Mali: private-military dependence deepens as the security economy inverts

The Sahel story is usually told through coups. The more durable variable is who pays whom for security. As the junta leans on foreign contractors, the fiscal and legitimacy costs shift onto rural communities, which is precisely the recruitment pool insurgent groups draw from.

The measurable proxy is the geographic spread of incidents relative to contractor deployment: if incidents diffuse outward as contractors concentrate, the counter-insurgency is losing ground it cannot see.

We hold confidence low. The mechanism is well-attested historically, but the data out of the region is thin and the causal read is contested even among people we trust.