Over a decade ago, extremists from southern Algeria, empowered by Tuareg nationalism and the fall of Muammar Qaddafi, seized parts of northern and central Mali, as well as areas of Niger. Within weeks, they established an Islamic state in the area, causing significant destruction to important sites including the historic city of Timbuktu. Al-Qaeda’s Maghreb branch and the Islamist group Ansar al-Din inflicted brutalities on the local population.

This rapid expansion caught the attention of international and regional security actors. Before things could get worse, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) deployed regional forces to protect urban centers from militant takeovers. In 2013, the French-led Operation Serval was launched to drive extremists from towns and cities in Mali and Niger. 

The two security initiatives showed early successes. International forces under the United Nations were subsequently deployed, as France launched Operation Barkhane. Though led by French forces, its goals included creating a more coordinated regional force among countries in the Sahel and initiating negotiations with separatists and minority groups in the region. As a result, the G5 Sahel – a military alliance comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger – was formed. Even though Senegal is technically a Sahel state, it was not a member of the G5 Sahel as it was not directly threatened. 

Escalating extremism in the Sahel

In 2017, al-Qaeda affiliates in the region formed a “federation” called Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The revamped group launched audacious attacks on national and international forces in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Coastal nations including Benin, Ivory Coast and Togo were also attacked. A breakaway JNIM faction currently represents Islamic State in the Sahel, and has also carried out indiscriminate attacks in recent years. 

While insecurity posed by extremism remains the number-one challenge for the regional actors, a new security concern has emerged since 2020. Military intervention, marked by a series of coups, has become a major issue threatening nearly five decades of regional integration and protocols in West Africa. In 2020, Mali’s military staged a coup, citing deepening insecurity and the failure of civilian leaders and international forces to combat the growing threat of terror groups. Similar reasons were given as motivation for coups in Burkina Faso and Niger.

All three countries, as ECOWAS members, violated the bloc’s protocols against undemocratic power transitions. As expected, the group imposed sanctions on the junta-led states. However, the consequences have been far-reaching, with an unprecedented rift now threatening the foundation of the regional organization.

The situation peaked after the 2023 coup in Niger, when ECOWAS threatened military action to reinstate the ousted leader. However, the bloc backed down after some members showed ambivalence and urged caution. Additionally, the junta-led governments of Burkina Faso and Mali warned they would support Niger militarily if ECOWAS intervened.

After failed negotiations and shifting geopolitical dynamics, including the withdrawal of French and international forces, the three junta-led Sahel states formed a federation to pursue their own integration. In July 2024, the group signed multiple agreements and defiantly rejected any ECOWAS overtures after announcing their breakaway earlier in the year.

Senegal’s role as a mediator

The decision by juntas to break away from ECOWAS has created an unprecedented situation. Except for the withdrawal of Mauritania in 2000, all members had remained with the bloc until the current schism.

Senegal’s newly elected president and the youngest African leader, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who took office in April, was appointed by ECOWAS at its most recent summit in Abuja, Nigeria, as a special mediator between the military governments in the Sahel and the bloc. Dakar has never before played the role of mediator in the disputes between juntas and ECOWAS.

When the coups began in 2020, Senegal was among the countries that backed sanctions against the coup-led states and cooperated in their enforcement. Sharing a long border with Mali and serving as a key trade route for the landlocked country, Senegal also joined Nigeria and others in threatening military action to reinstate Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum.

Senegal’s policy, which previously aligned closely with the rest of the bloc, was shaped by former president Macky Sall. The election of a new president marked a considerable shift in the country’s foreign policy. Mr. Faye has so far engaged in shuttle diplomacy across the Sahel, with mixed results. After meeting with interim President of Mali Asimi Goita in Bamako and President of the Transition of Burkina Faso Ibrahim Traore in Ouagadougou, he expressed cautious optimism about convincing the juntas to rejoin ECOWAS.

