Nathaniel Powell
@natkpowell
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Undiplomatic Historian--France, Africa, etc., Africa Analyst @oxfordanalytica , Hon. Researcher @CWDlancaster , author of: …
Aberystwyth, Wales
Joined May 2015
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Interested in military interventions, civil wars, state collapse, decolonization, or Françafrique? Check out my new book, "France's Wars in Chad" on French involvement in Chad from 1960-1982.
20% discount code: FWIC2020
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This is a pernicious myth with colonial roots. Most major African states prior to European colonization were just as multi-ethnic as today's states and ethnic groups were frequently "split" among a variety of polities.
This map shows how Africa would look if its borders respected its main tribes and ethnicities, overlaid with today’s actual borders. The tribal/ethnic borders were drawn by George Peter Murdock around 1959 to represent how he understood the ethnic group boundaries of Africa to
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It appears US intel suffers from ideologically-distorted interpretive lenses. Wagner is not a main driver of African instability. Its presence is driven by local domestic politics, and its ability to control those politics is limited. 1/
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Great thread here on the NYT pulling the old "ignored by historians" trick again. It's great that this issue is getting NYT treatment, but it should note that Haitian debt has been a central feature of Caribbean historiography for literally decades.
on the one hand, the
@nytimes
in-depth piece on Haitian 'reparations' to France brings much-needed attention onto a decisive moment in world history -- and its argument that the neocolonial constraints imposed by FR and US on Haiti has helped keep ...
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My favorite Ali Bongo story comes from Jacques Foccart's memoirs: when Chirac was French Prime Minister, Omar Bongo sent Ali as an emissary requesting French support to turn Gabon into a hereditary monarchy. Chirac thought the idea hilarious. France said no.
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I just got the exciting news from Cambridge University Press that I'll be offered a book contract for my manuscript. It's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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If you want the CIA's bemused 1983 take on the bizarre Franco-Gabonese relationship, I've got you covered. Of note is the insistence on allocating Gabonese government contracts to French companies.
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I've only been shot at twice, and once it was the Israeli army doing the shooting, at a completely peaceful protest, shortly after they put a "rubber" bullet into the brain of an Israeli lawyer peace activist. Beautiful country, vile state. Free Palestine.
If the Palestinian supporters around the world had actually visited Israel, we would have far more people siding with Israel right now.
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The old “colonial taxes” trope is making the rounds again regarding the CFA franc and Franco-African relations. It’s a misguided, and perhaps even counterproductive way to understand France’s peculiar role in postcolonial Africa. 1/
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Today is the day! My book, "France's Wars in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa" has finally hit the shelves.
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Anyone on the lookout for teaching resources (or just a good introduction) on West African history, this selection of maps, summaries, and further reading suggestions is really useful.
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Eg, Wagner benefits from anger at French policies. This anger is not a product of Russian disinformation, but of French policies! Yes, Russian disinformation and self-interested rhetoric by politicians exacerbates this, but it's not created out of thin air. 2/
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Everyone looks at ACLED data on violence, but school closures are probably a reasonable proxy for the exercise of state authority. On the left is Burkina Faso in November 2021, on the right is October 2022. This is catastrophic.
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Very quick thoughts. The announcement of Déby's son as interim head of state suggests that the army moved swiftly to ensure regime continuity--especially in the context of political tensions within the military and strong opposition in the country.
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For those interested in why France failed in Mali, I've written about it here:
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To mark the 10th (!!) anniversary of Operation Serval, you should read my take on why France ultimately failed in Mali:
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As a sort of obituary for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, I'm making my 2013 PhD dissertation, "France's African Wars, 1974-1981" available online. Here's the link:
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In other words, analysts would be well served to remember Mandela's wry observation in a context where Western powers accused him (accurately) of collaborating with the KGB: "who is to say that we were not using them?" 6/end.
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I'm quoted in this Newsweek piece about lessons we should all learn from the French debacle in Niger and the broader region: "making the success of your security policy dependent on venal, corrupt, and illegitimate regimes carries huge risks."
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Bluff or not, the Nigerians are at least going through the motions.
Nigerian military is mobilizing troops on the border with Niger. Preparation appears to be in top gear.
@natkpowell
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French and Western backing for illegitimate and unaccountable governments is key to understanding the "success" of Russian propaganda campaigns. They are pushing on an open door. 3/
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Check out my new article on France's 1969-1972 intervention in Chad in the International History Review. If you're interested in military interventions, statebuilding, and militias as counterinsurgency tools, this is a sneak peak of my book.
