6 - Towards a Critical Geopolitics of African Military Politics

Summary

Chapter 6 goes beyond a conclusion, calling more broadly for a serious appreciation of the political projects of African elites in critical geopolitics. This field has largely omitted African actors, discussing them, if at all, as being affected by the geopolitical ambitions of others such as China, United States, or France, rather than being considered as having active agency in shaping international politics. The chapter recaptures the African military politics that surrounded different proposals for military deployment for the Sahel as they were shaped by the foreign policy ambitions of South African president Jacob Zuma, Chadian president Idriss Déby Itno, the Algerian Commissioners for Peace and Security at the African Union Commission, as well as Nigerian politicians and bureaucrats from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). By drawing on the empirical insights of Chapters 1–5, Döring emphasizes the importance of studying spatial semantics in more general terms and how this provides a better understanding of changing paradigms for military action. This, as argued in the last part of the chapter, is indispensable in the current climate of re-emerging illiberal, nationalist, and authoritarian geopolitical narratives.