Africa: A Hybrid Battleground

Yıl 2022, Sayı: 15, 91 - 107, 13.07.2022

Tamas Varga

Öz

In the context of hybrid conflicts in Africa, two fundamental traits of challenges
are expected to prevail by the 2030s: (1) the traditional hybrid challenges to modern
state functioning (as known today from current conflicts), against which national
and international actors (African Union, NATO, European Union) can shore up
defenses from provisions to active defense; (2) hybrid challenges that specifically
target states already in fragile conditions, against which there will be no effective
national counterbalance due to failing state functions and institutions. In the latter
case hybrid challenges will exacerbate the systemic pressures (lack of security,
stability, services) in these fragile states, increasing the role of non-state actors as
stakeholders in providing security. The more so, because most African states will
be battling the effects of population boom and all related scarcities, including water
and sanitation, food, housing, employment etc., resulting in governance failure and
increasing the likelihood of evolving such ungoverned/contested spaces in Africa
which we have witnessed in Iraq and Syria after 2014.

Anahtar Kelimeler

hybrid, conflict, security