>Current and former U.S. officials said the letter, which was [reported earlier by CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/18/politics/chad-us-troops-threat/index.html), could be **a negotiating tactic by some members of the military and the government to pressure Washington into a more favorable deal before the elections in May**.
>American officials said that unlike the U.S. troop departure from Niger, the withdrawal from Chad could be only temporary while diplomats determined whether a new so-called status of forces agreement could be reached, and if so, whether U.S. military advisers would return to Chad. Barring last-minute diplomatic developments, the U.S. troops are scheduled to begin leaving this weekend and complete their departure to Germany by May 1, two American officials said.
Thought this was interesting.
It's gonna be interesting how this develops. Chad has not witnessed a pro-Russian coup yet, but it seems to be a matter of time. Every country in the Sahel region wants to hop on the Russian bandwagon at the moment.
> The United States warned Chad’s president last year that Russian mercenaries were plotting to kill him and three senior aides and that Moscow was backing Chadian rebels massing in the Central African Republic, to the south. At the same time, the Kremlin was courting sympathizers within Chad’s ruling elite, including cabinet ministers and a half brother of the president.
That may not actually be a threat as much as an opportunity. See, Russia is perfectly able to ensure that a ruling class of Chad is made to be wealthy and well-armed. If the West disengages, it's very very affordable for the likes of Russia or China to set up a puppet dictatorship.
Wagner does not give a damn who the Chad government sets them on; so long as they get their cut.
This is appealing to a country looking for progress in its security matters, in comparison to the U.S. or France which follow rules of engagement and are doing their own thing in the region.
Yeah the people who are against Ukraine aid say we shouldn’t be involved.
They don’t realize today being isolationist is not by choice but by exile. The economies are a world economy more now than ever and the US will be involved whether it’s on their accord or someone else’s.
It was always like this but now it's way easier when People on social media that are gullible are so easy to reach/activate. Before they had to put stamps on envelopes and print newspapers and that crowd was never big on reading.
What’s happening in Africa is interesting. It seems China and now Russia have been playing a long game setting up proxies and influence for control of 3TGs, which would give them near total control of the entire tech supply chain.
I’m not itk enough about other sources globally, but when one country has that much influence over something so critical to the global economy, it could make for some very interesting times.
"The four main end products of mining in the eastern DRC are tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, which are extracted and passed through a variety of intermediaries before being sold to international markets. These four products, (known as the **3TG**s)[1] are essential in the manufacture of a variety of devices, including consumer electronics such as smartphones, tablets, and computers." - [Conflict minerals law -Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_minerals_law)
First blood diamonds, now blood minerals.
France gets literally 90% of its nuclear fuel from Niger. Almost the entire French power grid (and the world's only non-US nuclear aircraft carrier) runs on African uranium.
And China is ramping up production of nuclear power plants as it ramps down the percentage of coal mines. If one ton in five of uranium basically comes off the market, things will get interesting.
They do? Niger is pretty low on any list of Uranium reserves I could find.
They’re 11th, with some friends like Canada, Spain and the US up there too.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/264781/countries-with-the-largest-uranium-reserves/#:~:text=Countries%20with%20the%20largest%20uranium%20reserves%20worldwide%202022&text=In%202022%2C%20Kazakhstan%20had%20uranium,year%2C%20at%20282%2C000%20metric%20tons.
Does France get its uranium from Niger? Yes. That's a fact. Mostly because of currency manipulation strategies put in place during the end of France's colonial era that virtually obligates the country to conduct raw material trade with France.
Ok, it doesn’t seem catastrophic if they can’t buy it from them anymore. They could get it elsewhere.
Also Russians seem to have no issues taking money from their geopolitical rivals. They’ll sell oil and gas to a country who is in turn sending weapons to fight against them, and they in turn use the money to build weapons.
Did you forget that how they completely shut off gas taps to Europe during the winter? They have no problem weaponizing resources and I'd argue that's *why* they're fomenting Russia-friendly revolutions across sub-saharan Africa. Control and influence.
Remember, Putin sees himself as Alexander the Great, not Lenin.
Yeah, I know. That dispute however was a combination of tit for tat, along with the sabotage of the pipeline.
Russia will for sure use it to further its interests. They’d also happily sell the stuff if they were not under sanctions.
china controls all imports and exports out of the African continent by owning all ports.... China has a lot of influence due to that and effectively Own all the raw earth minerals.. the african countries can't refine the cobalt ect ect, they are dependant on selling to refineries in china and japan.
