Inside Africa’s Power Struggle: Governance, Grievance, and Extremism

In this episode of GNSI’s “At the Boundary” podcast, USF’s Dr. Robert Burrell is joined by authors Dr. Zacharias Pieri and Dr. Kevin Fridy to discuss their new book, Governance, Grievance, and Violent Extremism in West Africa:From the Caliphates to Great Power Competition. The conversation explores how local governance, resource competition, and regional instability shape violent extremism in West Africa, with a focus on Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana.

Together, they unpack:

·       How governance failures fuel extremist movements across the Sahel

·       The lingering effects of colonial and pre-colonial systems on modern governance

·       The role of natural resources and external powers in local conflict

·       How the United States and international actors can more effectively engage at the local level

🎙️ Recorded at the University of South Florida, this episode offers vital insights into one of the world’s most complex and consequential security challenges.

Links from the episode:

• Register for the Florida Security Forum: Port and Maritime Security

• “Governance, Grievance, and Violent Extremism in West Africa: From the Caliphates to Great Power Competition” by Zacharias P. Pieri and Kevin S. Fridy

• “Disarming Hezbollah: Challenges and Opportunities in the Pursuit of a Regional Settlement” Decision Brief by Mohamed Nabil El-Bendary

• Check out the GNSI Official Youtube Channel!

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:12

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. On the show today, we're going to find out why violence and extremism in West Africa are playing an outsized role in great power competition. Dr Zacharias Pieri, a professor here at USF, teamed up with Dr Kevin Freddy, a professor at the University of Tampa, to write a book about the surprising connections between global strategic competition and local counterinsurgency in West Africa. First couple things to tell you about we're really excited about the speaker lineup for our Florida security forum on November 4 at Port Tampa Bay. The theme will be port and maritime security risks and resilience, and will feature GNSI Executive Director, retired Marine Corps General, Frank McKenzie. He'll be joined by Todd Inman from the National Transportation and Safety Board, along with Paul Anderson, CEO of Port Tampa Bay. We'll also have Stu Armstrong, Chief Technology Officer of by light, as a plenary speaker, and a pair of high profile CEOs as well, Matt Godden of centerline logistics and Dennis gross close of transvoyant. You can find the full agenda and lists of speakers on the GNSI website. There's no cost to attend, but we do ask you to register on the site. Be sure to join us in downtown Tampa in a few weeks. Additionally, our latest genocide decision brief has just been published, disarming Hezbollah challenges and opportunities in the pursuit of a regional settlement is written by Mohammed Nabil El bendry from the inter Regional Center for Strategic Analysis in Abu Dhabi. The brief examines whether or not US presence can succeed in dismantling Lebanese Hezbollah's military structure. An even more interesting read now considering the recently signed ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Now on to our discussion. Zacharias Pieri and Kevin Freddy recently published their book governance, grievance and violent extremism in Africa, from the caliphates to great power competition. The two professors examined local governments in West Africa, seeking those that successfully maintain peace and stability and exhibit a frankly uncommon resilience in the face of daily violence and extremism. They sat down with GNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell, a globally recognized researcher on resilience and resistance.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 2:57

Zach Kevin, welcome to the at the boundary podcast. Thank you. Great to be here. Awesome. So first of all, congratulations on the book. This is an excellent study with hard evidence, data and analysis. I found it really, really great. Thank you. Thanks. So I got to pose this question initially, numerous countries in Africa, especially in the Sahel region, are facing inadequate governance and a significant increase in intrastate violence. There seems to be a considerable indifferent indifference in the west towards the instability in Africa, particularly from the United States. Why should we in the West be concerned about the events occurring in Africa.

