tteh !MemesToDNA joined in and replied with this 1 month ago, 31 minutes later, 36 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,430
@previous (A)
ECOWAS are probably feeling the pressure considering they've permanently lost Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali to coups, and both Guinea and now Guinea-Bissau are also suspended because of coups...
It only had like 15 members to begin with, now it basically has 10.
tteh !MemesToDNA double-posted this 1 month ago, 3 minutes later, 40 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,431
Poor Nigeria though, you can see why they'd race to intervene. Nigeria has an Islamist insurgency in its northeast and a Biafran insurgency in its southeast. Its eastern neighbor Cameroon is facing the Anglophone insurgency plus Biafran separatism in the Bakassi peninsula on the border. Its northern neighbour is now an unfriendly junta, and it was about to face the prospect of losing its western neighbour Benin to a coup.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 month ago, 1 minute later, 42 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,434
@1,406,430 (tteh !MemesToDNA)
At least they finally did something to stop another coup. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians were also behind this one. I don’t imagine a future where every country in west Africa is a pro Russian military dictatorship would be particularly nice.
Anonymous C joined in and replied with this 1 month ago, 3 minutes later, 45 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,436
@1,406,431 (tteh !MemesToDNA)
When is Africa going to accept that it's a failed continent with all these insurgencies and warlords. They're 500 years behind the civilized world.
Anonymous A (OP) replied with this 1 month ago, 1 minute later, 47 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,440
@previous (C)
Yeah, right, because 500 years ago Europeans had the capability to stop coup attempts with airstrikes. Go be an ignorant idiot somewhere else.
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 1 month ago, 1 minute later, 49 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,442
These people somehow knew that there was going to be a coup attempt in their neighboring country, knew exactly where the soldiers who were taking part in the coup were, they flew a plane over that exact spot, dropped a bomb on them, killed them, stopped the coup attempt, but you say everybody else was doing that 500 years ago. lol
Anonymous A (OP) triple-posted this 1 month ago, 3 minutes later, 52 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,443
Honestly, the racist attitude of the west towards Africans is a godsend to Russia and China. There’s a reason why Russia finds it so easy to install anti western military dictatorships in African countries, it wouldn’t be that easy if there weren’t people who supported it. I don’t support it, but I’m just saying. ECOWAS has like 400 million people, all those counties have birth rates of like 4 or 5 children per woman, it wouldn’t be surprising if a generation from now, they could have a combined population of a billion people. This attitude of "oh they’re poor right now they don’t matter" is incredibly stupid.
tteh !MemesToDNA replied with this 1 month ago, 30 seconds later, 53 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,406,444
@1,406,436 (C)
I mean the UK (IRA), France (FLNC), Spain (ETA), Greece (17N) and Turkey (PKK) have all had insurgencies that lasted into the 2000s or are to some degree ongoing, lol.
Anonymous A (OP) double-posted this 1 month ago, 12 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,406,446
Now granted, you racists might be correct that Africa will never develop because Africans are all stupid, therefore it doesn’t matter if they all become anti-western pro-Russian pro-Chinese military dictatorships. But given how populous Africa will be 25, 50, 100 years from now, if that’s the strategy you’re taking, you better be right about that.
> At least they finally did something to stop another coup. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russians were also behind this one. I don’t imagine a future where every country in west Africa is a pro Russian military dictatorship would be particularly nice.
It would be useful to Russia. They dump money and bribes all over the South Pacific too. Great for back channels, smuggling, resource extraction, and UN votes.
> Now granted, you racists might be correct that Africa will never develop because Africans are all stupid, therefore it doesn’t matter if they all become anti-western pro-Russian pro-Chinese military dictatorships. But given how populous Africa will be 25, 50, 100 years from now, if that’s the strategy you’re taking, you better be right about that.
I don’t call it stupidity as much as elites continuing export based economies to enrich themselves. It took Europe from the 1600s to the 1800s to get its shit together, then derailed by two world wars and Soviet expansion. Why do we expect sanguine and healthy states 60 years after independence?
Anonymous E joined in and replied with this 1 month ago, 13 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,406,559
@previous (D)
I guess there’s a positive and a negative to it. There’s more African nations could do to control their own resources, but if those resources are fossil fuels then that’s probably bad for the environment.
Anonymous E double-posted this 1 month ago, 10 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,406,560
Nigeria’s economy seems to be pretty heavily based on oil production. I’m not an expert on oil or anything, but just from googling it, they have similarly sized oil reserves to the US (about 40 billion barrels for the Nigeria and 50 billion for the US). Given they have a similar sized population, you’d think they could technically improve their economy, given that. Although, despite this, the US produces about 10x as much oil per day, just due to a lack of infrastructure in Nigeria. But if they increased oil production by 10x to pump out oil at the same rate as developed countries, would that really be a good thing for the planet?
