Climate, Conflict, and Strategic Competition in the Central Sahel
Abstract
Multiple drivers of instability are converging in the Central Sahel, threatening to expand into a transregional crisis over the next 25 years. Rapid warming, explosive population growth, and extremist violence have created a security crisis and are driving irregular migration from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger towards the southern flank of Europe and beyond. These security concerns are growing amid strategic competition in a region where Western influence is declining, as Russia, China, and Iran expand theirs. Therefore, the United States and the European Union should implement a peripheral approach to strengthen security capacity in North and West African states, support humanitarian efforts along migration routes, and maintain selective engagements in the Central Sahel.
The Gathering Haze
As winter descends on the Sahara, a seasonal wind, called the Harmattan by locals, carries fine dust across West Africa, obscuring everything in a haze and choking those who venture outside unprotected. In the Central Sahel, a geostrategic Harmattan is forming. Resource competition, rapid population growth, terrorism, internal displacement, and strategic competition are converging into a broader regional crisis. This brewing storm threatens to move north towards Europe’s southern flank, bringing with it a security dilemma that the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) must prepare for.
The Central Sahel, comprised of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, experienced profound political upheaval and social unrest in recent years. Following coups in all three states, the respective military juntas formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), dismissed Western security missions, and expanded ties with other actors, including Russia, China, and Iran. The potential for regional spillover was already evident in 2023, when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), under the leadership of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, threatened the use of force to restore constitutional order following the coup in Niger. Yet the political crisis was only one dimension of a worsening security environment.
Amid these changes, the tri-border region remains embroiled in conflict. The Central Sahel is now the global hotspot for terrorist attacks and has recorded more than 17,000 deaths in the past two decades. Furthermore, a growing humanitarian crisis is placing increased pressure on already fragile governments. These dynamics are transforming localized instability into a broader transregional crisis.
The Central Sahel is not solely an African security problem. Several threat multipliers across the region are creating a geostrategic environment of widening instability that extends toward Europe’s southern borders. As Western military access shrinks, the US and the EU should implement a peripheral approach centered on building security capacity with North African and coastal West African partners, supporting humanitarian efforts along external migration corridors, and maintaining selective engagement with AES states.
The Storm Forms
The Central Sahel is part of a broader climate hotspot in West Africa, where temperatures are rising almost one and a half times the global average. These higher temperatures are lengthening dry seasons and causing recurrent droughts, which in turn alter weather patterns. As a result, the region experiences intense monsoons, causing increasingly erratic rainfall and severe flooding. These worsening weather conditions have damaged farms and pasturelands while increasing demand for already scarce water sources. Because of these climate-induced changes, the United Nations (UN) estimates that roughly six million people in the region experience acute food insecurity.
Population growth will further strain these resources. The UN projects that the combined population of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger will grow from roughly 78 million to approximately 136 million by 2050, a rise of nearly 58 million people. Population growth in a region already strained by reduced access to water and arable land will further stress public services. As more people compete for diminishing resources, local disputes over grazing rights and water access may fuel conflict and escalate insecurity in vulnerable communities.
These climate and population stressors are unfolding amidst a period of political volatility. Since 2020, military coups have occurred in all three Central Sahel states, dramatically reshaping the regional security environment. Mali began the cycle with its most recent coup in August 2020, then a second in May 2021. Burkina Faso quickly followed, with two coups in 2022, and the last one occurred when Niger’s government was overthrown in 2023. Security conditions continue to deteriorate as all three juntas struggle to maintain security. For example, Mali remains embroiled in conflict. The Tuareg separatist group, Azawad Liberation Front, continues its attacks against the junta and recently collaborated with Islamic jihadists for the first time.
The military juntas that seized power expelled Western forces and curtailed security cooperation with Western partners, leading to a significant reduction in Western security missions across the AES states. France concluded Operation Barkhane and withdrew its forces from Mali in 2022. This was followed by the termination of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA) in Mali at the end of 2023. Additional drawdowns include the end of several EU missions in Mali and Niger, as well as the withdrawal of AFRICOM forces from Niger in 2024. In contrast, Russia strengthened its presence in the region and has increased security cooperation since 2024. Despite growing Russian involvement, the security vacuum in the region persists as violence grows and the military juntas struggle to retain control.
