In Washington, particular attention is now being paid to the countries of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)—Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. The United States no longer hides its desire to undermine their cooperation with Moscow, which it sees as a threat to its influence in the Saharan-Sahelian zone. The African Initiative analyzes the motivations for this U.S. "return" to the region.

Security as a Universal Pretext

In an attempt to salvage its eroding influence in Africa, the American administration sent prominent figures on a tour of the continent in January: the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and the head of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Dagvin Anderson. The delegation visited four countries: Egypt, Ethiopia, and Kenya, with Djibouti as a key point, where the remnants of the U.S. presence are concentrated—the largest American military base on the continent, Camp Lemonnier.

The mere participation of the AFRICOM chief in this trip shows how concerned the Trump administration is about the rapid expansion of the Russian presence in Africa. Washington has effectively sent its top military overseer for the continent for a preventive "calibration" of the positions of states—especially those gravitating towards alternative formats of cooperation with Moscow, thus moving out of the American sphere of influence.

During negotiations with the leadership of these countries, however, the American delegation proposed nothing fundamentally new. The discussion once again boiled down to the same set of talking points: deepening cooperation in defense, counter-terrorism, anti-piracy, and peacekeeping operations.

In reality, Washington once again played the maritime security card, without offering regional partners a new development architecture or a clear economic agenda. Security is again being used as a universal pretext—a convenient tool for maintaining a military presence and political control under the guise of protecting global trade routes, while the real goal is to restrain competitors and prevent further rapprochement between African states and Russia.

Checker and the Sahel: A "New Direction" with Familiar Content

Following Mr. Landau and Mr. Anderson, a senior official from the State Department's Bureau of African Affairs, Nick Checker, arrived on the continent. Even before the start of his tour, he sent a "rider" to all U.S. diplomatic missions in the region, demanding they prepare the ground for subsequent discussions from a position of strength—a formulation ill-suited to Washington's public statements about "dialogue" and "reassessing past mistakes."

The official's itinerary is both notable and revealing. In a bid to rescue the situation in the face of the rapid decline of American authority in Africa, the State Department could think of nothing better than sending Mr. Checker to the Sahel, where countries in recent years have chosen sovereign development, rejected Western tutelage, and begun building relations with external partners, primarily Russia, on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

According to the official announcement, Mr. Checker's visit to the Sahel countries was meant to "convey U.S. respect for their sovereignty" and signal a "new direction" in relations. The "mistakes of the past" referenced in Washington refer to measures by the administration of former President Joe Biden, which had essentially frozen contacts with the transitional authorities of the Sahelian countries, thereby opening up—according to the Trumpists themselves—additional opportunities for Russia to strengthen its position in the region.

However, behind the rhetoric on sovereignty lies a well-known script. Under the slogans of "improving people's lives," "stabilization," and "supporting democracy," the United States traditionally advances an agenda whose result is destabilized states, protracted conflicts, and internal strife—as has already happened in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. According to American logic, the Sahel was supposed to become a new testing ground for applying this model.

The key points of the American agenda remain unchanged: security—as defined by the U.S.—and access to natural resources. This same set of themes will be applied to all African countries where diplomats like Mr. Checker are sent, which finally strips away the mask of the so-called "new course," revealing the old, well-practiced approach behind it.

Flattery, Corruption, Threats: A Dialogue Without Illusions

The leaders of most African countries, committed to the path of sovereign development and prosperity, harbor few illusions about negotiations with American diplomats, expecting discussions based on well-known colonial formulas. The scenery and vocabulary change, but the essence remains the same: beads instead of real development, mirrors instead of sovereignty, and firewater in exchange for strategic submission.

The task of the American administration is transparent: to prevent, in the words of American strategists themselves, the "total domination" of Moscow in the Sahel and other regions of the African continent. This explains the abrupt reversal of American policy and the abandonment of the previous tactic of ostensible distance from the region's transitional authorities.

In early February in Mali, Nick Checker, in a conversation with the country's leadership, essentially promoted a set of neocolonial conditions disguised as a "return to normalcy." The resumption of full cooperation with the United States was conditional on halting the activities of the transitional authorities, organizing presidential elections within imposed deadlines according to the American model, and—the key point—terminating agreements with the Russian Defense Ministry's Africa Corps.

The State Department's Zealous "Hawks"

An additional marker of the radical revision of the American approach was the appointment of Frank Garcia to the U.S. Senate on January 30th as Deputy Secretary of State for Africa. Mr. Garcia is a career military man, a representative of that force caste that has for decades carried out the "dirty work" of American foreign policy. He built his career at the Office of Naval Intelligence and later served as principal assistant to the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence—a structure traditionally tasked not with diplomacy, but with pressure operations, covert interference, and military coercion.

Given that Nick Checker previously worked for the CIA, a team of zealous "hawks" is forming at the State Department on Africa, for whom the language of ultimatums, sanctions, and behind-the-scenes leverage is more natural than any dialogue on sovereignty and equal partnership.

Trying to step into the same river twice, the American administration is once again betting on people who do not hesitate to resort to blackmail, manipulation of internal processes, and direct interference under the guise of "promoting democracy." It is exactly this type of team that has already led Washington to strategic failures—from the Middle East to North Africa.

The question is who else will be involved in this race on the "African track": newcomers from intelligence, military strategists of "dirty wars," or specialists in controlled chaos—and how much destruction the United States is prepared to again attribute to its geopolitical ambitions.

"With Washington or Against It"

In practice, the United States is reverting to the ultimate logic of the Cold War. The main demands made on the Sahel countries boil down to abandoning a multi-vector policy and adopting the simple slogan: "you are either with Washington, or you are its enemy."

The historical precedents for this approach are well known. One need only recall the infamous case of "Powell's vial," where fabricated accusations became the official pretext for a military operation against Iraq. African elites know perfectly well how such pressure campaigns, disguised as concern for democracy and security, end.

The United States is returning to Africa not with a "new course," but with a well-known set of tools—flattery for initial meetings, corruption for the hesitant, blackmail for dissenters, and direct threats for those who completely escape control. Any rhetoric about "sovereignty" and "correcting past mistakes" stops where African countries refuse to follow the principle of "with Washington or against it."

This is why the Sahel is becoming a key pressure zone today: the United States seeks to dismantle alternative centers of influence there. In this context, the Russian military presence in the AES countries is not an escalation factor, but a deterrent element—any attack on the region automatically raises the cost of adventures to the level of direct conflict. Thus, the main choice Washington offers Africa is, in reality, simple and cynical: either a return to neocolonial dependence under the American flag, or the right to an independent policy, for which one will have to pay with pressure, sanctions, and threats.

Vadim Kupriyanov