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This is nuts. When was the last time a head of state died in battle? Please keep Chad in your thoughts today, there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty right now.
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A question to Africanist scholars (particularly in political science)--why do so many analyses of African politics emphasize clientelism, patron-client relationships, neopatrimonialism etc? How does Africa differ from literally any other part of the world in this respect?
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Lee White has been key to Bongo's strategy of "green authoritarianism" which attempted, with some success, to build his regime's international legitimacy on the basis of environmental commitments.
Gabon's Minister of Forests (or possibly ex-minister as the government has been overthrown in a coup) is not who I expected it to be.
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Reshuffling the security apparatus is a standard coup-proofing strategy. However, it's also a frequent catalyst for provoking coups too.
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On the 40th anniversary of Thomas Sankara's coup in Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), it might be worth reflecting on the sometimes vast gulf between who western (and even regional) powers see as legitimate political authority, and how illegitimate that authority may actually be. 1/
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It's always refreshing to be reminded that the current queen was queen when some of the most brutal episodes of late-colonial violence were unleashed by the British Empire, and she honored its perpetrators.
On this day 70 years ago, Elizabeth became Queen while visiting her colonial subjects in Kenya. It was also around this time that the Mau Mau uprising against colonial rule began, to which Her Majesty’s government unleashed a campaign of pure savagery to crush the rebellion.
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Probably the most successful element of Wagner's information efforts involve exaggerating their own capabilities and, like Western countries, making false claims as to their altruism and desire to "help". 4/
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Read my take on the US failure in Niger.
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My forthcoming book is about French military interventions in Chad, and I've begun two other related projects: One is an international history of the Cold War in Zaire in the 1970s, and the other is about the role of French intelligence agencies in early postcolonial Africa.
If you're a historian, please do at least one tweet today about your research. I'd like to see more research on Twitter these days.
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Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is dead. I wrote my dissertation about his record of military interventions in Africa. To make a long story short, it was a disaster. A short thread:
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If you read French and are interested in the history of colonialism, the politics of colonial conquest, and the perspective of the colonized,
@CamiLefebvre
's new book is probably one of the best histories you'll find on the subject. Really a masterpiece.
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I fear that a Diomaye presidency could face the trap of many African radicals in power--either abandon your promises and adjust to international norms, or make a radical break and get punished, by international capital and/or parts of the ruling classes à la Sankara.
Senegal: 44-year-old Faye vs ruling party’s Ba
Bloomberg says Ba “is clear favorite among investors”. Why? Faye has “pledged to review deals” with big Western firms & end France’s "stranglehold".
Fund manager says: “Faye would be very bad…for investment”. Seems voters disagree
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The longer the French wait to withdraw, the more humiliating it will be and the more it will benefit the putschists. Which might be, paradoxically, why they're doubling down.
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I'm at a conference on international development in Kigali right now, and I'm struck by how many development practitioners tend to focus on technical solutions to inherently political problems.
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Bazoum is no democrat. Neither are most ECOWAS leaders. Meanwhile, Niger's junta and its regional counterparts are no Sankaras. But their emphasis on sovereignty reflects a reality that these states have very little of it. It shouldn't be a surprise when people welcome coups.
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One of the nutty angles about this is what a colossal policy failure this represents for France. They've backed Haftar, and then one of Haftar's coalition partners takes out the main pillar of France's Africa policy.
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I'd like to note that African Parks is the outfit which effectively manages most of Benin's northern border with Burkina Faso and Niger. Anyone concerned about jihadist movements into Benin should play close attention to APN's alienation of local communities there.
President Kagame received Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, who visited Rwanda as part of his work as President of African Parks. The Government of Rwanda has agreements with African Parks to manage Akagera and Nyungwe National Parks.
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This is the best thing I've read so far about the recent events in Chad.
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But Wagner is a useful brand to wave around by some opposition figures and movements, as well as some governments. It helps to boost domestic legitimacy or, alternatively, discredit opponents. It is a tool of domestic politics that has little to do with Wagner's "reality". 5/
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While this take is unimaginably absurd, it's important to understand that lots of European and American policymakers actually believe things like this.
Behind the turmoil in Bamako, great power rivalry:
. Russia has been conducting info-ops in Mali against France for months;
. Russia has prepared the ground with military and political engagement in the county (and neighbours);
. Russia has formed the coup leader, Ismael Wagué.
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@geosteinsoc
None of those countries had more than a few hundred or a few thousand settlers. It's a commonplace in the historiography of decolonization that settler colonialism faced far more violent resistance than non-settler colonialism (eg South Africa, Algeria, Kenya, Rhodesia).