Senegal is the fourth-largest economy in ECOWAS, which is comprised of fifteen countries. Its recent offshore oil and gas discoveries, along with its mining potential, have boosted its regional influence. Despite a turbulent pre-election period, Senegal remains one of the region’s most stable countries and is one of only two ECOWAS states never to have experienced military rule. These factors are key to its credibility as a mediator. 

Now led by a party that campaigned on anti-French and leftist ideas, Senegal’s new government is seen as more sympathetic to the juntas, which have expelled the French military and diplomats. As a result, President Faye is likely to be welcomed not only by the military regimes but also by their supporters. ECOWAS has recognized the strengths of Senegal’s new administration and aims to leverage that in addressing the ongoing rift, which shows no signs of abating.

Scenarios

Most likely: Senegal’s mediation efforts are challenged by Russian influence and extremism

Somewhat likely: Cooperation deteriorates as juntas resist rejoining ECOWAS 

Least likely: Junta states rapidly reintegrate into ECOWAS

Source: GIS

For a moment, consider how many historical facts we accept as truth without questioning their validity. What if, for example, a seventh-century book detailing an important battle was actually rewritten by someone from the ninth century? Perhaps a 9th-century leader had a scribe rewrite the account to serve their political or personal aspirations, allowing them to wield more power or forge a legacy based on a false pretext. 

Of course, I’m not proposing that commonly accepted historical facts are false or manipulated. Still, it does highlight the difficulty of verifying historical data that predates the modern era, symbolizing a problem that unchecked future AI developments could bring back.

The current state of AI takes place in black-boxed silos dominated mainly by powerful entities that put us at risk of a dystopian future where truths can be rewritten. Open AI’s shift to a more closed model after promoting an open-source approach to AI development has triggered these fears and raised concerns about transparency and public trust.

If this trend becomes the dominant direction of AI, those accumulating computing power and developing advanced AI technologies and applications can create alternative realities, including forging historical narratives.

The time is now for AI regulation

As long as centralized entities hide their algorithms from the public, the combined threat of data manipulation and its ability to destabilize the political and socioeconomic climate could truly alter the course of human history.

Despite numerous warnings, organizations across the globe are sprinting to use, develop, and accumulate powerful AI tools that may surpass the scope of human intelligence within the next decade. While this technology may prove useful, the looming threat is that these developments could be abused to clamp down on freedoms, disseminate highly dangerous disinformation campaigns, or use our data to manipulate ourselves. 

There is even growing evidence that political operatives and governments use common AI image generators to manipulate voters and sow internal divisions among enemy populations. 

News that the latest iOS 18’s AI suite can read and summarize messages, including email and third-party apps, worries many about Big Tech accessing chats and private data. So, it raises the question: Are we stepping into a future where bad actors can easily manipulate us through our devices?

Not to fear-monger, but suppose the development of AI models is left at the mercy of massively powerful centralized entities. It’s easy for most of us to imagine this scenario going completely off the rails, even if both governments and Big Tech believe they’re operating in the interest of the greater good.

In this case, average citizens will never gain transparent access to the data used to train rapidly progressing AI models. And since we can’t expect Big Tech or elements of the public sector to voluntarily be held accountable, establishing impactful regulatory frameworks is needed to ensure AI’s future is ethical and secure.

To oppose corporate lobbies seeking to block any regulatory action on AI, it's on the public to demand politicians implement necessary regulations to safeguard user data and ensure AI advancements are developing responsibly while still fostering innovation.

California is currently working on passing a bill to reign in AI’s potential dangers. The proposed legislation would curb using algorithms on children, require models to be tested for their ability to attack physical infrastructure, and limit the use of deep fakes—among other guardrails. While some tech advocates worry this bill will hinder innovation in the world’s premier tech hub, there are also concerns that it doesn’t do enough to address discrimination within AI models. 

The debate around California’s legislation attempts show that regulations alone aren’t enough to ensure future AI developments can’t be corrupted by a small minority of actors or a Big Tech cartel. This is why decentralized AI, alongside reasonable regulatory measures, provides humanity with the best path toward leveraging AI without fear of it being concentrated in the hands of the powerful. 