Dr. Kevin S. Fridy: 3:42

So I'll take that one. If we look at West Africa and interstate violence and levels of governance, I think you're going to have a lot of variance from place to place. And one of the things that Zacharias and I point out in the book is that this can even happen from village to village, and not just country to country, because local level governance and how actors understand their situations, not only in terms of the region, but also in terms of globally, can have a huge impact on the outcomes for the population in terms of why the US should care, I think there are three big reasons. One is the median age in Africa is 19 years. It is, right now, the second biggest continent in the world, next to Asia. It's bigger than Europe and North America combined, and it is the fastest growing by far. So when we talk about kind of future populations, Africa is kind of where you have to look first. Number two is natural resources. The countries we look at are huge in terms of gold, but there are other places which are very, kind of active in terms of petroleum. And one of the things you're seeing a lot more, I think policymakers think about are rare earth minerals. We don't know. Quite how much Africa has because it's been under explored, but we know that is a quite equality source, and the expectations are, by 2030 it'll be about 10% of global production of these rare earth metals. And then last I think, is a conversation we've been having for the last several decades, and that is this idea of counterterrorism, I know that we've largely moved that lens a bit, but there are still violent extremist organizations out there, and I think we've what we've learned from the last several decades is that these things oftentimes don't stay situated in the context in which they arise, but can have real security implications outside. So I think those are the three reasons why the US should

Unknown: 5:46

care. Jack, do you have anything to

Dr. Zacharias P. Pieri: 5:48

add to that? I agree. I think just to take up that last point, the region that we study has now become the global epicenter of terrorism, especially Jihadist terrorism, the groups are now at their strongest that they have been. And the ramifications of this are that it's causing stability further south into the coastal West African States as well, and that's quite concerning.

