If the increasing engagement of Russian private military companies in Africa, together with the coalition efforts of military juntas in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to strengthen the Alliance of Sahel States, were a thriller, there would already be a trailer pointing to dramatic ironies and twists that make Africa, and the Sahel in particular, a place to keep an eye on. Apart from Russia’s geopolitical competition with the West on the African continent, is this the beginning of something new on the African side? Could these developments in Africa tip the geopolitical scales even further?
Russia’s ambitions on the African continent run on two wheels: economic and military. However, it must admit that its economic rapprochement with Africa as part of its geopolitical ambitions is limited, as its trade with the continent lags behind that of other global players, accounting for only 5% of total African trade with the EU and no more than 6% with China, and is concentrated in just four economies (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa). In addition, economic sanctions and the financial burden of military operations in Ukraine further diminish the economic influence of the Federation, whose foreign direct investment in Africa accounts for less than 1% of total investment. However, its engagement in a politico-military complex through the use of private military companies under the name Wagner Group (now restructured and renamed Expeditionary Corps or The African Corps) may indeed have some value for its geopolitical ambitions but should be opposed by African states and the West to achieve sustainable peace on the continent. Given the Wagner Group’s growing reputation for resource exploitation and brutality, as evidenced by the increasing violence against civilians, including summary executions and the targeted killing of children, since its deployment in Africa, the question arises as to why African states are engaging these Russian entities.
As a lawyer and researcher in the use of private force, I see this development not as an expression of Africa’s victimhood and passivity compared to Russia, but as an expression of the growing desire of these states to make their own security arrangements rather than having them imposed on them by foreign powers. While this in itself represents a growing recognition of the use of private military companies as part of a security framework to ensure human security in Africa, while the state retains its role as a provider of public security, it should be seen as offering African leaders who engage them more political leverage than Western governments are willing to concede in negotiations with them. Kinsey argues that Western governments are afraid of this, with its potential to evolve into a multi-player approach to security partnerships and capacity building across the African continent.
Differently from Geopolitics
Historically, the African security sector has not been organized around the idea of security as a public good provided by the state for the entire society. Thus, since the successes of private military companies such as Executive Outcomes in Angola and Sierra Leone and Specialized Tasks, Training, Equipment, and Protection in Nigeria, the idea of (re)embracing a security architecture that includes private military companies as a form of security assemblage has found easy traction in Africa, whose security needs have been unresponsive to the traditional state-centric approaches to building military capacity for counterinsurgency. Thus data therefore shows that the number of states with active Russian PMCs has risen from 4 in 2015 to 27 in 2021. The question therefore arises as to why African states are increasingly engaging Russian PMCs and not Western security service providers. First, African states are increasingly turning to Russian private military companies (PMCs) rather than Western security service providers due to a deep-seated mistrust of Western assistance. They believe that the West uses the mercenary label to deter them from engagement, even though Western PMCs themselves are used for reasons of operational flexibility and plausible deniability and often behave similarly to mercenaries. Moreover, there is no clear evidence that Western contractors are superior to Russian PMCs or African state forces in counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. In fact, research suggests that Western contractors may be less well prepared for these tasks. Commissioning Wagner therefore makes sense in this context, as the group has successfully changed its image on the continent and made itself attractive to African clients. In particular, it has successfully helped the President of the Central African Republic, Touadéra, to fend off a rebel offensive during the 2020 elections, and in Mali, where it has supported the Goïta regime in fighting terrorism and recapturing territory from Tuareg separatists. As a result, its perception in Africa has changed from neutral to negative to positive. However, recent developments in Burkina Faso and Mali suggest that Wagner may be struggling to fight insurgencies effectively and relying on propaganda to gain local support, suggesting that Western security providers may still have advantages in certain contexts. Furthermore, Wagner’s involvement fits with the clientelistic governance structures in Africa, where personal economic networks often take precedence over formal state mechanisms, allowing Wagner to work with African leaders to exploit resources for mutual benefit.
Beyond a Clientelistic Logic
Beyond a clientelist logic and the scramble for the Sahel by foreign powers given its value to their various ambitions, I see Africa’s acceptance of these entities as the development of a local norm centered on sovereignty and security, driven by historical relations, contextual factors and human agency, and ultimately tailored to address internal and regional threats. In this sense, sovereignty is “both the medium and the outcome of the internal and external practices of states”. At the first level, it takes the form of an agency in which political elites claim to represent their populations in terms of national security, stability, and interests, and at the second level, they use this claim to negotiate a framework that suits their national and regional interests.