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I don't know how often this needs to be repeated, but there are no Russian-controlled governments in Africa, nor will there be.
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I fully subscribe to this. This intervention could have absolutely catastrophic consequences, even if it "succeeds" with ease. You always know how these things start, but never how they end...
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Looks like my book has just come out in paperback! It's somewhat more affordable now. If you're interested in an earlier iteration of failed French military interventions in Africa with more generalizable insights, you (probably) won't be disappointed.
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Highly recommended, and out just in time for Christmas.
France’s Wars in Chad. Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa
de Nathaniel K. Powell
@natkpowell
aux Cambridge University Press
@CambridgeUP
@cambUP_History
@cambUP_Africa
coll. "African studies"
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@joseph_rohrbach
@BeijingPalmer
@BretDevereaux
Yeah, none of the Roman sites I've visited here push anything other than Britain-as-the-periphery of empire. That's also a big part of the narrative at Hadrian's Wall and related sites.
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Yes yes, coups are bad and this junta will probably suck as much as the others but....you really can't feel sorry for this guy.
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If you want to read something unrelated to COVID, here's an article I've just written for
@ConversationUK
about the logic and impact of French military interventionism in Africa.
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This is a really tough read. It's clear the Congolese gov't has deliberately obstructed the UN investigation into Michael and Zaida's murders, and that the UN is complicit in the obstruction. Kudos to all the journalists working on this, esp.
@soniarolley
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If this were the 1960s, French troops would be all over Niamey after overpowering the presidential guard and reversing the coup.
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Macron: We need to counter Russian fake news sullying our good name in Africa.
Advisor: Sir, I recommend another dictator tour.
Macron: Excellent idea!
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Le Monde's editorial board, somewhat surprisingly, has published a good introspective piece on the need for France to pull back from its African commitments. Let's hope this reflects a broader sea-change in the thinking of French policy elites.
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If you want one illustration of the weirdness of Françafrique, the current French ambassador to Uganda used to be the Ambassador of Benin to France. It's like they negotiate with themselves.
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An ECOWAS intervention may, at best, restore Niger's international legitimacy. But that is in flagrant contradiction with the real sources of legitimacy which depend on the relation between the government and the governed. The junta will deliver nothing, but neither will ECOWAS.
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Excited to get this in the mail-- a new history of French intelligence activities in Chad based on some really fantastic sources by Damien Mireval. 2021 is already a good year for books about French military involvement in the Sahel amd beyond.
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I just found out that my 2016 Journal of Cold War Studies article on French efforts to save Mobutu --and related French intelligence failures-- is available in open access. If you're interested in the Cold War, neocolonialism, or Congo, check it out.
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Here's an example of how the UN narrative that Madagascar's famine is the "first" caused by climate change lets a government off the hook. No, it's caused by colossal government corruption, incompetence and targeted marginalisation of a peripheral region.
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.
@kurteichenwald
Abolition didn't happen through dialogue, and civil rights movement didn't achieve goals through "respectful questions."
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If anyone is in Paris later this week, please come to this amazing conference on France's interventions in the Sahel, featuring
@VincentFoucher
@charbonneau_b
@RemiCarayol
@jhjezequel
@ISaibou
@YGuichaoua
and others, including, for some reason, myself.
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French envoy expresses "admiration" for Déby just a week after the assassination of the most prominent opposition leader and promises to keep French forces in Chad. And they wonder why no one takes their anti-junta grandstanding seriously.
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That seems like an insanely high number for it to be accidental.
BREAKING:
Journalists Sari Mansour & Hassouneh Salim killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Bureij refugee camp in
#Gaza
,
Bringing the total number of journalists killed since October 7th up to 51.
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I'm surprised it has taken this long for a major French media outlet to highlight the weird irony that is French support for Haftar contributing, albeit indirectly, to the death of Idriss Déby, the main pillar of their entire African security policy.
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Has Macron just given a military dictatorship an explicit and public security guarantee?
French President Emmanuel Macron has said that his country will not "allow anyone to threaten Chad's stability and integrity", at
#Deby
's funeral. His remarks most likely directed to the opposition and rebel groups.
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A great soccer player, not a great president, but it's telling how happily surprised everyone is that he is standing out in the region for his quick willingness to accept electoral defeat. It's a great speech too, and shows how much the US can learn from Liberian democracy.
Excerpts of Liberia's 🇱🇷 President George Weah's Concession Speech.
#LiberiaDecides
I stand before you tonight with a heavy heart, but with the utmost respect for the democratic process that has defined our nation.
