Introduction
In the modern era, national security is no longer defined solely by the integrity of borders or the strength of a military, but by the resilience of the systems that sustain daily life. Critical infrastructure refers to the vast, interconnected network of physical and cyber assets that function as the central nervous system of a state. When these systems function, they are invisible; when they fail, the result is chaos.
As the threat landscape shifts from conventional warfare to asymmetric insurgency, understanding and protecting these assets has become the definitive challenge of our time. For nations in Coastal West Africa, this is not a hypothetical exercise—it is an urgent strategic necessity.
The Nature of the Target and the Sahelian Warning
Defining Critical Infrastructure
To understand the threat, one must first recognise the target. Critical infrastructure comprises those specific sectors whose incapacity or destruction would have a debilitating impact on national security, the economy, or public health. While definitions vary slightly by nation, they generally include:
- Energy: The power grid, oil and gas pipelines, and fuel storage depots.
- Water: Dams, reservoirs, treatment plants, and distribution pipes.
- Transportation: Highways, bridges, railways, ports, and airports.
- Telecommunications: Cell towers, fibre-optic cables, and internet exchange points.
- Financial Services: Banking systems, stock exchanges, and electronic payment gateways.
- Public Health: Hospitals, supply chains for medicine, and emergency response units.
The defining characteristic of these sectors is interdependence. They do not operate in silos. A cyberattack on the Energy sector that shuts down the power grid will immediately cripple the Water sector’s pumps, silence Telecommunications towers, and freeze Financial ATMs. This “cascading failure” is exactly what makes critical infrastructure such an attractive target for terrorists.
The Strategic Shift: From Protection to Resilience
Historically, counter-terrorism focused on intercepting operatives and protecting “soft targets” like hotels. Today, we must view Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) as a central pillar of counter-terrorism. Terrorist groups, operating with limited resources, view infrastructure as a force multiplier. Destroying a key bridge or poisoning a water source can inflict economic devastation and psychological paralysis far exceeding the impact of a conventional bomb. The goal is delegitimisation: by disrupting essential services, insurgents aim to prove the state is incompetent, creating a vacuum they intend to fill.
Contextualising the Threat: The West African Front
This dynamic is currently playing out with alarming clarity in West Africa. As Islamist insurgent groups—primarily Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS)—push south from the Sahel, Coastal West African states (Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire) face a distinct threat.
Learning from the Sahelian theatre becomes crucial. In Mali and Burkina Faso, insurgents systematically targeted the state’s physical presence. A prime example is the blockade of key transport corridors and fuel supplies by JNIM in Mali. By employing IEDs to target fuel convoys and threatening transport drivers, insurgents successfully strangled the local economy in regions like Bamako, Timbuktu and Gao. They did not need to conquer every town; they simply deprived them of the energy required to survive, forcing the population into dependency and effectively holding the state hostage.
For Coastal West African states, this signals a need to recategorise what is “critical.” It is not just the major port in the capital; it is the lonely stretch of highway connecting the northern hinterland to the coast. If that road is severed, the north is economically amputated, creating the exact conditions of marginalisation that insurgents exploit.
Policy Recommendations
To counter this creeping threat, Coastal West African governments must move beyond traditional security postures and adopt a resilience-based approach.
- Develop “Sahel-Informed” Risk Registers:
Security agencies must update their Risk Registers—the master lists of vulnerable assets. This categorisation must go beyond obvious targets to include “Grey Zone” assets. Based on the Sahelian playbook, this includes rural bridges, community radio stations (vital for countering propaganda), and food storage warehouses.
- Mitigation through Redundancy:
We cannot place a soldier every ten meters along a power line. Mitigation must focus on redundancy. States should invest in decentralised systems, such as localised solar micro-grids for high-risk areas. If the main transmission line is sabotaged, the community remains lit, and the insurgents’ strategic objective of causing a blackout is denied.
- Citizen Resilience as a Defence Layer:
The ultimate critical infrastructure is the population. Worst-case scenarios—long-term blockades or internet blackouts—require a psychologically resilient citizenry. Governments must invest in public education that normalises preparedness (“Run, Hide, Inform”) without inducing panic. Furthermore, developing secure, community-led early warning systems allows citizens to act as sensors, reporting sabotage to the state before a crisis unfolds.
Conclusion
The expansion of the Sahelian insurgency presents a complex challenge that cannot be solved by firepower alone. It requires a fundamental rethinking of national security. By placing Critical Infrastructure Protection at the heart of counter-terrorism strategy, nations can inoculate themselves against the chaos intended by their adversaries.
The objective is clear: we must build systems that are not just hard to break, but easy to fix, and a society that is resilient enough to withstand the shock. In the fight against extremism, keeping the water running and the roads open is as heroic, and as necessary, as any military operation, and we must also ensure that counter-terrorism military operations are intelligence-led.
References
Africa Center for Strategic Studies. (2023). Militant Islamist Group Expansion in West Africa. Washington, D.C.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). (n.d). Critical Infrastructure Sectors. U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Institute for Security Studies (ISS). (2019). West Africa’s coastal states must learn from the Sahel’s mistakes. Pretoria.
Lewis, T.G. (2020). Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security: Defending a Networked Nation. Wiley.