To think ontologically, I categorize the levers for this engagement as follows
- Historical specificity
- Role behavior and strategic autonomy
- State instrumentalization for personal and national interests
At the first level, the decision of these states to engage with the Wagner Group reflects ‘subjective freedom’ in their actions, where states act with the intention and goal of providing ‘African solutions to African [security] problems’, as Wagner appears to be better able to deal with local insurgencies than Western security providers. This coincides with the contextual decision to engage with Russia through its associated private military and security companies as a ‘historical specificity’ to avoid the reincarnation of the struggle against European or Western colonialism, as was the case with France and the US in the Sahel, to satisfy the quest for sovereignty and meet state-building and post-colonial challenges. This is all the more so because, Western-influenced security reforms in African states often come with conditions that seem to benefit the West more than the recipient states and have also led to the view that Russian-linked entities are a more flexible and favorable alternative that meets their immediate needs and strategic interests. These interests include regime survival, as these private contractors provide leaders with alternatives to their own security forces to ensure it. This is because those who have come to power through coups, including those who have benefited from Western training and supplies, recognize the dangers of relying on indigenous sources for military capacity. Therefore, these decisions for Russian contractors should reasonably be seen as acts of desperation to manage domestic affairs. However, since Russia has no colonial past in Africa, it is positioned differently from Western countries such as France, with whom these African states are unhappy because they have interfered in their internal affairs. Therefore, they find it tempting to avoid the negative historical associations of colonization by instead engaging with Russia in a politico-military complex. The expulsion and withdrawal of French troops from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as the gradual withdrawal of US forces from Niger, which was completed on the agreed date of September 15, 2024 and coincides with the growing relations between these Sahel states and Russia, illustrate this dynamic.
At the second level, engagement with these entities also takes place from the perspective of role behavior, where African elites play the role of actors that not only take care of internal security but also assert their sovereignty and autonomy in foreign policy decisions, ultimately as an attempt to diversify their international partnerships and reduce dependence on traditional powers, thus strengthening their status as independent actors. In this context, the engagement of these entities illustrates how agency is exercised within the opportunities of the market for armed forces to reflect a deliberate strategic calculus aimed at navigating between different military entrepreneurs and leveraging entity capabilities in a politico-military complex that fulfills specific security or political objectives while engaging in a broader contestation and establishment of norms. There are two reasons for the shift in norms. First, African leaders want the autonomy to make their own security arrangements without having them imposed from outside. They refuse to have these decisions dictated by foreign governments through direct political pressure or manipulated narratives that limit their options. Instead, they seek the freedom to create security frameworks based on the intellectual and material contributions of these actors, aimed at improving public security without outside interference, even if they are labeled inadequate or concluded on unequal terms. Second, and as a corollary to the first point, there is an increasing shift in norms that highlights the inadequacies of traditional state-centered military capacity building for counterinsurgency. This shift underscores the realization and need to change the way military capacity building is conducted and managed in Africa from a constructivist standpoint. This potentially opens up a market for armed forces that brings together different military and security actors (especially private military actors due to their numerous operational and political advantages), values, and norms, all of which need to work effectively as a cohesive unit.
Finally, since it is not states per se that act but, as mentioned above, individuals and groups within the state apparatus, these states seek to use the instruments of the state to give these entities the necessary official authorization to operate within national borders for personal gain while protecting national interests, even when such actions are corrupt, as Russia’s involvement in Africa demonstrates.
Conclusions: Implications and Projections
What does this indicate in Africa? First, we are confronted with the growing normalization of the use of private military companies as a form of security assemblage in the African security architecture, as traditional state-centric approaches to building military capacity for counterinsurgency are proving ineffective. Secondly, as events, particularly in the Sahel have shown, the use of these entities is crystallizing into a coalition of the willing, with like-minded African governments such as Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso working together under the name Alliance of Sahel States to meet common needs. In this context, these African governments, seeking an alternative path to the traditional Western partners, namely France and the US, to address their security challenges in the pursuit of their national interests, have increasingly turned to Russia to meet the needs of their members, as evidenced by their coalition efforts to form and deepen the Alliance. As events have shown, these heads of state are increasingly committed to economic and security cooperation to combat the extremist violence they face, even as they challenge the hypocrisy of the major powers. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that these coalition states, which have been strategically important to the West in the Sahel, are now taking a pro-Russian turn by severing military ties with France and the US and expelling troops within months of the change of government, suggesting that Western sentiment may soon give way to Russian preference. This could lead to a restructuring in the Sahel and also usher in a multi-partner approach to military support and capacity building that involves forming security partnerships with different actors based on their intellectual and material contributions to ensuring public security, rather than relying solely on Western military contractors, regardless of their complexity and challenges. The fact that the US private security company Bancroft Global Development is already trying to gain a foothold in the Central African Republic, where Wagner has been operating since 2017, should be seen as a thin end of the wedge opening up a multi-player market for private forces on the African continent and can be expected soon in the Sahel as well, given the strategic importance for foreign powers on the continent. This could also include attempts by Sadat, Turkey’s Private Military Company which is already present in Africa and is also trying to gain a foothold on the continent. This will not be entirely unproblematic, as Turkey, which is quick to leverage its historical and cultural ties to Africa, is not a signatory to treaties and agreements seeking to regulate mercenaries, such as the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries, the Montreux Document, and the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers. Moreover, the coalition’s recent attempts to exert greater control over media narratives in the region through the newly launched Web TV, as well as the growing presence of state-owned non-Western media outlets in the Sahel— such as Turkey’s TRT, Russia’s RT, and China’s Xinhua—owned by states known for supporting their private military contractors abroad, point to a realignment aimed at promoting favorable narratives that pave the way for deeper security cooperation as Western influence wanes. This shift may also pave the way for increased engagement by many private military companies (PMCs) in the region.