The results announced tonight, though not final, indicate that
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In French this is known as "Françafrique."
So, what's the ancient Greek or contemporary German compound term for a hegemon trying to solve a problem which itself has helped shape, and in so doing, it falls short or invariably worsens the problem?
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@DanteAtkins
Hi, there are problems with that piece, but it's absolutely true that the armies we train, including specific units, are the among the worst purveyors of violence in the Sahel and are themselves partly responsible for the region's security crises. Eg
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The US will set up a new base in north-western Côte d'Ivoire. De Gaulle, Foccart, and Houphouët are convulsing in their graves.
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Apropos of nothing, here's an order from Paris to the commander of French forces in Chad not to intervene to stop a coup d'état against François/N'Garta Tombalbaye in April 1975. There has long been speculation about the French role in the coup.
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For a think tank ostensibly focused on Africa, the only country they seem to care about is Russia.
Let us be clear: Russian disinformation is not determinative. Yet it - and Africa's changing media ecosystems - are variables influencing the rise and entrenchment of unelected military juntas (Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger) and intractable civil wars (Libya, Sudan).
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Congrats to my awesome wife, we're moving to Wales!
My turn for a “thrilled to announce” tweet! I am very happy to announce that I will be joining Aberystwyth
@InterpolAber
as Lecturer in Strategy and Intelligence!
It was not easy on precarious jobs but I got to do what I love: research & teaching, and now I can do this forever!
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What's crazy about Macron's public commitment to protect the military regime in Chad is that his predecessors have never been so forthrightly blatant about doing this. These guarantees have always been informal, subtle, and only spoken of in private.
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This is the kind of policy quackery I'm talking about. Which African coups, pray tell, were orchestrated from Moscow?
Your argument below is textbook ‘whataboutism’. Through Wagner, Moscow is orchestrating coup after coup in Africa to generate cash, distract allies & shore up strongmen. If you don’t see these aggressive Kremlin-backed operations for what they are, you’re missing the plot.
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@MichieldeHaas
I thought Reid's argument (if I remember correctly) mostly rejects the "frozen" framing? In any case, I see two problems with it. First, empirically it doesn't seem to play out--which major postcolonial conflicts are essentially continuations of pre-colonial ones?
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If confirmed, this guy is Bongo's cousin and apparently just as corrupt as the rest of his crew.
Gabon : le général Oligui Nguema, chef de la Garde Républicaine, cousin du President Bongo et nouvel homme fort du pays.
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Fascinating, and deeply troubling data from Burkina Faso on school closures, which probably fairly accurately maps onto the scope and strength of jihadist activity.
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I should add that while the "transition" may reassure Chad's international partners, continuity is a terrible outcome for the people of Chad.
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I just finished this exceptional biography of Thomas Sankara by
@BrianJAPeterson
. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the possibilities and limits for countries on the periphery of global capitalism to escape their material constraints.
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Just as France suspends Chad's (a junta that France likes) debt service, Mali (a junta that France doesn't like) is defaulting on its loan repayments.
France suspends Chad's debt service payments under G20 Common Framework to give space for urgent expenditure. Terms of official payment suspension will set template for private restructuring (negotiations ongoing). Progress in restructuring essential for further IMF disbursements
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.
@kurteichenwald
reasonableness has only ever brought about social change when its backed up by organized political force
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Western policymakers vastly underestimate the extent to which the growth of Russian "influence" in the Sahel is both African driven and partly a product of Western blunders.
The irony in this whole saga, especially from the poorly conceived US diplomatic visit, is that the Russians are just as wary of the junta as the US… (1/n)
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This is a must-read article from
@MichaelShurkin
for anyone interested in the evolution of French thinking regarding counterinsurgency and military interventions.
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A great FT profile of two important new books on the British colonization of Nigeria and its pre-colonial politics by
@maxsiollun
@DoubleEph
and
@FolaFagbule
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My take isn't that France is following a failed American counterterrorism model--it's that France has been fighting a "forever war" in the Sahel since 1960 with the primary aim of sustaining regional political orders against all manner of threats.
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This 1985 CIA assessment of Libyan subversion in Africa also, and inadvertently, provides a succinct summary of the CIA's theory of African politics:
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If you want my take on the negative consequences of France's role in Chad over the past 60 years, here I am on France 24 English's "The Debate."
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This is absolutely true and completely misunderstood in Western capitals (though I'd hesitate to say this had anything to do with the coup in Niger).
In Africa, "anti-French" sentiment does not equate a pro-Russian stance. A trust deficit with the West does not translate into a trust surplus for Russia.
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