Description
Great power competition has returned to the lexicon of European security following Russia’s repeated invasions of Ukraine. But while European capitals look east, a quiet struggle is unfolding in West Africa, where various Western powers grapple for influence with partner states beset by insurgencies and surmounted by precarious civil-military relations. Here, Western defence attachés and military training teams are engaged in a careful dance with local generals, revisionist rivals such as China and Russia – and each other – in pursuit of access, influence, and the promise of security. This paper examines the practice and performance of Western defence engagement and security assistance activities, revealing the dual nature of such activities as both an instrument of ‘great game’ realpolitik and a mutually constitutive and carefully choregraphed performance that belies official explanations of military capacity building. On occasion, this metaphorical dance even manifests in physical dance-offs – complete with a soundtrack of Afrobeats – underscoring the connections between politics, agency, and performance in the everyday practice of security assistance and geopolitical competition.
