President Joe Biden has threatened to cut military ties with Niger if a coup against the West African democracy’s incumbent president continues, according to U.S. officials anxious to prevent his bodyguards from holding power.
“We remind those attempting this power grab by force that an overthrow of a democratically elected president … would place the U.S.’s substantial cooperation with the government of Niger at risk,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday. “Specifically, a military takeover may cause the United States to cease security and other cooperation with the government of Niger, jeopardizing existing security and non-security partnerships.”
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The warning reflects U.S. hopes that the overthrow of Nigerien President Mahmoud Bazoum still can be averted, despite presidential guard Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani’s announcement that he has seized power. Yet the nature of U.S. leverage in Niger also points to the high stakes of the political crisis, as the withdrawal of American troops could ease pressure on terrorist organizations and pave the way for Russia’s Wagner Group paramilitary forces to take root in a country they have long coveted.
“After the coup in Burkina Faso in October last year, there were Telegram accounts linked to Wagner that were openly saying ‘Niger is our next target,’” Africa Center for Strategic Studies research director Joseph Siegle told the Washington Examiner. “Russia has been interested in seeing a military takeover, which maybe provides an opportunity for them to get more influence.”
Tchiani is perceived to have launched the coup in order to prevent Bazoum from replacing him as head of the presidential guards, a position he has held since 2011.
“Such a takeover would strengthen violent extremist organizations, undercut stability in the country, and exacerbate regional insecurity and violence,” Kirby said. “Further, a military takeover would undermine Niger’s authority as a regional leader — and they are. The United States and Niger’s partners in Africa, as well as other international partners, are closely watching this situation to determine our next steps collectively.”
Tchiani’s maneuver has drawn condemnation from the African Union and leading Western powers, but Russian authorities have taken a more ambiguous posture. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referred to it as “an anti-constitutional act,” but claimed that it is analogous to the Ukrainian movement that culminated in the Ukrainian parliament voting to remove the pro-Russian president from power after security forces fired on protesters in 2014.
“This has nothing to do with Russia. We never interfere in [other country’s] internal affairs,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Friday, per state-run TASS. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened in Africa … And I am afraid that it will not be the last. Such are the internal processes there.”
Yet Russia’s Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin reportedly hailed the Nigerien general’s emergence as a defeat for the West.
“What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonizers,” Prigozhin is reputed to have said in an audio message published by Wagner-aligned social media accounts. “Thousands of Wagner fighters are capable of bringing order and of destroying terrorists and of not allowing them to harm the local populations of these states.”
Russian state media pundits also implied that the coup could be linked to Bazoum’s refusal to send any Nigerien officials to attend Putin’s summit.
“You don’t go to St. Petersburg, you get a coup,” as one media personality said Friday.
“You don’t go to St Petersburg, you get a coup” – Russian propagandists have their own assessment of the coup in Niger. pic.twitter.com/qTFnedRszK
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) July 28, 2023
Prigozhin’s forces have benefited from multiple coups in African states in recent years, including among Niger’s neighbors. President Joe Biden’s administration blacklisted three officials from Mali on the grounds that they have enabled Prigozhin to “expand Wagner’s presence in Mali since December 2021,” with dolorous consequences in Mali and beyond. And Niger, with its wealth of natural resources — including “about 5% of world mining output from Africa’s highest-grade uranium ores,” per the World Nuclear Association, could present a financial and geopolitical bonanza.
“The deeply disturbing trend of military coups in the region cannot be tolerated,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said in a joint statement with Idaho Sen. James Risch, the top Republican on the panel. “The United States must take swift action to hold anti-democratic forces accountable and send a clear signal that attacks on constitutional democracy will not be met with impunity.”
Prigozhin’s operations in Africa are of high value to the Russian government, as evidenced by his attendance at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with African leaders in St. Petersburg this week, despite his brief yet mutinous march on Moscow.
“Without investing very much on the continent, Wagner has greatly magnified Russian influence through its irregular tactics,” Siegle said. “It just would be unstrategic for Russia to pull the rug out from under Wagner in Africa, because they don’t have anything comparable that can generate the influence that they’re getting.”
The coup in Mali, and Wagner Group’s subsequent emergence as a key power player, set the stage for the scuttling of France’s counterterrorism operations in the country, as well as the new regime’s recent demand that United Nations peacekeepers leave the country. Some of the 2,400 French troops in Mali were redeployed to Niger.
“France does not recognize the authorities that emerged from the military coup led by General Tchiani,” the French Foreign Ministry said Friday. “We reiterate in the strongest terms the international community’s clear demands calling for the immediate restoration of constitutional order and the democratically elected civilian government in Niger.”
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There are “a little bit more than a thousand” U.S. military personnel in Niger, as Kirby put it Friday, and Biden’s team is hoping that Nigerien authorities will regard their withdrawal as a bug, not a feature.
“We’ve made clear to leaders in Niger that our security cooperation is predicated on rule of law and support for democracy and civilian control,” Kirby said. “And again, as I said at the very beginning, we still believe there’s space for diplomacy here.”