Islamic jihadist groups such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) have exploited the security vacuum to boost their influence, particularly in the tri-border region of Liptako-Gourma. The scale of violence has turned the area into the “global epicenter of terrorism.” The 2026 Global Terrorism Index ranked Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali as the second, third, and fifth most affected countries, respectively, and reported that the region experienced “almost 4,500 terrorist attacks and almost 17,000 deaths” in the past two decades. This assessment was echoed by General Dagvin R.M. Anderson, Commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM). In his annual posture statement to Congress on May 14th, 2026, General Anderson warned that his “area of responsibility has become the center of gravity for global jihadism,” while West Africa accounted for more than half of global terrorism related deaths in 2024.
Climate stress, food scarcity, and insecurity, exacerbated by terrorism, are converging to force internal displacement. The most recent estimate by the UN is that there are 3,025,444 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Central Sahel, with more than two million in Burkina Faso alone. Another 387,000 refugees seek protection in the region, a number which increased by 14 percent in 2025. If local governments and external actors fail to address these pressures, forced displacement driven by the factors described above could move further north through existing migration corridors, bringing humanitarian and security implications to Europe’s doorstep.
The Winds Spread
Instability in the Central Sahel is increasingly displacing people northward along migration corridors through the Sahara into North African countries. Of those countries, Libya and Algeria were the major transit states into Europe in 2025. EU’s Frontex reports that irregular immigration from Libya rose by 63 percent and from Algeria by 18 percent in the past year. Frontex also warned that continued instability will drive irregular migration north along the Central Mediterranean route. To worsen the humanitarian crisis, these routes often intersect with illicit trafficking networks, where migrants and refugees face rape, torture, kidnapping, arbitrary detention, and other forms of abuse. Moreover, extremist organizations can exploit regional insecurity to mask their movements on migration routes, further complicating European security screening and humanitarian monitoring.
Mass displacement is only one symptom of the crisis. The erosion of educational opportunities for millions of children may prove even more damaging in the long term. The UN estimates that as many as 14,800 schools across the region were closed, a number that has doubled since 2019. These closures leave two million children without access to education and increase their vulnerability to recruitment by extremist groups. Furthermore, nearly seven and a half million children across the region require immediate humanitarian assistance and suffer “killing, abduction, and recruitment and use by armed groups.” For the US, the concern goes beyond humanitarian costs. Over the next 25 years, these conditions may deepen volatility, intensify displacement pressure on Europe, expand extremist networks and their reach, and contribute to the growth of ungoverned areas that provide sanctuary to those networks.
These crisis drivers are unfolding amid declining Western presence and growing external engagement. The AES adopted a multi-alignment approach that allows it to diversify partnerships and avoid dependence on a single actor. This approach is largely transactional, relying on selective engagement to create more opportunities and to leverage competition between partners. For example, the EU’s civilian mission in Mali (EUCAP Sahel Mali) has been supporting capacity building for Mali’s internal security forces since 2015, while Russia simultaneously provides security assistance through its Africa Corps.
The growing competition in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger is drawing external powers seeking to expand their security, economic, and political influence there. Russia views the Central Sahel as a relatively low-cost opportunity to expand influence as Western presence in the region declines, primarily through security cooperation and information operations. China is growing its influence through economic and infrastructure development avenues such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. It also seeks bilateral cooperation in energy, agriculture, and mineral development in the resource-rich AES states. Iran, although its role is smaller, has recently sought to expand diplomatic and economic ties with the region following the coups.
The recent uptick in Iranian interest may carry added importance for the US, given Niger’s role as one of the world’s leading uranium producers. At the same time, growing ties between the AES states and countries such as Russia and China add another layer to an already complex crisis. As conditions worsen and Western access in the region shrinks, future efforts will need to focus more on the surrounding states.