Unknown: 6:21

Okay, so your book uses a lot of data and polling, and the methodologies were really impressive. So can you talk a little bit about those methodologies and how that affected, like the regions that you selected to survey, yeah, we wanted. Our primary motive was to get variance in terms of violent extremism and great power competition, to figure out the role that those two things have in terms of local governance. We needed places with high levels of violent extremism, low levels of violent extremism, moderate and the same for great power competition. We settled on Mali, Burkina, Faso and Ghana, because we thought those would give us this variance. We kind of situated at the negative one. I think longitude line comes through these but that's a bit arbitrary. We did our research in the Mopti region of Mali, which is in its north, the Sahel region of Burkina Faso, right across the border. And then in South, Southern Burkina Faso in Santra soud, and then in Ghana, in Upper East. And we thought, you know, there's lots of mining in these areas. And then there's places where there aren't. There's places where this research was conducted in 2021 there was places where USAID was quite active and places where they weren't, places where the UN was around, and French troops and US operations in terms of trainings and places where they weren't. So that was our general kind of large regional site selection. Once we picked those out, though we had to find people to interview, there's just under 1400 interviews were conducted for this this book, roughly a quarter in each of those regions. We hired local research teams. This was in 2021 early 2021 so covid was still kind of quite active, and it made our participation directly in the research. So we outsourced that. But the idea was we followed kind of standard operating procedures in terms of household selection and person selection, so that we would get a reasonably, reasonably representative sample. And so alongside those surveys, we brought in other methods as well. We examined event data from aclt, which showed us where attacks were taking place, the concentration of attacks, how those dynamics were moving. We also conducted extensive archival research, and that was to find out what was going on with the pre colonial forms of governance, especially the Islamic states and empires that existed in the region prior to the colonial period. Then there was the colonial period, and so we looked at the archives in London and other places as well for that. And then one of the most interesting things to me was the compilation of a database of Jihadist discourse. So we were able to see in real time what jihadists were saying, what their demands were, the types of claims they were making, and how those narratives changed over time. So one of the most interesting things for me was that while French military intervention was going on, a lot of the jihadist discourse really focused on France as. Public Enemy Number One, France undermining the integrity of the region. France as a bad actor. But after France withdrew from the region and Russian affiliated Wagner group mercenaries came in, you started to see a shift in that discourse, where jihadist groups were starting to single out Russia and Wagner group operatives as the main enemy. So that was a really interesting shift to see in the data. Excellent. And you mentioned acklet, I just wanted to tell our viewers the Armed Conflict Location Event Data Project is a great way to get get data if you're doing research on any location in the world. So thanks for that, Zach, so you identify several jihadist movements in West Africa, with some affiliated with Islamic State and others affiliated with al Qaeda. You further suggest that these factions are gaining strength, and Zach, you had mentioned that earlier, is something we should be concerned about. So could you elaborate on the identities of these groups as well as their goals and their strategies? Yeah, absolutely. So the jihadist groups in the region are at their strongest that they have been, at least since we've been following it over the last 10 to 12 year period, there are two big groups. First one is Jamaat Nusrat al Islam. Jamaat Nusrat al Islam were Muslimeen jainim. They were founded in 2017 and it's not really a unitary group, but instead, it's a Confederate or an umbrella group of jihadist groups. They're all affiliated to al Qaeda. And they brought together, for example, AQIM al murabitun, Ansar deen and Messina Liberation Front, or Kitab Messina, they brought they came together in 2017 the most potent of those under that umbrella grouping is the Messina Liberation Front. In the last year or so, they've been able to push and expand their area of operation into southern Mali and Western Mali as well. And the other big grouping, of course, is Islamic State in the greater Sahara. Now those groups, both of them, seek to challenge the legitimacy of the state. They do not view Mali, Burkina, Faso Niger as legitimate states. Instead, they seek to return to pre colonial forms of governance, and that's through the carving out of territory to be ruled under Islamic or Sharia law. While they have those that end goal in common, their tactics do tend to differ a little bit, so I would say that jainam tends to be a little bit more pragmatic. Under the former Malian administration, they were more willing to enter into negotiation along the lines of the US Taliban model, whereas Islamic State just were not interested in any form of negotiation at all. Jainam also tends to hold territory, to tax territory and to bring some level of stability to the areas that it holds, whereas Islamic State tends to be much more brutal and uncompromising in its ideologies. Your research encompasses a wide range of areas in West Africa. You mentioned it with Molly and Burkina Faso and Niger. This region has also experienced significant international rivalries. So France get historic footprint there. The United Nations has had a footprint there US, China and Russia have either been involved in collaborating with the state or with non state entities. In what ways is interstate conflict becoming internationalized, and how is this process developing? So I think for your listeners who are well versed in African history, they'll understand that this idea of internationalized local conflict is not new. So if you go back to the colonial era, there were these very direct conflicts between the British and the French and the Portuguese over territory in Africa that transitions very quickly after independence into the Cold War era, and in particular, when you think of some of the Portuguese colonies that got their independence through these internal conflicts. The US would pick a side. The Soviet Union would pick a side. They'd support that side very directly. Exactly. I mean, people knew it was going on, although they all the governments wouldn't always admit it, but everyone knew this was going on. What you're