America could soon lose Niger, which is central to our anti-terrorism efforts in the Sahel, and as elected African leaders are being toppled Russia, through its Wagner mercenaries, is increasing its influence there, joining Communist China as the continent’s new colonial power. 

Over the weekend a deadline posed by a Western-backed regional group, the Economic Community of West African States, came and went with little consequence, as leaders of the military coup declined to reinstate Niger’s elected president. The current Ecowas chairman, President Tinubu of Nigeria, is emerging as the group’s most hawkish leader, threatening a military intervention to restore President Bazoum to power. 

Yet, once the Sunday deadline to reverse the Niger coup expired, and as the 15-member group — and Nigeria itself — is divided over the use of military force, Mr. Tinubu declined to immediately act, and called instead for a Thursday emergency Ecowas summit.  

Ecowas was created in 1975 to promote cooperation and maintain good governance in its member countries. One protocol calls for “zero tolerance to power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means.” On paper, when a group of generals arrests an elected president, as they did in Niger last month, Ecowas can — or is even obligated to — use its power to aid the deposed leader. 

Yet, more than a quarter of Ecowas members are currently ruled by juntas that have seized power via coups: Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Sudan. Beyond Western Africa, the continent is increasingly more averse to Western powers than to power grabs by despots. Beijing has long used that sentiment to gain African allies, as has Moscow through its Wagner mercenaries.  

“Democracy is not taking root in Africa,” the founder of the think tank International Center for Dialogue Initiatives, Jamal Benomar, tells the Sun. “Democracy is in retreat, in a free fall. Coups are back like in the 1960s and the ’70s.” Much of it, he adds, is the result of a new pushback in francophone countries against the colonial power, France. 

“A growing young population is very allergic to paternalistic French discourse,” Mr. Benomar, a former United Nations envoy in Yemen and Burundi, says. “They have access to the internet and unlike their parents are not willing to submit to the colonial powers.”

France, he adds, has been less attuned than in the past to these voices, and its last three presidents — Francois Hollande, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Emmanuel Macron — have neglected Africa and acted arrogantly toward the continent. Events in Niger, like elsewhere, are mostly a “reaction against France,” he says. “No one is burning American flags.”

Large demonstrations were conducted at Niger’s capital, Niamey, in support of the junta led by a former presidential guard commander, General Omar Tchiani. French flags were stepped on and burned and Russian flags were waved. With Ecowas threatening the use of force, the generals announced the closure of the country’s airspace.  

Over the weekend, two former French colonies, Mali and Burkina Faso, said they would use force against any outsiders attempting to intervene on behalf of Mr. Bazoum. Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic are now controlled by generals that receive significant support from the Wagner mercenaries. 

As the Sun reported Friday, a member of the Niger junta, General Salifou Mody, traveled to Mali last week to contact Wagner representatives there. The French journalist who first reported the trip, Wassim Nasr of the Soufan group, told the Associated Press that Niger’s coup leaders need Wagner’s help, “because they will become their guarantee to hold onto power.”

As yet, the coup leaders have been careful not to confront Americans in Niger. The impoverished country receives $2 billion in aid from America and other foreign groups. The Pentagon keeps two drone bases in the country, which until now has served as America’s ears and eyes on a growing jihadist movement in the Sahel. 

“Our economic and security partnership with Niger — which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars — depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted,” Secretary Blinken said last week. “That support is in clear jeopardy.”

Niger supplies a quarter of France’s uranium, which is the country’s most lucrative commodity. Washington’s only hard interest there, in contrast, is prevention of the spread of jihadist terrorism to America. While the coup leaders may rely on the population’s aversion to French colonialism, Wagner’s interests may include ending America’s presence in the country. 

For now Niger, and the rest of the African continent, seem to reside on the far edges of the global competition between an American-led bloc of democracies and the alliance of Communist China, Russia, Iran, and the world jihadists. Yet, history teaches that forgotten, far away spots — from Vietnam to Afghanistan — have a habit of pushing to the center.