This text belongs to 'Peninsulas', the newsletter that Enric Juliana sends out every Tuesday. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
Spain has become very interesting. Spanish society, buffeted by the winds of the times, by the fears of a Europe that feels insecure, has placed politics before a hieroglyph. It will be exciting to try to decipher it in the coming months and for this we will have to resort on more than one occasion to the international situation. The link between domestic policy and foreign policy. This is the motto of the Peninsulas newsletter.
I propose that you pay attention to the map that heads these lines. The darkened area corresponds to the extensive geographical area of the African continent that could be under Russian influence depending on how the coup d'état that has just taken place in Niger evolves, of whose significance the journalist Xavier Aldekoa, a great specialist in Africa, has warned in La Vanguardia .
A great Russian protectorate across the length and breadth of the Sahel, from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. This is a feared hypothesis in Washington and in the European chancelleries, which was highlighted this week, almost bordering on a panic attack, by Nicolas Foubert, a young international policy consultant who shares Polish and French nationality, and whom I am following in social networks. With one passport he knows what is happening in the former French colonies in Africa and with the other he shares the ancient Polish fear of Russian expansionism.
Foubert argues that the growing weakness of France in Africa, as a consequence of a decadent and stagnant post-colonial policy, is opening the door to the creation of a vast Russian and Chinese protectorate in the Sahel, through which both countries can ensure control of important mineral deposits, obtaining a fearsome lever of pressure on Europe in the middle of the Ukrainian war, and projecting force throughout the African continent. Russia operates in an explicit way. China, without making so much noise.
Take a good look at the map. In the last ten years, France has seen itself expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic, countries that, to a greater or lesser extent, are today in the Russian orbit, with troops from the Wagner group on their territory.
This past weekend, as angry protesters tore down the signs from the French embassy in Niamey, the capital of Niger, a referendum was held in the neighboring Central African Republic to remove the presidential term limit in favor of the country's current strongman, Faustin-Archange Touadera, protected by Russia.
Sudan has been in the midst of a civil war for a few months and in Chad the inclination towards Russia is growing. The siege is tightening and a crucial game is going to be played in Niger. France is not going to stand still. They are trying to mobilize forces to defeat the coup plotters. The attitude that Nigeria takes will be very important.
Uranium from Niger and cobalt from the Congo. Uranium is necessary for the operation of nuclear power plants. Cobalt, described as the gold of the 21st century, enhances the efficiency of lithium in the new electric batteries, expanding its storage capacity. Niger is the world's fourth largest producer of uranium behind Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia. 70% of the world's cobalt reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are many more strategic minerals in that vast region. Stones and men. High-value minerals and thousands of desperate people, willing to get to Europe no matter what. To reach their goal, most of them must first cross the desert barrier of the Sahel and then the Mediterranean Sea.
From that Russian protectorate decisive control would be exercised over the dramatic routes of immigration. From that protectorate, all of North Africa could be destabilized, increasing the price that countries like Spain and Italy pay to avoid a massive and constant arrival of immigrants to their shores. The Sahel has worried the Spanish government for a long time. There are Spanish police officers stationed in Niger.
We are talking about very poor countries, seriously affected by droughts. In the last year, cultivable areas have been reduced in Niger by an amount equivalent to five hundred soccer fields. With 25 million inhabitants, the country has an area of 1.2 million km², more than twice the size of Spain.
What does Russia offer them? A flag, a language, a ruthless military force and cereals. A (Russian) flag to express resentment towards France, the former colonial power. An egalitarian language: "Russia treats African countries as equals", declared the son of Patrice Lumumba, a Congolese socialist leader brutally assassinated in 1961 by the CIA, with the collaboration of Belgian espionage. He offers the leading groups of those countries the protection of a military force made up of mercenaries, now under the control of the Ministry of Defense, willing to do whatever it takes. And he promises to give them free cereal for a year. This is the promise made by Vladimir Putin after having blocked the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Russia has good grain reserves because this year the cereal harvest has been very good worldwide, almost a record, thanks to the weather. 2,292 million tons of cereal have been harvested worldwide.
Russia knows Africa. The Putin regime has inherited the wealth of information and the channels of influence that the Soviet Union worked for decades. The problem has become too big for France and the European Union cannot cope. Cut off from nuclear power, Germany cares relatively little about Niger's uranium. The 56 French nuclear reactors do not depend exclusively on Nigerien uranium - yesterday the military junta that has taken power prohibited the export of this mineral to France - but Paris is facing a very serious problem. Let's not forget that uranium must be enriched to be used as nuclear fuel and that the main operator of this industrial process is in Russia and is called Rosatom.
A little over a month ago, the Western press was speculating about the possibility of a civil war in Russia as a result of the failed rebellion of the Wagner group. Then there was talk of a potential risk of civil war in France, after the serious disturbances in the banlieu. Now, overturn in the Sahel.
We live in truly strange times.