seeing today is not really that it's much fuzzier and it's much grayer. If you think about Africa and kind of the governance situation, you've got relatively weak states, and you've got very young populations with really, really high unemployment rate. You're going to talk about official figures that you see here and there, they're going to be upwards of 25% if we talk about underemployment, we're talking about much, much higher than that. So you've got lots of youth until their 30s or 40s are really having struggles just to meet their daily needs. That's a very, very challenging situation to govern. So the governments either want to protect themselves from the animosity of the citizens who they failed, or find ways to help those citizens out. They're going to look and shop around and try to find allies. France has long been in those positions in Burkina Faso and Mali, the US has been kind of actively involved in this. And recently you've seen China, mostly in economics and Russia, mostly in security and mineral extraction, kind of jump into this mix as potential suppliers of resources, as for the population, I mean, they're frustrated, and they're also in swimming in a social media environment, the same one we are, with lots of actors pushing kind of propaganda. So you see, one day, everyone supports this, this great power. Another day, the next, it's just not, not nearly as cut and dry as it used to be, although it's still got lots and lots of this international conflict dimension. Thanks. Kevin Zhang, and I think for me, one of the biggest factors is that we have seen the largest geopolitical shift in the regional balance of power that we have for a long time in the region that's gone been somewhat reported, but I would say under reported. So what you have seen is that France, which was the historic colonial power and the dominant international power in the region, has completely withdrawn. It has left Mali Niger, Burkina Faso. In fact, almost all of West Africa, the troops have been, have been withdrawn, and at the same time as that has happened, you've seen a realignment of those governments with Wagner mercenary groups in both Mali, Burkina, Faso, Niger, other states in the region, they are run by military regimes. Now they have left the Collective Security regimes, the collective security institutions of the region. So you've seen a really big realignment in the regional balance of power, I think that's quite important, right? So, you know, this is, this is kind of a broad question that's occurring in the Middle East, but also in West Africa. So one of the objectives of violent extremist organizations operating in West Africa in particular, is to dismantle the national borders that were imposed during European colonialism and then to reinstate the boundaries that existed prior to European dominance. This notion has garnered support in various parts of the world. Does the current framework of artificial state boundaries, as acknowledged by the United Nations represent a flawed construct. Well, that's somewhat of a difficult question to answer, because flawed depends on who you're asking. The jihadists would certainly say that it is a flawed construct. But I think, um, by and large, they are largely valid borders, valid states upheld by the international community. But what did happen is that when those borders were drawn up in the colonial and post colonial periods were that the borders and boundaries of the state did not always take into account the ethnic groupings through which they sliced. So you have groupings in these nation states that were divided from their CO ethnic groups, which now have ended up in other groups. There are individuals who identify more with people across the border than they do with people in far flung parts of their own country, and I think jihadists have been quite adept at exploiting these issues, but it's also partly because of a failure in broader governance. At the federal level that jihadists have been able to do this, high levels of corruption, nepotism, failures in equitable justice, for example, across those regions, have allowed jihadists to come onto the scene and to say that the state isn't working, and instead, we need to revert to pre colonial forms of governance that reflected our identities in a better way. Thank you. Kevin and I would just add to that, if you go to the two countries, for instance, that we investigate, that have lots of violent extremism of the Islamist nature, Burkina Faso and Mali, if you were to go to the Capitol, you wouldn't notice it. These are reasonably kind of well governed situations. I mean, they're they're they're not at war, they're not experiencing lots of of this, this kind of foment. These are really hinterland and marginalized areas. And I think one of the things that we kind of talk about in the text is this idea of the caliphates as part of the memory, but it's a part which can be used instrumentally. If we think of Mali, for instance, the conflict there started as a as an ethnic conflict. The Tuaregs were interested in more independence from the central government. That wasn't getting a lot of traction. They turned to the some of the old caliphates and some of the idea of Islamization, and that got them a little bit further along. That got them more resources. It attracted members of the public. It won't always be like that. These things change. So I think kind of, one of the things we talk about in the book in terms of of local governance, is you've got these pre colonial identities, and they are useful, and they can help bind you together. They can help, kind of allow you to push for more independence, but there's nothing necessarily inherent about them. It's kind of how they're they're operationalized. Whereas Can you, can you expand on that further about this idea of the pre colonial caliphates and the narrative that's being constructed? Sure, and I think Kevin made a very good point when he said that it's been instrumentalized. Jihadists see the pre colonial period as a golden age of governance, and that's because in those in the pre colonial period, there were two big groupings in in the region. One was the jihad led by Usman dan Fodio in 1804 and that created the Sokoto Caliphate, and that was in North Western Nigeria. And danfodio, at the time, basically said to the house of rulers who were in place that even though they were Muslim, they were failing to rule according to Islamic law. There was corruption, there was nepotism, there was injustice, and he asked them to come back to an Islamic form of governance, and they didn't do that. And on the basis of that, dan Fodio led a jihad. He toppled those states, and in their place, the Sokoto Caliphate was constructed a little bit later in around 1810, to 1818, a follower of Usman dan Fodio, Shehu Ahmadu, he did the same thing in the central region of Mali and created What was the Messina Empire, and both those states ruled under Islamic law and jihadists see these as a