The headlines this morning are brutal and direct: Niger’s airport is under fire, British citizens are told to flee, and the jihadist threat has escalated into something more than a distant drone of anxiety. It is now a roar. This is not merely a travel advisory. This is a testament to the catastrophic failures of Western intervention, the steady erosion of order in the Sahel, and the return of a historical pattern we should all recognise by now. The Roman Empire did not fall in a single battle. It crumbled at the edges, province by province, as the barbarians learned to use the empire’s own roads and weapons against it. We are watching that same process unfold in Africa.
Consider the geography. Niger, a vast and landlocked pivot of the Sahel, has been a linchpin of Western counterterrorism strategy for years. Thousands of French and American troops have been stationed there. Billions of pounds have been poured into training, drones, and ‘capacity building’. And what do we have to show for it? An airport under fire. A jihadist crescent that now stretches from Mali through Burkina Faso and into Niger, unimpeded by our vaunted military superiority. The insurgents are not stronger, but they are more patient. They understand that empires grow weary; ideologies of national security do not. And when the West inevitably loses interest, as it always does, the local forces left behind will be hollow, corrupt, and utterly incapable of holding the line.
This is not a moment for platitudes about standing with our allies. It is a moment for cold, hard realism. The British citizens being urged to leave are not just travellers; they are the thin edge of our presence there. We should be asking why they were there in the first place. What strategic interest does Niger serve that justifies the risk? The answer, I suspect, is the same one that has driven every failed intervention since the end of empire: a vague, unthinking commitment to ‘order’ without any real understanding of the societies we are trying to reform. We are propping up regimes that are themselves the cause of instability. The Nigerien government, like its neighbours, is a patchwork of ethnic tensions, corruption, and heavy-handed repression. It is precisely the kind of brittle state that breeds insurgency. And we keep feeding it money and arms.
The current crisis is a natural result of this folly. The airport attack is a symbolic strike, a message that no place is safe, not even the zone of supposed Western control. It is also a practical military move: isolating the capital, cutting off lifelines, and forcing a choice between surrender or a hopeless, bloody fight. The jihadists have learned from our own playbook. They strike at infrastructure, they use propaganda, they exploit local grievances. They are patient, while we are not. The West, especially Britain, has a habit of seeing these conflicts as temporary aberrations, as problems to be solved with a surge of troops or a new diplomatic initiative. We do not have the stomach for the long, grinding work of actual stabilisation, which would require decades of genuine development, not just security assistance.
So, what will happen next? The trajectory is predictable. The advisories will become evacuations. The embassy will close. The drone bases will be relocated or abandoned. And the jihadist crescent will continue to expand, linking up with other insurgencies from Lake Chad to the Red Sea. The collapse of the Sahel will be written off as an African tragedy, something that happens in distant lands. But it is not distant. It is the direct consequence of our choices, our arrogance, and our short-sightedness. We have built a house of cards in the desert, and now the wind is blowing. The question is not whether it will fall, but how many people will be buried underneath it.
There is no easy way to stop this decline. We can either commit seriously to a massive, decades-long effort that addresses the root causes of jihadism: poverty, corruption, climate change, and colonial legacies. Or we can withdraw altogether, admitting that we have no business trying to reshape the Sahel. The worst option, and the one we will likely choose, is to stay just enough to be a target, but not enough to make a difference. That is the pattern of the late empire, half in, half out, bleeding treasure and lives for no gain. The airport under fire is a warning light. Heed it, or prepare for the crash.