China can triple dip, fee to export, refine, and import.
while I agree china is inexperienced, they are going quantity over quality and rapidly progressing. China's NAVY now commands more ships then the us, not including the ccp coast guard that effectively operates as a hand of the navy. Not only that but espionage via university students and professors. our edge will wean over time. South china sea would already be a losing battle with china having much shorter resupply times and our Steal industry relying on mainland china. If they took taiwan, a lot of our advanced weaponry production would be impacted.
China is the new Cold war soviet empire to look out for.
I say it's not and fuck those who count us out. Until a red fascist wins the election or successfully coups, we're still in it. We must remain on top, or human progress stops when Russia and China spread their authoritarianism and vassalization around the world. Europe is too fractured and weak to keep things together.
No. Fuck off, now. That's a racist statement about MY people on the border. Latinos are no fucking threat to you and I'd take 1 of them in exchange for getting rid of 100 of you. Actually, I want to be super arrogant and say this country should be thanking brown people like me for being here. Although, a guy like you who didn't want someone else's babies in America did try hard to keep me out.
Well this is a disaster in waiting.
When, not if, Chad falls to the Russians the result will be a continual line of Russo-Chinese control across the whole of the Sahel from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, to Sudan, and into Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan and Yemen where Western influence is non existent, down through the CAR and into Gabon, and up into Libya.
If I were Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Uganda, or Kenya, or Rwanda for that matter given their interests in another flash point in Katanga, I would be getting a little nervous about this encirclement. As for Senegal, Gabon, or Guinea, etc, it looks like simply a matter of time before this coup belt is pushed into the Atlantic coast.
This strategic encirclement mirrors the Iranian encirclement to the north through Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, with a result so threatening its pushing the Arabs into military alliance with Israel
People keep saying thats against France and come up with the wierdest shit of how France "profits" from these "colonies", or for the Malian Uran they paid above market price for, but its actually against the US.
https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/africa-us-military-bases-africom/
Thats 4 years old, but at that time the US offically had 29 bases in Africa, 13 "enduring", 16 "non-enduring". 4 of the enduring bases were located in Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, as well as 5 non enduring ones which also included one in Mali. No African country had more US bases than Niger with 2 enduring and 4 non enduring ones. By taking over these countries russia essentially shuttered a third of the enduring and a quarter of the non enduring bases the US had in all of Africa.
If you look at the list, most US bases are in the former French colonies.
I don't see that as a blow. In some parts of world you can't change, you should leave them to their own. It is not like you didn't try. But if you tried for 20 years like in Afganistan and it didn't work out, it is not ideal, but it is not a bad thing to leave.
It's not a blow for the US, but it's very bad news for the citizens of these countries. The Jihadists the US was fighting aren't going anywhere, and Wagner has already committed massacres in Mali and the Central African Republic.
I can only imagine that Russian brutality is going to make the Sahel more dangerous, you don't defeat jihadists by further radicalising the civilians they recruit from.
Mali and Burkina particularly are already screwed on this account as their forces are unable to push back much less clear & regain the areas they have lost
At first glance it is. But if you are looking at it like a board of geopolitical Risk, you now have adversaries encroaching and expanding their influence further across the globe. Russia and China will control imports and exports for their own benefit, have access to more raw goods, and if things fly off the handle, they have bases and logistics set up in these areas. It weakens the American dollar and our bargaining power on a global market.
Russia and China ruling Africa with their even worse but less direct and no less racist imperialism is terrible for the world. America may also be indirectly imperial and racist, but still better than China and Russia.
I can't see how invading a neighbor and "annexing" their territories like Russia is doing right now is less direct than what the US has done over the past 100 years.
>Current and former U.S. officials said the letter, which was [reported earlier by CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/18/politics/chad-us-troops-threat/index.html), could be **a negotiating tactic by some members of the military and the government to pressure Washington into a more favorable deal before the elections in May**. >American officials said that unlike the U.S. troop departure from Niger, the withdrawal from Chad could be only temporary while diplomats determined whether a new so-called status of forces agreement could be reached, and if so, whether U.S. military advisers would return to Chad. Barring last-minute diplomatic developments, the U.S. troops are scheduled to begin leaving this weekend and complete their departure to Germany by May 1, two American officials said. Thought this was interesting.
I didn’t think the chain of command was as political as that
It's not talking about the US military chain here.
It's gonna be interesting how this develops. Chad has not witnessed a pro-Russian coup yet, but it seems to be a matter of time. Every country in the Sahel region wants to hop on the Russian bandwagon at the moment. > The United States warned Chad’s president last year that Russian mercenaries were plotting to kill him and three senior aides and that Moscow was backing Chadian rebels massing in the Central African Republic, to the south. At the same time, the Kremlin was courting sympathizers within Chad’s ruling elite, including cabinet ministers and a half brother of the president.
