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This episode explores the French experience with irregular warfare in the Sahel region of Africa since 2013 and features two guests. Brigadier General François-Marie Gougeon is a career officer in the French army who served as chief of staff for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali from 2019 to 2020. Professor Will Reno is the chair of the Political Science Department at Northwestern University, the author of three books on African politics and warfare, and currently conducting research on foreign military assistance in weak states. They begin by explaining why the French were involved in combat operations in the Sahel and how their forces were organized against several armed insurgencies. They go on to explore the effectiveness, and shortfalls, of the light-footprint approach utilized by the French in Africa, to include in the area of building partner-force capacity, before emphasizing the essential role that local political dynamics play in irregular warfare success.
Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa
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