You have petrostates and mineral and food exporters. They sell the coffee beans but don’t produce the packaged coffee. So you’re either doing the Holland folly where you neglect everything that isn’t oil or you don’t have the means to move up the value stream to higher profits. You look at how France treats former colonies and it still makes a fortune without the problems of administration and military forces, except every decade in Mali (at the request of black Africans terrorized by Tuaregs).
> ECOWAS are probably feeling the pressure considering they've permanently lost Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali to coups, and both Guinea and now Guinea-Bissau are also suspended because of coups... > > It only had like 15 members to begin with, now it basically has 10.
What are you reading? Think tank reports? Journals? Specific news sites? Please share.
Anonymous E replied with this 1 month ago, 2 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,406,564
@1,406,561 (F)
It is sort of a weird irony that nations that aren’t rich in natural resources end up better off. Like Japan for example. They make cars but they don’t produce oil.
Anonymous E double-posted this 1 month ago, 1 minute later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,406,565
Except the US. The US seems to be the exception. It even applies to European nations, Russia has a lot of oil, but their economy is the same size as Italy.
Anonymous E triple-posted this 1 month ago, 3 minutes later, 15 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,406,568
Then Italy makes luxury cars, but they don’t have any oil. I don’t think Russia has ever really been known for being good at producing cars. But they have oil. America is weird because we can do both for some reason.
> It is sort of a weird irony that nations that aren’t rich in natural resources end up better off. Like Japan for example. They make cars but they don’t produce oil.
This has been studied extensively. Petrostate studies, economic over-specialization (“Dutch Disease”), with governments and elites rent-seeking rather than encouraging development. They don’t pursue diversified and stable growth.
The Asian Tigers largely are have nots. Singapore, ROK, Japan, Taiwan, etc., had to invest in people and manufacturing. They lack ores, oil, and the rest. If you trace the history of the samurai sword you’ll see it was so refined because Japan had lousy ore that needed to be purified and worked hard.
> What are you reading? Think tank reports? Journals? Specific news sites? Please share.
Whatever news articles and search results the Electric Jew decides to feed me. It's a mildly interesting topic I know next to nothing about. I think the only journal articles I've read on the topic are this and this and that's only because they were linked in a War on the Rocks (I think?) article. Incidentally that site used to be decent on the topic until the pivot to the kerfuffle in Ukraine; nowadays they focus on Africa only when it implicates Russia/Wagner, more or less. Or China when the mood strikes.
> > What are you reading? Think tank reports? Journals? Specific news sites? Please share. > > Whatever news articles and search results the Electric Jew decides to feed me. It's a mildly interesting topic I know next to nothing about. I think the only journal articles I've read on the topic are this and this and that's only because they were linked in a War on the Rocks (I think?) article. Incidentally that site used to be decent on the topic until the pivot to the kerfuffle in Ukraine; nowadays they focus on Africa only when it implicates Russia/Wagner, more or less. Or China when the mood strikes.
Thank you. I was reading a lot about the Sahel and the mix of conflicts there. Morocco, for instance, has the most militarized long border wall in the world to help cheat the Arab-Bedouins there out of billion$ in sardine and phosphate sales.
I need to get smart on ECOWAS. It’s the closest we have to a modern Age of Religious Wars or earlier period state formation. I have some good books on African militaries or the Liberian civil war but that’s all historical interest at this point.
Some internet guy joined in and replied with this 1 month ago, 1 hour later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#1,406,698
@previous (I)
I’m pretty sure there’s a war going on in a certain part of the world that’s a lot more religious than the Economic Community of West African States.
> The Asian Tigers largely are have nots. Singapore, ROK, Japan, Taiwan, etc., had to invest in people and manufacturing. They lack ores, oil, and the rest. If you trace the history of the samurai sword you’ll see it was so refined because Japan had lousy ore that needed to be purified and worked hard.
I feel like the fact that different geographical conditions create different economic outcomes should be pretty obvious. But alt right leaning people want to put everything on "culture" and genetics to the point where I’ve seen people unironically try and argue that the Chinese have a terrible culture and the Japanese have the best culture ever and the Japanese and the Chinese are totally different. But I mean, everything Japanese looks just a tiny bit Chinese. I don’t think that’s a crazy statement to make. I mean just look at their writing, half their writing is Chinese characters.
> I’m pretty sure there’s a war going on in a certain part of the world that’s a lot more religious than the Economic Community of West African States.
I clarify: Chaotic disputes and state formation were reflected in the religious wars of Europe. Richelieu backed the Protestants to help destroy the Holy Roman Empire. I mean that the chaos, tempo, and frequency of conflicts are similar.
I do find the amount of inquiry into ECOWAS interesting. Lots of papers on international norms and its right to use force. Why? How dare African states form their own multinational institution. On the flip side, critics call it a tool of colonialism. Maybe shades of both? I need to read more.