West Africa is witnessing one of the most significant phases of strategic reshaping in decades, in the wake of the notable decline of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in managing regional security and political crises. After years of the organisation being considered the principal framework for addressing conflicts, military coups, and counterterrorism, the region today faces a new reality characterised by multiple centres of security power and the emergence of alternative regional arrangements that may redraw the security landscape in West Africa in the coming years.
The fundamental turning point came with the series of military coups witnessed in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger since 2020, and the escalating disputes that followed between the new military governments and ECOWAS leadership. The organisation adopted a policy based on imposing sanctions and political pressure to restore civilian rule, while the new authorities in the Sahel states viewed these policies as interference in their internal affairs and as failing to reflect their security priorities related to combating armed groups.
This divergence led to the withdrawal of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso from ECOWAS and the establishment of the Alliance of Sahel States, which gradually evolved from a political framework into a fully integrated security and military cooperation project. The region thus shifted from a relatively unified regional security model to a more fragmented one, based on the existence of parallel and at times competing security arrangements.
One of the most prominent consequences of this transformation is the decline of ECOWAS's capacity to coordinate a collective response to cross-border security threats. Jihadist groups, organised crime networks, arms trafficking, and irregular migration do not recognise political borders, which makes regional coordination a decisive factor in confronting them. With the decline in cooperation levels between some Sahel states and the remaining ECOWAS members, mechanisms for intelligence sharing and operational coordination have become significantly more complex than they were previously.
In response, the Alliance of Sahel States is seeking to build a new security architecture grounded in direct cooperation between their armies and the development of joint forces capable of carrying out cross-border operations. These states believe that the new model affords them a greater margin of autonomy in security decision-making, away from the political and regional pressures they previously faced within the traditional ECOWAS frameworks.
However, the success of this model remains a matter of debate among experts. On one hand, the Alliance states possess strong incentives to strengthen military cooperation in confronting armed groups. On the other hand, they face significant challenges relating to financing, logistical and intelligence capabilities, weak economic resources, and the need to build permanent institutions capable of managing long-term joint security operations.
Concerns are also emerging that the current divisions may lead to the creation of security vacuums from which extremist groups stand to benefit. The more regional coordination effectiveness declines, the greater the capacity of these groups to exploit border areas and move between different states. Furthermore, the multiplicity of security frameworks may lead to duplication of efforts and the dispersal of resources at a time when the region is in need of a unified response to the escalating threats.
At the same time, it does not appear that ECOWAS will lose its role entirely in the near term. The organisation still includes West Africa's largest economies, foremost among them Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Senegal, and it retains extensive networks of security and political cooperation. Nevertheless, its future role may become markedly different from what it was during the past decades, as it transitions from the position of dominant security actor to one party within a more pluralistic regional system.
Accordingly, the essence of the transformation underway lies not only in the decline of ECOWAS's influence, but in the re-engineering of the entire security system of West Africa. The regional landscape is moving towards a new phase in which multiple security institutions and alliances coexist, at times competing and at times cooperating. The success of these new arrangements will determine the extent to which the region is capable of containing terrorist threats and preventing the expansion of instability in the years ahead.