Decentralization = democratization

No one can predict where exactly AI will take us if left unchecked. Even if the worst doomsday scenarios don’t materialize, current AI developments are undemocratic, untrustworthy, and have been shown to violate existing privacy laws in places like the European Union.

To prevent AI developments from destabilizing society, the most impactful way to correct AI’s course is to enforce transparency within a decentralized environment using blockchain technology.

But the decentralized approach doesn’t just facilitate trust through transparency, it can also power innovation through greater collaboration, provide checks against mass surveillance and censorship, offer better network resilience, and scale more effectively by simply adding additional nodes to the network.

Imagine if blockchain’s immutable record existed during biblical times, we might have a bit more understanding and context to analyze and assess meaningful historical documents like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Using blockchain to allow wide access to archives while ensuring their historical data is authentic is a theme that has been widely opined.  

Centralized networks benefit from the low coordination costs between participants because most of them operate under a single, centralized entity. However, decentralized networks benefit from compensating for the higher costs of coordination. This means higher rewards for more granular market-based incentives across the compute, data, inference, and other layers of the AI stack.

Effectively decentralizing AI starts with reimagining the layers that comprise the AI stack. Every component from computing power, data, model training, fine-tuning, and inference must be built in a coordinated fashion with financial incentives to ensure quality and wide participation. This is where blockchain comes into play, facilitating monetization through decentralized ownership while ensuring transparent and secure open-source collaboration to counter Big Tech’s closed models.

Any regulatory action should focus on steering AI developments toward helping humanity reach new heights while enabling and encouraging AI competition. Establishing and fostering responsible and regulated AI is most efficient when done in a decentralized setting because its distribution of resources and control drastically reduces its corruptible potential — and this is the ultimate AI threat we want to evade.

At this point, society recognizes the value of AI as well as the multiple risks it offers. Going forward, AI development must strike a balance between enhancing efficiency while accounting for ethical and safety considerations.

Source: COINTELEGRAPH

Most advanced economies, including those of the European Union, used to welcome foreign direct investment (FDI) with open arms, with few questions asked. Not anymore: From the late 2010s onward, these countries started to adopt inward investment screening mechanisms for foreign transactions, and the pace of adoption has increased markedly in recent years. Since 2018, over half of the 38 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a multilateral organization serving to boost global trade, have introduced cross- or multi-sectoral investment screening mechanisms. A decade earlier, less than a third of them had done so.

Security worries are behind this trend. Generally, the screening measures empower national authorities to review, and potentially condition or prohibit, transactions that may threaten domestic interests specifically related to national security and public order.

Alongside FDI scrutiny measures introduced individually by EU member states, in 2019, the EU itself launched a union-wide FDI screening framework. Its purpose was to ensure coordination and cooperation, information sharing and a minimum level of transparency regarding the screening of foreign transactions anywhere in the bloc.

However, while the regulation proposed factors for member states to consider when establishing FDI screening mechanisms to uphold national security or public order, it did not mandate the introduction of fixed FDI screening everywhere. The result is a patchwork of different national investment screening regimes across the bloc. Moreover, several states do not operate any form of FDI screening at all.

The Commission asserts that ‘risks to security and public order’ may arise when investments transfer control and decision-making powers to non-EU entities.

This lack of uniformity has lately been of concern to the European Commission, which has warned that foreign investors could take advantage of loopholes in the bloc’s FDI screening coverage. Moreover, after the Covid-19 pandemic and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the rise of the significance and application of FDI screening as a tool of public policy led to extensive changes in the relevant laws of individual EU states. This, in turn, gave rise to an increase in the divergence of regulatory standards within the bloc.

EU tightens inward investment screening

To address these disparities, the Commission has proposed new FDI screening regulations as part of its “strategic autonomy” initiatives. The new law, expected to take effect in 2026, is intended to enhance the efficiency and coordination of FDI screening across multiple jurisdictions. It envisions a more comprehensive approach, including EU-wide post-closing screening regimes, allowing member-state authorities to review and potentially block investments for up to 15 months following the closure of FDI screening proceedings.