golden age, and they basically argue that history provides us with the blueprint for how we need to act moving forward. They see the past as a guide to the future. But again, history is interpreted, reinterpreted, misinterpreted, and it's selectively leveraged to mobilize people into one form of action or another. Yeah, that's great. I really like this part of the book where you're bringing in. You know this, this mythical kind of narrative that is this, these states that existed, pre colonial and then how that is now being used as a competitive narrative to the current states. So can you, can you talk more about that, and how you articulate that in the book? Sure, I think the the idea of competitive governance is interesting, because there have been different forms of governance, both across time and place and at different levels in terms of governance in these countries. So you've had pre colonial forms of governance. In competition with colonial forms of governance, in competition with post colonial forms of governance, and they happen at different places. Jihadists obviously draw on the past. They see that as a golden age, and just because they see it as a golden age, it doesn't always mean that it actually was at the time. But I think an important point to bring up here is that in our surveys, we asked people about their experience of governance and what type of governance they would like to see, and we asked them about whether they would like to see more governance based on traditional elites, chieftains, et cetera, whether they wanted to see God's law being implemented in the land, and for the the implementation of God's law, there was a fairly high percentage who wanted to see that. But I think for me, what was the most remarkable finding was that the majority of people across the case studies wanted to see the existing laws that were on the books in their countries implemented. So I don't think that it is necessarily a failure to construct laws and constitutions that work. It's been a failure in the implementation of those laws and constitutions, and across the board, I think what people wanted to see was the laws being implemented upheld and being done so in a fair manner. That's great, you know, the rule of law, and it's such a key factor in in, you know, really having government legitimacy. Kevin, did you want to add anything to that? Yeah, people want rule of law. People want good schools. People want, you know, water and electricity. And they're going to go to whoever they think can get them that, and if that person fails, then they'll move on to the next potential provider. And I think that's, that's one of the takeaways, and I think that's, it's common sense, but oftentimes, I don't think we, if we exoticize these kind of situations, we lose sight of the fact that it's pretty, pretty standard stuff that we might even do in in Tampa. So this going bad. There's a two part question, but going back to the narrative that's being constructed, do you think that China and Russia have an advantage because they don't have this pre colonial narrative that counters the colonial period of European expansion in Africa? And the second part of that is, you know, the US is has been kind of side by side with these colonial powers and implementing us strategy. And do you think that that is a negative for the US and that maybe it should be going in alone in its foreign policy in the region? If you think of the colonial powers at play in the three countries that we're investigating. You've got France in Burkina and Mali, and you've got the Brits in in Ghana. And these are two very, very different stories we found in our own surveying, not, not surprisingly, that the French really are viewed quite poorly in their former colonies, the British, not so much. So they've still got a very decent, I would say, relationship. And what the causes of that are. You know, we could speculate. We don't really test for that. So I do think there's some difference. But what is clear is that France right now has quite a tarnished reputation in the region, they might have OVERPLAYED THEIR cards in terms of their relationships, both financial and military and politically over the years, and a lot of the government governments who are French speaking, are looking for alternatives. I think it's also fair to say that both China and Russia have played the anti colonial card, I think I'm a bit cynical in terms of how we interpret that they've both been involved in activities over the years, as most large powers have been that resemble colonialism, but They didn't. They weren't part of colonialism in Africa. And you will hear supporters of China, you will hear supporters of Russia kind of make that argument. If we look at the activities of the two countries, though, they don't look all that different from the farm of colonial powers. If you look at what China is mostly interested in, they've got a lot of extractive industries, and they're also very interested in infrastructure projects. The Russians are less interested in those big infrastructure projects, more interested in security, but also in these extractive industries. I think the US for. Long time had been a bit of an outlier. They were certainly interested in these extractive industries. But when we did this survey again in 2021 if you talk to people, what are they talking about? In terms of the US? Maybe they have a relative, especially for Ghana, the Francophone countries tend to go to France, but especially for GNSI, they have a relative in the US. Maybe they met a Peace Corps volunteer. Maybe they've seen USAID written on a sign board. They know about Lebron James. They know about Beyonce. So a lot of these kind of soft power activities of the US, at least, were around, and people recognized them, and people kind of saw the us through that lens. They saw other things as well. So if you if you have somebody who was talking about the US in a negative light, they'd oftentimes mention CIA efforts during the Cold War. But I think now that we're transitioning away from that kind of foreign policy, it'll be interesting to follow up and see as USA is diminished in its importance in foreign policy, as some of these soft power approaches are transitioned, it'll be interesting to see how these perceptions that we met measured in our texts kind of change over time, and we don't have an answer for that other than a curiosity you want to add. I think Kevin answered it really well. So one of the key aspects of your book, it was really fascinating, and that you you intentionally went after, was to look at groups that are that are non state, or they're they're going across the state, and they're not actually fully represented by the state government in the capitals. And that, you know, it just bodes the question like, should the US State Department and inform our foreign policy, not just deal with the national governments of these states, but also have some dialog with the non state groups that