WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. will remove all its forces and equipment from a small base in Niger this weekend and fewer than 500 remaining troops will leave a critical drone base in the West African country in August, ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline set in an agreement with the new ruling junta, the American commander there said Friday.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Kenneth Ekman said in an interview that a number of small teams of 10-20 U.S. troops, including special operations forces, have moved to other countries in West Africa. But the bulk of the forces will go to Europe, at least initially.
Ekman and other U.S. military leaders have said other West African nations want to work with the U.S. and may be open to an expanded American presence. He did not detail the locations, but other U.S. officials have pointed to the Ivory Coast and Ghana as examples.
This could just be a retreat from the periphery to shore up the more important holdings in Ukraine and Israel, while also focusing on combating Russia and preparing to shift to China. Splitting attention into West Africa might be overextending the empire and they know they can’t open up yet another front. Same reason the coup in Bolivia failed.
I agree with the overextension argument. The US did try to negotiate keeping the base, or even relocating it. It seems that soft power failed and they were forced to withdraw or use military intervention. If they did invade/coup Niger, it would require arms transfers they already cannot meet in the other two fronts, and, probably worse, would unravel the US imperialist narratives even faster and weaken their strategic relationships which are already starting to crumble.
I’m 100% certain the US plans on coming back, but I don’t think the US will ever recover in a way that it would be possible if it stays on the current track.
I agree that it’s actually a strategic retreat so we can take that as a good sign of limits of the empire, but it also means that Niger is at risk of drawing fire because they are having larger PR wins than they can back up with force, making them a prime target for punitive measures.