Navigating the Storm
Reduced Western access does not mean the US and EU are without options. Future efforts should focus beyond the Central Sahel into its periphery by strengthening security along Europe’s southern approaches, supporting vulnerable neighboring states, and maintaining selective engagement with the AES. Future efforts should focus beyond the Central Sahel into its periphery by strengthening security along Europe’s southern approaches, supporting vulnerable neighboring states, and maintaining selective engagement with the ruling juntas.
The US and EU should strengthen cooperation along the North Africa arc through border security assistance and migration management efforts. The EU has already begun working with North African partners through initiatives such as the Border Management Program to improve border security for the Maghreb and the Action Plan for the Central Mediterranean Route to address irregular migration and trafficking towards Europe. The US could build on existing relationships through security cooperation and intelligence sharing to enhance defense engagement with regional partners such as Algeria. Expanded cooperation could also reinforce ongoing EU efforts, such as the Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM), to improve monitoring and enforcement along migration routes. However, the challenge does not end at Europe’s southern approaches. Instability is also spreading south into vulnerable coastal states in West Africa.
The EU has already taken steps to mitigate insecurity in West Africa through the Security and Defense Initiative in the Gulf of Guinea (EU SDI GoG), which supports partners in the region in tackling insecurity spreading south. However, the expansion of terrorism into coastal West Africa also carries broader security implications that could threaten the US homeland and personnel and facilities abroad. This is an opportunity for the US to employ special operations forces (SOF) to advise and assist partner forces in conducting counterterrorism operations. AFRICOM can also share intelligence and continue SOF participation in regional exercises such as Flintlock 2026. These activities can reinforce partner security capacity and limit extremist expansion. The US should also consider partnered counterterrorism operations against senior JNIM leadership, like the US-led operations against ISIS global leadership in Nigeria.
Security cooperation along the periphery of the Central Sahel addresses only part of the problem. Humanitarian efforts near migration corridors and IDP and refugee camps should also become part of broader stabilization efforts. The gap left by the UN’s MINUSMA withdrawal from Mali in 2023 presents the greatest opportunity for humanitarian assistance. In this gap, the US and EU should address food insecurity by sponsoring activities such as regional water management projects and international initiatives like the World Food Program in the Sahel. Through the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, they should bolster healthcare missions and expand access to education. Civil assistance to build new schools and implement humanitarian assistance programs will help reduce the socioeconomic vulnerabilities that extremist groups and criminal networks exploit for recruitment.
Finally, as strategic competition intensifies in the region, the US and EU cannot afford to disengage with the AES and its member states. Securing the periphery only helps contain the crisis; it does not address its roots. Therefore, the US and the EU should continue their relationships with Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to sustain influence, even as Russia, China, and other competitors expand their presence. Although many Western security missions ended, some remain after the coups. EUCAP Sahel Mali, for example, demonstrates that cooperation is still possible. Limited engagements, such as SOF security force assistance or economic incentives, can help rebuild trust. They may also create opportunities to strengthen relationships when tensions emerge between the juntas and external partners. Alleged abuse by Russia’s Africa Corps and disputes involving Chinese firms suggest that these relationships remain transactional and sometimes tenuous. They create opportunities for the US and EU to reestablish themselves as partners of choice.
Conclusion
Just as the winds of the Harmattan blow dust hundreds of miles beyond the Sahara, the instability in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger threatens to drive across the borders of the Central Sahel. The localized crisis is quickly becoming a transregional challenge and will worsen over the next 25 years. Fast-rising temperatures, explosive population growth, and humanitarian crises are placing increasing pressure on the military juntas. Furthermore, violent extremist groups are expanding their presence within ungoverned areas, particularly in the tri-border region. Food insecurity and violence are already forcing people to move north through existing migration routes toward North Africa and Europe. If conditions deteriorate further, those flows will likely increase in the years ahead.
Meanwhile, Russia, China, and other external actors expand their presence in the region as Western influence declines. Even so, the US and EU should avoid treating Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger as lost causes. Continued engagement with regional partners, humanitarian assistance, and limited cooperation with the AES states may still provide opportunities to preserve influence and contain the wider spread of instability. The crisis in the Central Sahel is no longer isolated to the tri-border region. Its effects are already reverberating across North Africa and into Europe.