The scope of scrutiny is also set to broaden. For instance, acquisitions by EU-based entities will be subject to review if the EU acquirer is controlled by a foreign (non-EU) investor. The Commission asserts that, “risks to security and public order” may arise when investments hand control and decision-making powers to non-EU entities, whether directly or through EU-based subsidiaries under foreign control.

This marks a substantive change from the current regulation, which only applies to directly-held foreign investments. However, it remains less stringent than some member states’ existing domestic laws, which already require FDI screening for EU companies with non-controlling minority foreign shareholders.

All the same, member states will need to align their national legislation with the minimum screening standards in the proposed EU-wide regulation. And given current geopolitical instability, it is improbable that states with more rigorous FDI screening regulations will relax their existing national regimes to match the EU’s proposed changes.

Enhancing European scrutiny of greenfield investments

In a significant change of focus, the new EU regulations target FDI in greenfield ventures, where a foreign investor or a foreign investor’s subsidiary in the EU sets up new production facilities within the bloc. The new measures mandate that member states incorporate greenfield investments into their respective screening processes, particularly those affecting sectors crucial for security or public order, as outlined in the draft regulation.

This will particularly affect Chinese FDI into the EU, which has predominantly taken the form of greenfield investments. Two sectors, retail and manufacturing, constituted more than 60 percent of Chinese greenfield projects into the single market in 2022. And although Chinese greenfield FDI constituted only 3.9 percent of all such investments into the bloc, it represented 90 percent of the EU’s high technology greenfield FDI in 2022, and 94 percent in 2023.

The two largest Chinese greenfield projects in Europe in 2022 were both in electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing, with investment totaling 8.3 billion euros. A further three large-scale investments also involved EVs and batteries, amounting to an additional combined capital outlay of 3.1 billion euros.

Considering the substantial value of Chinese investments in high-tech sectors, along with the associated geopolitical concerns, the EU is likely to intensify scrutiny on Chinese investments compared to those from other regions. The new greenfield investment rules appear weighed toward focusing on Chinese sources. As noted by Ropes & Gray, a firm specializing in inward investment, Chinese investors “need to be very committed and know they are in for enhanced scrutiny when investing in sensitive sectors.”

Outbound investment screening as well?

In a bid to further bolster European economic security, the Commission is also considering measures to address potential risks associated with outbound investments. It is likely that both the Commission and German federal government will model Europe’s new outbound control regime on the one recently introduced by the United States, which targets certain key advanced technologies, such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It may also include measures to restrict certain overseas investments and mandate reporting on all others.

Still, it remains to be seen whether the EU will proactively screen outbound investment as the U.S. does. Implementing such a control mechanism at the EU level would add a complex layer of regulation, potentially increasing costs for EU companies engaged in international mergers and acquisitions.

And while the EU’s FDI screening processes ostensibly apply universally, the political literature on the subject often frames these mechanisms as a reaction to increased Chinese investment in the single market. National security threats from Russia have similarly influenced the drive to tighten FDI rules.

Furthermore, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, European governments have shown heightened resolve to prevent the sale of strategic domestic assets to foreign investors. In line with this trend and the recent tightening of inward FDI screening in the EU, international investors’ enthusiasm for what they previously considered to be one of the premier destinations for global capital, has been dampened.

A Commission report on FDI screening revealed the declining level of FDI into the EU contributed to a 140 billion-euro drop in global inward FDI flows in 2022, while non-EU FDI flows remained relatively stable.

This raises a critical question: Have the EU’s new FDI screening frameworks shifted from their intended role of safeguarding national security and public order to inadvertently fostering economic protectionism? As the EU treads this fine line, the balance between regulation and openness remains pivotal to its economic strategy. What, then, are the likely outcomes?

Source: GIS