New Turns in the Exploitation of Strategic Resources in the Sahel: Mali’s Resource Sovereignty and Europe’s Double Imperative in Global Power Shifts

In recent years, escalating conflicts such as the war in Ukraine have intensified global power competition, refocusing debates on great-power politics and the supposed crisis of the international liberal order (Cooley and Nexon, 2022). Much of the discussion focuses on the actions and interactions of major states. However, an equally important—yet often underappreciated—aspect is how regions that may be seen as less central from a European perspective are actively shaping and negotiating new orders (Lawson and Zarakol, 2023). The Sahel serves as a microcosm of this process, where resource nationalism and the struggle over critical raw materials are remolding local power dynamics and challenging long-established partnerships, including those with the West and Europe.