cross between borders or maybe are underrepresented. So I think for both Zach or IIS and myself, we're we don't work for the government. We don't have all the information they have. We don't know the pluses and minuses as they measure them for different approaches. So I'll caveat my my suggestion with that. I think there are likely situations where some national security interest or national economic interest just triumph over concerns for the local populations of the areas you go to. It might be such a big win that you say, Okay, I'm willing to work through the national government. It's more efficient, it's more expeditious in the short term and and, and I think we need to recognize that it would been, it would be naive not to having said that. I think all things being equal, if you can find ways to get what you're interested in or close to it and find it be not only a win for the other government you're dealing with, but the local populations in that community think you build up long term goodwill. You build up potential allies for the future. You make interest in the region kind of easier to pursue in the future. So if I were advising the State Department, and they haven't asked for my advice, but if I was, it's coming next, yeah, I would, I would suggest that, yeah, if you can find relatively kind of cheap in terms of time and energy and resources, ways to make these, these great Power competition or intergovernment relations wins for the local populations. I think you should, I think it does have a huge impact and a potential kind of positive outcome for for the US. Your chance to influence? Marco Rubio, sure. So I think a major argument of our book is that the most effective forms of governance come at the local level, not necessarily at the national level. Local level is where the populations that we talk to in our surveys have the strongest affiliations identification with the national government. Legitimacy of the federal state is often very weak amongst our populations, and that's not to say that the US government shouldn't work at that level. I think one of the most important things that could be done at that level is a. Um policies around anti corruption, because I think that would really help those states in their overall image and relationship with their own populations, but in terms of being able to find policies, initiatives, endeavors that would make most impact to the population that might result in the greatest level of increased support for the US. I think those types of endeavors and initiatives are better targeted at the local level, because that's where we see where most people have strongest affiliation with it's where it's the people whom they turn to to solve problems in their lives. They tend to have a greater form of cohesion at that level, and so I think that's where they would be most effective. Great. So it's such an excellent book, and I just want to give you a chance to, you know, put put forward the greatest lesson you think that the book provides or or some context to it. So, Kevin, you first, I just want to say we're very kind of thankful to our our collaborators in country. And one of the kind of great things that comes out of this is the ability to learn how folks on the ground think about these issues. And I guess the lesson that I would like to kind of send away with this is what's happening in these villages, what's happening in these cities matters, and it can have profound implications for our security and our economic interests. So we should pay attention to this. We should ask those questions. We should take those concerns seriously. And I think we, we, Too oftentimes, ignore those, those smaller communities, and think in these larger pictures. And I think it's, it's quite a bit to our detriment, right? Zacharias, I think one of the most concerning things to me is that since our book came out, jihadist groups have gained even stronger positions than they had a few years ago, when when we were working on this project. JM, for example, has pushed into southern Mali. Western Mali, they're taking over areas in which there are gold mines. They're stopping the importing of petroleum into the country. The Western the coastal states of West Africa are starting to be affected. So I think there are a lot of issues going going on there. So what can or should the US do about it? What kind of final thoughts do I have? I think for me, it's partly also looking at the push and pull factors of why people join extremist groups, why people are willing to engage in in violence, and sometimes it's ideological, and many times it's not. And so I think one of the greatest things about the US is the level of entrepreneurship and business acumen that we have here. And I think, you know, piloting things like micro financing, loans, business schemes, bringing in the power and heft of us, business capitalism, and really engaging communities at the local level, empowering local people so that they have financial opportunities could could help somewhat break that cycle, but it's an extremely complex picture, and I think many of these issues will linger on for a long time. Excellent. Well, thank thank you Zach and Kevin, thank you for joining us today. Thank you. All right, for those who would like more information on Dr Pieri and Dr Friday's book, governance, grievance and violent extremism in West Africa, we will leave you a link in the show notes, thank you for joining us today at the boundary.

Jim Cardoso: 39:19

Our thanks to Dr Zacharias Pieri and Kevin Freddy as they discuss their new book, governance, grievance and violent extremism in Africa, from the caliphate to great power competition. Special thanks as well to Dr Rob Burrell for conducting the interview. Rob's leading his own line of research here at GNSI, exploring the future of warfare. You can watch his interviews and analysis on our YouTube page. Next week, we're bringing back to the podcast Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jay Patrich, who's also the very first member of GNSI, is National Security Research Fellowship. You heard from Jay a few weeks back as he interviewed Lieutenant Colonel Jesse humple on the national. Security Threat created by our aging and inadequate electrical grid. Next week, we'll put him on the other side of the mic to discuss the GNSI decision. Brief. He's working on developing Special Operations drone doctrine. Thanks for listening today. We know you have a lot of choices for podcasts and a limited amount of time. We're grateful you shared some time with us. If you like what we're doing, subscribe. Give us that code at five star rating, and tell your friends about us. You can follow along with GNSI on our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI at check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, while you're there, go ahead and subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just we're talking about, I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.