The regionalisation of counter-terrorism strategies in the Sahel: the G5 as a challenge for transatlantic relations. College of Europe Policy Brief #10.18, June 2018

Didier, Brice (2018) The regionalisation of counter-terrorism strategies in the Sahel: the G5 as a challenge for transatlantic relations. College of Europe Policy Brief #10.18, June 2018. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

> Established in 2014 to foster concrete responses to transnational security challenges in the Sahel-Saharan strip, the G5 Sahel – composed of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – has progressively asserted itself as both a regional forum and interlocutor on development and security cooperation in the region. > While only a second-rate concern for the United States, security in the Sahel has become a priority of the European Union’s global security agenda, and allowed the EU to assume a leadership role, with France playing a crucial part. > Even though the French and EU-sponsored project of a G5 Sahel Joint Force has been endorsed by the international community in 2017, difficulties to reach an agreement on its mandate and operationalisation have caused a transatlantic rift. > Despite the gradual implementation of a comprehensive response to terrorism through the G5, the persistence of the security crisis should incite further empowerment of national and local authorities while increasingly integrating the Joint Force with two other missions, Barkhane and the MINUSMA. > Witnessing a North-South instability continuum, Europeans and Americans should change their strategic approach and envision North Africa and the Sahel-Saharan strip as one dynamic area, enlarging the geographical scope of their anti-terror activities to a ‘G5+’ including Libya and Algeria.

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