Sahel Geopolitics: Bamako's Strategy Amidst International Dynamics

[African Arguments] A familiar claim keeps surfacing in the rhetoric of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger's ruling juntas, echoed enthusiastically by Russian state media: the West is deliberately working to destabilise the Sahel's military governments. It's a tidy story. It bundles sanctions, frozen aid and diplomatic isolation into a single narrative of conspiracy. But look closely at who is actually doing what, and what looks like a strategy of destabilisation turns out to be the side effect of something else entirely -- and