POLICY PAPER| FES PSCC Focus on Geopolitical Transformations and Crises in the Sahel: Redefining Sub-Regional and International Cooperation to Promote and Guarantee Peace and Stability in the Region SOUMAILA LAH July 2024 SUMMARY The war of influence waged by the major powers has been surreptitiously shifted to the Sahel following the Arab Spring and NATO’s military intervention in Libya. This war of influence, with its underlying security and governance challenges, has recently taken on a new dimension, since the logic of alliances in part of the Sahel has been called into question. Although the Sahel is a coveted zone of influence for traditional interna­tional players such as France, the United States, the EU, China and certain Gulf states such as Qatar, it is also witnessing a strong comeback by former players such as Russia, as well as the appearance of new countries such as Türkiye and Iran, intent on extending their influence. Alongside these protagonists, regional and continental players such as ECOWAS and the AU are positioning themselves – as best they can and with varying degrees of success – in the global game of influence gripping the region. This situation has led some countries in the Sahel region, namely Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, to reject traditional partnerships in favour of new, ad hoc alliances essentially focused on security issues with countries such as Russia, Türkiye, and Iran. This new dynamic has facilitated the acquisition of military equipment(which they had been unable to obtain from traditional partners, officially for human rights reasons) and allowed them to regain access to parts of their territory that had become no man’s lands. It has also helped to increase the presence of the region’s armies, even though the sheer size of the territories, extreme poverty, the effects of climate change, and issues relating to governance and the distribution and redistri­bution of wealth mean that the fight against insecurity is still far from won. Thus, this new dynamic, which calls into question the alliances that prevailed until now, is to some extent the result of a geopolitical and geostrategic reorganisation following the contestation of Westernist ideology and the logic of power in the form of a series of coups in these three countries. Regional power dynamics have been significantly altered with the manifestation and notification of the exit of the aforementioned three countries from ECOWAS.