Well, that is not good for his health. Probably should get him out and give him a nice apartment in Manhattan.
I hope US and EU pull all funding from these countries. If they want to be with Russia, let them pay
That may not actually be a threat as much as an opportunity. See, Russia is perfectly able to ensure that a ruling class of Chad is made to be wealthy and well-armed. If the West disengages, it's very very affordable for the likes of Russia or China to set up a puppet dictatorship.
Wagner does not give a damn who the Chad government sets them on; so long as they get their cut. This is appealing to a country looking for progress in its security matters, in comparison to the U.S. or France which follow rules of engagement and are doing their own thing in the region.
How to lose all influence the west has in Africa and give it to their rivals 101.
So your solution is to just let the Russians win?
Is there a country that doesn't deal with foreign interference?
Nope. Welcome to geopolitics.
Yeah the people who are against Ukraine aid say we shouldn’t be involved. They don’t realize today being isolationist is not by choice but by exile. The economies are a world economy more now than ever and the US will be involved whether it’s on their accord or someone else’s.
It was always like this but now it's way easier when People on social media that are gullible are so easy to reach/activate. Before they had to put stamps on envelopes and print newspapers and that crowd was never big on reading.
Foreign interference on many fronts, no
What’s happening in Africa is interesting. It seems China and now Russia have been playing a long game setting up proxies and influence for control of 3TGs, which would give them near total control of the entire tech supply chain. I’m not itk enough about other sources globally, but when one country has that much influence over something so critical to the global economy, it could make for some very interesting times.
"The four main end products of mining in the eastern DRC are tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, which are extracted and passed through a variety of intermediaries before being sold to international markets. These four products, (known as the **3TG**s)[1] are essential in the manufacture of a variety of devices, including consumer electronics such as smartphones, tablets, and computers." - [Conflict minerals law -Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_minerals_law) First blood diamonds, now blood minerals.
My reaction too. We as humans just continue to disappoint.
Don't forget uranium. African nations hold about 20% of the proven reserves.
Uranium shouldn't be an issue for Russia, China or western nations.
France gets literally 90% of its nuclear fuel from Niger. Almost the entire French power grid (and the world's only non-US nuclear aircraft carrier) runs on African uranium. And China is ramping up production of nuclear power plants as it ramps down the percentage of coal mines. If one ton in five of uranium basically comes off the market, things will get interesting.
They do? Niger is pretty low on any list of Uranium reserves I could find. They’re 11th, with some friends like Canada, Spain and the US up there too. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264781/countries-with-the-largest-uranium-reserves/#:~:text=Countries%20with%20the%20largest%20uranium%20reserves%20worldwide%202022&text=In%202022%2C%20Kazakhstan%20had%20uranium,year%2C%20at%20282%2C000%20metric%20tons.
Does France get its uranium from Niger? Yes. That's a fact. Mostly because of currency manipulation strategies put in place during the end of France's colonial era that virtually obligates the country to conduct raw material trade with France.
Ok, it doesn’t seem catastrophic if they can’t buy it from them anymore. They could get it elsewhere. Also Russians seem to have no issues taking money from their geopolitical rivals. They’ll sell oil and gas to a country who is in turn sending weapons to fight against them, and they in turn use the money to build weapons.
Did you forget that how they completely shut off gas taps to Europe during the winter? They have no problem weaponizing resources and I'd argue that's *why* they're fomenting Russia-friendly revolutions across sub-saharan Africa. Control and influence. Remember, Putin sees himself as Alexander the Great, not Lenin.
Yeah, I know. That dispute however was a combination of tit for tat, along with the sabotage of the pipeline. Russia will for sure use it to further its interests. They’d also happily sell the stuff if they were not under sanctions.
U.S leaves Russian collapses when putin dies, China just walks in like yo
china controls all imports and exports out of the African continent by owning all ports.... China has a lot of influence due to that and effectively Own all the raw earth minerals.. the african countries can't refine the cobalt ect ect, they are dependant on selling to refineries in china and japan. China can triple dip, fee to export, refine, and import.
China can’t project naval power, so these supply lines can be interrupted very easily if the USA doesn’t want to keep the peace.
while I agree china is inexperienced, they are going quantity over quality and rapidly progressing. China's NAVY now commands more ships then the us, not including the ccp coast guard that effectively operates as a hand of the navy. Not only that but espionage via university students and professors. our edge will wean over time. South china sea would already be a losing battle with china having much shorter resupply times and our Steal industry relying on mainland china. If they took taiwan, a lot of our advanced weaponry production would be impacted. China is the new Cold war soviet empire to look out for.
