New Books Network Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Nov 25, 2025
Nina Wilen, Africa director at the Egmont Royal Institute and expert in security dynamics, discusses her book on external interventions in the Sahel. She reveals how international security efforts are shaped by both regional instability and external strategic interests. Wilen highlights the coexistence of various military missions and the resulting tensions, particularly around intelligence sharing. Additionally, she examines the rise of military influence in civil-military relations and the alarming shift toward Russian engagement amid declining Western presence.
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Macro And Micro Views Reshape Policy
- External security interventions in the Sahel combined macro-level strategy with micro-level field practices to reshape the region's politics.
- Nina Wilen argues that overlapping missions produced structural effects beyond immediate security objectives.
Embedded Fieldwork With Special Forces
- Nina Wilen embedded with Belgian special forces in Niger and lived with them for weeks to observe daily training and operations.
- She also visited French bases and Task Force Takuba sites to capture both bottom-up and top-down perspectives.
Shift In Western Security Framing
- The Sahel's securitization began in the 2000s when Western policy shifted to view weak states and terrorism as core threats.
- Events like Libya's collapse and attacks on Europeans then pushed the Sahel onto global security agendas.
