A Coup Belt With No Center
A run of military takeovers across a single region has produced governments that share methods and almost nothing else.
Coups cluster. A successful seizure in one country lowers the perceived cost in its neighbors, particularly among officers who trained together and watch the same outcomes.
That is the extent of the coordination. Analysts looking for a bloc keep finding that these governments have divergent interests, competing claims, and no shared project beyond staying in power. Cooperation agreements get signed and then ignored.
The pattern is better explained by shared conditions than shared intent: security forces stretched by insurgencies they cannot end, budgets dependent on a single export, and civilian governments that had already lost public confidence before anyone moved.
The policy implication is uncomfortable. There is no center to engage and no bargain to strike with the group. Each case has to be handled on its own facts, which is slow, expensive, and the only approach that has produced results.
Nadia Belkacem writes for The 13th Bell on world. This piece was edited and fact checked before publication.
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