The Iran war served to focus Europe’s political attention on energy diversification. However, recent summits with African producers reveal that the continent remains unwilling to do what is necessary to achieve it.

If the European Union is serious about its role as a global security actor, it must confront an uncomfortable reality: its current approach is not delivering results in the Sahel.

Examining the latest developments in the US-Israel Iran war, the impact that the conflict is having on global food prices, what the redeployment of THAAD ‘parts’ from South Korea to the Middle East tells us about the war, and a wave of brutal attacks against military bases in northeast Nigeria.

This week we examine a suspicious Russian tanker under military escort in Libya, a brazen attack by Islamist insurgents in Niger, an Iran ‘armada’ that seems all for show, and the implications of a high-level leadership purge in China.

The physical "caliphate" of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria collapsed years ago, but its apparition failed to disappear, instead finding new life in local conflicts across Africa.

An effective US presence remains key for regional stability in the Sahel, and this will be achieved not by doubling down on military might, but by judiciously balancing soft power with targeted support for security initiatives.

Post-coup relations remain fraught between Niger and Benin, evident in Porto Novo’s decision to shut down a key oil pipeline and economic lifeline for Niamey.

From the covert to the overt, the Kremlin’s Expeditionary Corps is taking over Wagner’s global operations.

Amid a worsening security and economic outlook in the Sahel, ECOWAS leaders have decided that the only way forward is for Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to be brought back into the fold.

UN Chief António Guterres recently declared Africa as the new “epicenter” of global terrorism. Recent developments across the Sahel and beyond are corroborating the view.

Africa is becoming a geopolitical battleground, and one where the United States’ and Europe’s interests are not always aligned.

Wagner is stepping in to support to Niger junta just as regional support for a strategy of concerted pressure shows signs of fizzling out.

West Africa is emerging as a new front in Russia’s global campaign against the EU and United States.

The Sahel was a standout in volatility in 2020, and the security outlook is set to worsen amid signs of a French pullout.

The question of a debt crisis in the developing world has shifted to ‘when,’ not ‘if.’

Unless deep-rooted socioeconomic and security issues are addressed, Africa’s development miracle risks being derailed. Nowhere is this truer than with the G5 countries in the Sahel.

Background on the worsening clashes between Al Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliates in the Sahel.

Can AFRICOM survive another term of the Trump administration?

COVID-19 is upending local security dynamics in some of the most vulnerable parts of Africa.

And will it be there for much longer?