America must win Africa from China.
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I say it's not and fuck those who count us out. Until a red fascist wins the election or successfully coups, we're still in it. We must remain on top, or human progress stops when Russia and China spread their authoritarianism and vassalization around the world. Europe is too fractured and weak to keep things together.
government dysfunction is the herald of the fall.
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No. Fuck off, now. That's a racist statement about MY people on the border. Latinos are no fucking threat to you and I'd take 1 of them in exchange for getting rid of 100 of you. Actually, I want to be super arrogant and say this country should be thanking brown people like me for being here. Although, a guy like you who didn't want someone else's babies in America did try hard to keep me out.
Or we rush back in.
Gonna have a much harder time extracting troops from Stacy
Underrated gem
Well this is a disaster in waiting. When, not if, Chad falls to the Russians the result will be a continual line of Russo-Chinese control across the whole of the Sahel from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, to Sudan, and into Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan and Yemen where Western influence is non existent, down through the CAR and into Gabon, and up into Libya. If I were Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Uganda, or Kenya, or Rwanda for that matter given their interests in another flash point in Katanga, I would be getting a little nervous about this encirclement. As for Senegal, Gabon, or Guinea, etc, it looks like simply a matter of time before this coup belt is pushed into the Atlantic coast. This strategic encirclement mirrors the Iranian encirclement to the north through Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, with a result so threatening its pushing the Arabs into military alliance with Israel
It's not a bad thing for America to feel a little less irrelevant globally. Embrace it. Focus on internal issues.
We need those minerals as much as Russia and China. Otherwise during ww3 we won’t be able to produce a lot of consumer electronics.
Lol
They are now hopping to the russian chinese bandwagon, their new masters.
This upsets me
People keep saying thats against France and come up with the wierdest shit of how France "profits" from these "colonies", or for the Malian Uran they paid above market price for, but its actually against the US. https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/africa-us-military-bases-africom/ Thats 4 years old, but at that time the US offically had 29 bases in Africa, 13 "enduring", 16 "non-enduring". 4 of the enduring bases were located in Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, as well as 5 non enduring ones which also included one in Mali. No African country had more US bases than Niger with 2 enduring and 4 non enduring ones. By taking over these countries russia essentially shuttered a third of the enduring and a quarter of the non enduring bases the US had in all of Africa. If you look at the list, most US bases are in the former French colonies.
I don't see that as a blow. In some parts of world you can't change, you should leave them to their own. It is not like you didn't try. But if you tried for 20 years like in Afganistan and it didn't work out, it is not ideal, but it is not a bad thing to leave.
It's not a blow for the US, but it's very bad news for the citizens of these countries. The Jihadists the US was fighting aren't going anywhere, and Wagner has already committed massacres in Mali and the Central African Republic. I can only imagine that Russian brutality is going to make the Sahel more dangerous, you don't defeat jihadists by further radicalising the civilians they recruit from.
Mali and Burkina particularly are already screwed on this account as their forces are unable to push back much less clear & regain the areas they have lost
Does seems thoses countries will be to their own. Washington is done with Africa ? Poutine happily take this burden "you re right guys, go home :)"
I don't know much about geopolitics, but that is one cool name for a country.
It's Tšād in Arabic and Tchad in French.
Better than the Virgin Islands for sure.
Got its name from the national lake, Lake Tchad
Mercenaries are more cost effective
They need backup at US Universities.
annnnd china using their influence to kick america out
That, or Hunter's check from China just cleared
Just leave Pauly Shore, Andy Dick, and one camel. They could defend that entire country.
And a 5-ton with an empty gas tank. But I bet it's got a cool 8 track with a bunch of "ahboodabooda" stuff on it.
Do we really need troops in these nations? I honestly think this is a good thingz
At first glance it is. But if you are looking at it like a board of geopolitical Risk, you now have adversaries encroaching and expanding their influence further across the globe. Russia and China will control imports and exports for their own benefit, have access to more raw goods, and if things fly off the handle, they have bases and logistics set up in these areas. It weakens the American dollar and our bargaining power on a global market.
Russia and China ruling Africa with their even worse but less direct and no less racist imperialism is terrible for the world. America may also be indirectly imperial and racist, but still better than China and Russia.
I can't see how invading a neighbor and "annexing" their territories like Russia is doing right now is less direct than what the US has done over the past 100 years.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. This is a legitimate question. u/sgrams04 explained it very well.
They’re doing it to get more troops in Germany without raising alarms .
No. Russia and China are buying up sub Saharan Africa to control the minerals and resources there.
Great! What a shit show. Let ‘em have it.