Implications of Non-Interventions in Nigeria, the Niger Delta, Niger, and Syria

Foreign armed intervention usually entails self-interests related to national security, deterring regional instability and/or attempting to foster peace and save lives by promoting a ceasefire, or deploying peacekeepers to observe the situation and conditions of a peace agreement. Other objectives may be to engage in political transitions and the reform of state apparatuses. Based on these interests, and many others, there have been many foreign armed interventions that have been conducted multilaterally with international institutions or unilaterally from great powers. On the other hand, there are a variety of contexts that would warrant foreign armed intervention to promote such interests and, in the case of Afro-communitarian, to restore communal relations and bring about a more harmonious state of affairs by opposing violence if non-violent means have been exhausted or would be proved fruitless. Even with these ethics, states and regional and international organizations would make decisions on the selectivity of cases and consider geopolitics, resources, and the feasibility of restoring a peaceful situation. Taking these points of pragmatism into consideration, this chapter focuses on a variety of contexts in West Africa and Syria to argue that foreign armed intervention should be considered in good faith of Afro-communitarianism.