds through non-profits, NGOs, etc., designed to create local political influence for globalist agendas. Some call it the “poverty/insurgency/population displacement industrial complex.”

What Changed?

The people of these nations have had enough. They have awakened. Cell phones and the internet have given previously isolated populations a fuller sense of the world and what is oppressing them. The more recent conduct toward them by the West, promoting an imperial culture that savages their cultural values, along with such disasters as the Ukraine war, have shaken their awe of the West and its neo-colonial power.

Along with this comes the revelation that no one from the West is going to save them or make life better. Only the nation itself can do that. One example of this spirit is the 30,000 Nigerien youth who signed up at a stadium to take part in government economic development projects—something akin to the US depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. You develop a nation by mobilizing the citizens of the nation to support and become active in that development. This can also be the approach to defeat the Islamic insurgents—that is to enlist the population to fight the insurgents for a vision of the nation’s future. It is that vision of the nation and its future that can best undermine the anti-Western “moral high ground” pretense that the insurgents use to recruit.

It must be emphasized that unless African nations and their people stand up for themselves as sovereign to decide their own affairs, no development can occur. This condition appears to be emerging in these and other nations in Africa. However, the international forces of globalist institutions arrayed against them will be a major source of conflict. This is why Donald Trump is very popular in these nations, and in sub-Saharan Africa generally. Trump is seen as a nationalist who would promote America’s national interest, which national interest would be served by a growing, industrializing world economy of which Africa would be an important part.

How will the globalists of the West respond to this? It will be interesting to see how these three nations deal with the fact that their monetary system is controlled by France, through the African French Franc, and that they are part of a free-trade zone, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). Will they do what Guinea did, and break free from UEMOA and create their own currency? If they do break with their Western-dominated financial system, what opportunities exist outside of that system for trade and development? What capabilities can they mobilize with each other, and internally?

Africa, with the most uncultivated arable land in the world, vast natural resources, and a still-growing population, is the key to humanity’s future. If transcontinental rail corridors can be established to foster internal trade, if the Congo and its tributaries, with their vast hydropower potential, can electrify the continent, and if national sovereignty emerges to promote development with willing external partners, Africa’s development will lift up the world. What better gift could we leave to our children than that?