This is John Batcher, conversation with Caleb Weiss of the Bridgeway Foundation and the Foundation for the Defense of democracies, about the complex collapse of governance in Mali. This is Central Africa, Francophone Africa.

Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have all dropped out of eco-was and what Kalim

describes here is the acronyms of civilization gone missing.

And the people who live there persecuted by a variety of gangs and warlords and ambitions of Al Qaeda, ISIS, Daesh.

But the locals as well, Jay andI am is Al Qaeda in Mali.

This is to make a Hollywood version of this.

This is Mad Max right now.

There is no peace.

There is no serenity. There is no peace, there is no serenity, there is no security in Mali.

It's a big piece of the Sahel, but it suggests what's going on and all around it in Western and Central Africa right now.

And mix in this, of course, are the Russians, the Africa Corps.

There's also the suggestion other bad actors from outside are taking advantage.

Caleb Weiss, Bridgeway Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, you can find his reporting at the Long War Journal.

More of this tonight.

Yeah, I've made this argument before.

I mean, I know you like to say Somalia that we've talked about this before on the show but honestly

I we in Mali it's just the way the trajectory is going you know Molly is facing

not just J&I am they also have a myriad of separatist groups in the north that are kind of eroding at the state's monopoly of power if they even had that.

The north has always been kind of outside of Bamako's control and it's even more so now.

Bamako and the Russians are trying to claw back some control.

They've managed to retake Kidal in the north,

but other than that, it's sort of lawlessness

...