Whether this delicate balancing act, which exploits the rivalry between Russia and the West to secure advantageous deals and is expected to soon open up the African market, especially the Sahel, to a multiplayer, will spread beyond the Sahel remains nuanced given the heterogeneity of African states. However, the question arises as to whether states, especially those led by military juntas and pursuing similar goals will increasingly turn to Russia via the Wagner Group, especially since Article 11 of the Liptako-Gourma Charter, which established the Alliance of Sahel States, allows these states to declare their intention to join subject to the unanimous approval of the States Parties. States such as Chad, Sudan, and Guinea have already begun to show sympathy for the alliance, as a recent report shows. This is besides that many African states, especially those dependent on Russian arms, mercenaries, and political support, abstained from voting to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine in UN resolutions, while some others such as Morocco, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa stuck to their tradition of non-alignment, by abstaining from voting on the resolutions, probably to maintain a neutral stance in international conflicts, demonstrating Africa’s entanglement in global geopolitical currents and reflecting the significant influence of Russian political and military aid on these states. This is all the more worrying given that the African Union, an important norm-setting body on the continent, has taken a neutral stance, standing up for international law and Ukraine’s sovereignty without directly condemning the invasion.
The geopolitical implications are significant and complex. This fledgling agency points to a move towards regional autonomy and sovereignty and challenges the authority of broader organizations such as ECOWAS. The alliance’s focus on economic and military cooperation, for example, marks a shift in regional power dynamics that prioritizes local governance over external influence but potentially weakens collective African economic and security mechanisms. While this may encourage localized solutions for these states, it could also reduce external support and exacerbate internal challenges, especially as Russia lacks the economic power to help the region’s development compared to the West and is primarily only interested in resources and geopolitical gains. In addition, new power centers could emerge, leading to more regional competition and instability. The strategic relocation of the US military base from Niger to Côte d’Ivoire, for example, reflects the complex interplay of regional and international interests, even fueling anti-Western sentiments and further complicating the geopolitical landscape. Beyond Africa, successful emerging alliances could reshape global partnerships by challenging traditional Western influence and encouraging other regions with anti-Western sentiments to invite non-Western powers like China and Russia. As African states gain control over their resources and economic policies, global markets could also be influenced, particularly in minerals and energy, where Africa is a major player. This movement could also trigger similar shifts in Africa, the largest bloc of countries in the UN, as well as in other regions, changing the balance of power in international organizations such as the UN and influencing global diplomatic dynamics.
However, the course of events suggests that giving Wagner the upper hand in negotiations over the continent is not good for Africa in the long term. Research already shows that while Russia’s growing influence may bring immediate benefits, its presence is creating multiple and extremely worrying conditions in the long term: human rights violations are already occurring, resources are being exploited and the seeds of continued instability and conflict are being sown, particularly through the breakdown of military cohesion, the erosion of democratic norms and the spread of propaganda, further complicating efforts to achieve sustainable peace and development in the region. All in all, the situation here seems to be producing a worse outcome than what it is currently trying to avoid by turning to Russia. Against this backdrop, and given the likelihood of new actors in the region, the entire African continent needs to strategize on how to support each other in addressing current security needs and ensuring sustainable peace, which Wagner is unable to do. Western states need to recognize that the rules of the game have changed and understand that their interests are better served by working with African leaders rather than imposing conditions in exchange for their support. They should examine how Western private military companies can be effectively used to support African leaders. The international community must also now begin to step up regulatory efforts and closely monitor events to ensure that private military companies do not exploit the market for private armed forces, which now more than ever could be influenced by forces other than military effectiveness.
However, one thing is clear: the increasing normalization of the use of private military companies for security assistance and capacity building, the emerging agency to choose their security arrangements, and the potential opening of the market for multiplayer forces on the African continent, which I highlight here, make the continent, and the Sahel in particular, a region to watch closely.
The views expressed in this prose are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Deakin University or the Australian Government.