Chad exploits Russian-Western rivalry to its advantage

Chad, a decades-old ally of France, is now cleverly playing off Russia and its traditional Western partners, deepening relations with Moscow in a ploy that irritates and pressures Paris and Washington.

President Mahamat Déby visited his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in the Kremlin in January, while Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was in Chad's capital, N’Djamena, in June to continue the dialogue.

Some Chadian officials have floated the idea of a new military partnership, though the current focus has been on strengthening cultural and media ties. Last month saw the opening of an official Russian cultural centre in N’Djamena.

There have been hitches too: last week Moscow’s diplomats were forced to step in after a “sociologist” linked to the former Wagner security outfit was briefly detained with three colleagues while visiting the Chadian capital.

But overall, Chad's relationship with Moscow is deepening. This is unsettling for the US and, above all, France, the former colonial power.

They have already seen how effectively Moscow has used cultural and information tools, particularly social media, to promote an assertively anti-Western message in three West African countries where the military regimes that have seized power since 2020 have insisted on the withdrawal of Western forces, preferring instead to cultivate military ties with Russia.

Any sense that Chad could follow the same path would come as an especially painful jolt for France.

It has a major military base in N’Djamena and smaller garrisons in the north and east.

The US also kept a small detachment of special forces in the country, but Déby asked for their departure in the run-up to May’s election.

Anti-Western sentiment is widespread among young urban voters in France's former African colonies.

With the election over, Déby has just agreed to the return of the US forces.

Maintaining this military presence, albeit perhaps on a smaller scale than in the past, matters all the more for both France and the US after the bruising setbacks they have suffered in the central Sahel since 2021.

The military regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have forced Paris to withdraw the thousands of troops it had deployed to help fight jihadist groups. Niger insisted on the departure of US forces, abandoning the drone base they had built at Agadez to monitor the activity of militant groups across the region.

Turning instead to Russia for weapons and military personnel, the juntas also appreciate the fact that Moscow refrains from pressing them to restore elected government.

After such setbacks, Washington and Paris would certainly not welcome the spread of Russian influence in Chad too, particularly because the country occupies such a strategic location.

It has a long border with Sudan, the scene of a civil war and complex tussle for influence among the foreign powers backing the military regime or its opponent, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Chad has become a key conduit for arms flowing into Sudan.

Meanwhile, to the north of Chad is Libya, still unstable and divided.

And to the south lies the Central African Republic (CAR), one of the world’s poorest countries, and the scene of a fractious conflict between the forces of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra and armed groups.

In all three countries - Sudan, Libya and the CAR - the Russian military contractor once known as Wagner is, or has been, involved to some degree. It has now been renamed Africa Corps and brought more closely under Kremlin control since the death last year of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Surrounded by so many regional crises, Chad stands out as an island of continued stable partnership with the West.

And Déby knows well that this gives him leverage in managing his own irritations in relations with Washington and Paris.

He was quickly installed by the military to head a transitional regime after his father, Idriss Déby Itno, was killed in battle with rebels in April 2021

His decision to run in May's election breached the African Union’s official line that the military leaders of transitional regimes should not exploit their positions to then get themselves elected as heads of state.

France's President Emmanuel Macron lobbied privately for a more genuinely democratic transition, but refrained from public criticism of this key ally.

Some N’Djamena sources even accused Washington of backing Déby's main election challenger in May, former African Development Bank official Succès Masra.

And Déby has also been annoyed that the long-running Paris judicial probe into the possibly corrupt financing of assets purchased in France by African elites has now turned its attention to Chadian connections.

But making a point sharply is still a long way from breaking up relationships.

Paris and Washington will be hoping that Déby sees Moscow as a diplomatically useful add-on, and not an alternative to the West.