This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batchu with my friend and colleague Gregory Kaplier,

Editor-in-Publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

Najera is in the news because of a coup in which the military leader asserted his control

despite the fact of other capitals calling for the return of the civilian leaders.

However, this is not an isolated coup. If you look at the map of Africa from right to

left, from east to west, a series of events since 2020 have replaced the elected leaders

or the caretaker governments with military leaders who are at this point mysterious about

their intentionality. Gregory, it is striking to see the map across from the Atlantic to

the Indian Ocean. Is this something that is unique to this part of the world because of

climate, because of location, or is this a story throughout the global south?

Well, I think it's a story through all of Africa, but in different formats, because apart

from just the Sahelian countries, you've had the problem in Sudan, of course. You've

got a hardening of autocratic controls in Ethiopia. You've got de facto coups taking place

in Sierra Leone very recently, and then February, the elections in Nigeria, where the whole

election process has been basically forcibly mismanaged. So we are getting coups by any

other name sort of thing. We have to bear in mind that as we've been discussing over the

years, we've got this new form of total war, which is the doctrine of the power seekers

and the PRC that Chinese are actively in that realm, where everything is an instrument

or a weapon that you can use to seize or gain or consolidate power. And it's the same in these

African situations. If you don't need to use the military to seize power, then don't just use

them to keep peace on the streets and the like. So the recent election in Sierra Leone, which

has been disastrous, and because of our coverage on the John Bachelor show in recent weeks of that,

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