West Africa Divided: Challenges of the Fracturing of ECOWAS for Counterterrorism Efforts
Introduction
A series of military junta-led coups in the Sahel over the past few years have earned the region the moniker of the “coup belt.” Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso all recently experienced regime change and subsequently withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), effective at the end of January 2025. ECOWAS’ failure to support regional counterterrorism efforts is purportedly a key reason for the withdrawal. While there are certainly issues with how ECOWAS has approached counterterrorism in West Africa up to this point, it is unlikely that leaving ECOWAS will improve the situation. The absence of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso will contribute to less cooperation between countries in West Africa by reducing holistic capacity to deal with terrorism effectively. This article examines the shortcomings of ECOWAS which led to the withdrawal, the challenges inherent to replacing ECOWAS in the Sahel, and the role of West Africa in security competition between the NATO-aligned West and Russia.
Shortcomings of ECOWAS
It is challenging to call the criticism of ECOWAS and its Western supporters’ handling of terror in West Africa unfounded. Terrorism has long plagued West Africa—the main culprit being Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen (JNIM), an umbrella coalition of groups aligned with Al-Qaeda active in Burkina Faso and Niger. Since its military coup in September 2022, Burkina Faso alone experienced approximately 15,500 fatalities in terror-related incidents, with over 6,000 deaths occurring since January 2024. The lethality of political violence in the Central Sahel increased from 3.9 fatalities per event in 2023 to 4.4 in 2024. While ECOWAS itself has policies to combat terrorism, implementing these policies has proven difficult due to their exorbitant monetary costs, such as the $2.6 billion annually for its security force. This has often meant that ECOWAS member states are unable to execute their own programs, which has in part led to Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso leaving the organization.
The United States and France have also attempted to curb terrorism in the region, but their commitment has proven unreliable. The perceived lack of Western commitment was made apparent to many African nations when France ended Operation Barkhane, its military counterterrorism campaign in Mali that began in 2013. The new AES security mechanism will likely be less effective, as ECOWAS could not fund the programs necessary to combat terrorism despite having more members and funding than AES.
Challenges of Replacing ECOWAS
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger intend for the new AES to replace ECOWAS as the dominant regional political and economic union. Due to its recent inception, AES policies have not been fleshed out or given time to run their course. However, the AES has a much smaller member size than ECOWAS, meaning its decreased capacity may negatively affect its counterterrorism effectiveness. Interstate cooperation has proven to be an effective method for increasing the security capacities of a region and can often lead to better outcomes for countries that participate in cooperative counterterrorism efforts.
With ECOWAS and the AES now both having fewer members than ECOWAS had before the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, fewer states in the region will be cooperating to fight terrorism—specifically regarding funding. Regional security projects, which include border security initiatives, combined task forces, and cross-border forces, all benefit from economies of scale. The more total investment into them, the more capacity they have. After losing three member states, ECOWAS will have lower aggregate funds for counterterrorism projects. The scope and scale of what it can do with these projects will be lower. The resultant decrease in ECOWAS resources is especially significant in West Africa, where a lack of counterterrorism funding was already a serious problem. Because ECOWAS and AES will not fund counterterrorism initiatives together, their individual projects will likely be far less effective or simply not be undertaken due to prohibitive start-up costs. The largest casualty of ECOWAS-AES non-cooperation will be border security.
Border regions are already hotspots of terrorist activity, as almost half of all violent events in West Africa occur within 100 kilometers of a border. Borders often lack government oversight and are usually some of the poorest areas of the country. Many borders between ECOWAS and AES nations have historically been areas with high terrorist activity, including the Nigeria-Niger border, which is a location where both the Islamic State in the Sahel and JNIM thrive. Now that Nigeria and Niger will not be collaborating through ECOWAS, they will likely confront more difficulty trying to control their shared border. In this same vein, as some states in West Africa introduce Russian forces to execute counterterrorism operations, cooperation will be hindered between African nations still receiving support from the West and those opting for Russian assistance.
West Africa’s Role in Strategic Competition
Formerly a branch of the Russian Wagner Group, the New Africa Corps is closely tied to the new regimes in West Africa. The group appeared immediately after the coups took place to help shore up the new regimes while also serving as a replacement for the troops from France, Germany, and the United States. Those Western nations provided critical aid in the fight against terrorism but left after the coups. Because of the New Africa Corps’ close ties to the Kremlin, it is unlikely that cooperation between states with a Russian presence and those that are supported by Western militaries will be possible.
The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has harmed Russia and the NATO-aligned nations’ capacity for diplomatic and strategic collaboration. This likely means fewer combined exercises and intelligence sharing between ECOWAS and AES nations due to the conflicting interests of their international patrons. As such, this great power strategic competition dynamic adds another layer of challenges to both ECOWAS and AES efforts that will amplify the entire region’s terrorism challenges.
Russia’s reasons for engagement in West Africa are a significant factor working against effective counterterrorism efforts in the region. The Wagner Group typically bases its operations in weak and unstable states, meaning that the group has little incentive to encourage long-term solutions to the instability West African nations face. This manifests in the Wagner Group’s modus operandi, as the group “endorses corruption” and works to keep corrupt regimes reliant while neglecting underlying problems causing terror, including extremism and alienation among West Africans. Of note, the Wagner Group is notorious due to its targeting of civilians.
Wagner’s human rights abuses are well documented, including one egregious example in Mali, where Russians working with the Malian army executed an estimated 300 civilians suspected of being Islamic fighters. The violent nature of Wagner seems to be a core element of its identity, not a flaw, and is therefore unlikely to change. Such civilian targeting is likely to exacerbate the root causes that foster terrorism in Africa—local grievances against the actions of the government. The use of Russian troops in the states that recently withdrew from ECOWAS will make regional counterterrorism cooperation more difficult and the overall threat of terrorism more ominous.
Conclusion
If ECOWAS is unable to work with states outside of ECOWAS—those in AES or otherwise- terrorist groups can more effectively exploit border regions as safe havens and the lack of funding for combined regional security projects. The presence of Russian forces in West Africa will also present challenges for counterterrorism, as divisions on whether West African nations partner with Western or Russian troops will reduce collaboration. Looking to the future, West African nations should strengthen their commitment to other existing regional security constructs as a means of combating terror—including the African Union or the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), which has demonstrated successful internal collaboration. Bottom line—the withdrawal of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso from ECOWAS will reduce the cohesion and capacity of legacy counterterrorism efforts with dire consequences, unless Western-aligned states acknowledge the new security paradigm confronting West Africa and act accordingly.
