The tranquility of the savannah only shows itself in photos because in many parts of it are refugee camps in dire need of critical aid. War has taken root and it keeps happening that it is now part of daily life.

A few miles away, in a local clinic, a boy with a gunshot wound groans under his breath. His mother mutters prayer after prayer because she could do nothing else. What else is there to do if hope is a place far from where they are, far from the middle of Africa? Outside, Russian mercenaries patrol the streets while a helicopter hums overhead. In Batangafo, as in Aleppo, as in Gaza, as in Goma, peace is foreign. It is also a commodity. And someone is always buying.

War is now a way of life in many places – from the edges of Tripoli to the lush killing fields of eastern Congo to Rafah’s chaotic alleys and to the embattled deserts of Yemen – gunshots, screams, and cries for help are the daily podcast that no one can unsubscribe from. Meanwhile, in the quieter parts of the world, life goes on. Streets are relatively safe and no one is dropping bombs on schools and hospitals.

The world seems to need a global economy that requires conflict as fuel and demands suffering as proof that it is functioning even if it can function without it. And the world’s greatest powers – Western democracies, Eastern autocracies, and corporate giants – want to remain hidden for the sake of a flimsy form of deniability.

Africa and the Middle East have scars that the headlines rarely show. Under the satellite-ridden sky are artificial borders drawn by European cartographers who possibly sought chaos and catastrophe. Or they could have been men who were merely following orders. The Berlin Conference of 1884, which divided Africa among colonial powers, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which divided the Middle East post-Ottoman rule, created nations that would perpetually be engaged in civil wars and wars against each other. Those pieces of paper, of course, are not maps even if they look like maps. In reality, they are blueprints for conflict and instability.

War is never an accident or something that just springs up out of nowhere. War is business and every bomb dropped is profit. Conflict is the logic of the global economy and the powers that be make good use of it too in other ways. Each battlefield becomes a testing ground for weapons, a market for surveillance technology, a stage for diplomacy, and a resource hub for energy and minerals. It does not matter whether the victims are in Khartoum or Mosul. They are just collateral damage, statistics to powers. Their pain, although sometimes seen on social media, are muted and explained through the following concepts – diplomacy, peacekeeping, stabilization, and development.

The West, It’s Always the West

In 2011, NATO bombed Libya in the name of humanitarian intervention. A decade later, Libya remains a warlord’s playground, fragmented and lawless, with European and American arms still surfacing in militia stockpiles.

France, under the banner of counter-terrorism, spent over a decade fighting jihadists in the Sahel but its military campaigns in Mali and Burkina Faso coincided with the erosion of democratic governance, multiple coups, and deepening anti-French sentiment. Critics call it neo-colonialism in the guise of peacekeeping.

Then there is the United States, whose drone warfare in Yemen, Somalia, and Iraq has killed both militants and civilians, with limited accountability. The Pentagon’s AFRICOM program has trained military leaders, some of whom later led coups or were accused of war crimes.

The West promotes democracy but backs dictators. It denounces violence but sells weapons to regimes that bomb schools and hospitals. It proclaims neutrality but profits from war.

The Wagner Group and Blackwater

But in places where the West retreats, others rush in. Russia, cloaked in the mercenary exploits of the Wagner Group, offers security services in exchange for mineral wealth and political access. Wagner fighters operate in Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Mali – protecting strongmen, crushing dissent, and getting paid in gold. But some say they just loot.

While Russia has officially denied its ties to the group for many years, multiple documents, reports, and analyses indicate that it is an unofficial extension of the Russian state. This, however, is not a condemnation in any way because the West has done this, too, many times before. One enduring example is Blackwater, later on called Academi and then much later became a part of Constellis Group. The only difference is, Blackwater was a military contractor and had a legal standing in the United States as such.

Much like the Wagner Group, however, Blackwater provided armed security to diplomats and were involved in covert ops in Afghanistan and other places in favor of the Americans. The group was also accused of using excessive force and running illegal weapons deals.

During the war in Iraq, Blackwater functioned as a quasi-paramilitary extension of American foreign policy. Despite its legal status, Blackwater moved like a proxy that operated under state department contracts often with combat roles resembling those of the special forces and with minimal oversight.

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom in the ‘90s, Executive Outcomes was making waves in Sierra Leone and Angola. The group defeated rebels in Sierra Leone and in exchange, they secured mining concessions. This was a British proxy later linked to Sandline International. Sandline, on the other hand, is reportedly closely linked to British intelligence. Based on available records, Sandline operated in Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, and the Balkans. They were caught violating an arms embargo in Africa in 1998 reportedly with the knowledge of the UK Foreign Office. Although Sandline is private, it was supported by senior British officials at the time and they were used as proxies in places where the British cannot officially intervene.

Double Standards

It must be noted that Wagner fighters in Belarus, Africa, and Ukraine were given options to sign contracts with Russia’s defense ministry and that should they not sign, they should leave. But interestingly, in the Central African Republic and in Mali, Wagner’s presence is publicly supported by Russian diplomats.

But as always, there are double standards. Wagner is now officially designated as a transnational criminal organization by the U.S. Treasury based on documents from January 2023. In Europe and in the United Kingdom, Wagner is a mercenary operation that violates human rights laws and other international laws.

China, less overt, spreads influence through massive infrastructure loans and data surveillance technology, embedding itself in African governance and resource extraction. Its “non-interference” policy has made it a preferred partner of autocrats.

Turkey, Iran, and the UAE, on the other hand, export ideology, arms, and military training across conflict zones from the Syrian north to the Horn of Africa.

All of these are bids for regional supremacy.

And then there is G4S, possibly the world’s largest private security firm. At one point, G4S was active in Afghanistan and Iraq – providing logistical support, armed guards, and prison services. Although G4S does not have combat experience like the others, it acted like a proxy for the West by providing services critical to military occupation. G4S is a hybrid as it offers its services to the West in general and not just to one Western nation. Another hybrid is Blackwater’s Frontier Services Group. FSG has investments from China and once operated in South Sudan, Libya, and Kenya. It offers counter-insurgency, logistics, and base building services for African regimes needing muscle. It attempted to be China’s proxy in its Belt and Road Initiative.

Not-So-Invisible Investors

In Congo, children mine cobalt used in electric vehicles and smartphones. In Nigeria, oil spills have poisoned communities while multinationals deny accountability. In Gaza, foreign aid funded a rebuild only for Israeli bombs to reduce new schools and clinics to rubble again. Collateral damage? No, this is called the economics of war.

Multinational corporations do not require armies. They require access. And they often secure that access by striking deals with militias, dictators, or occupying forces. The blood never stains their boardroom floors, only the soil from which they extract their would-be products.

Direct Parallels

Palestine and Congo, though thousands of kilometers apart, embody the same structural violence. There is plunder under the guise of politics. In Gaza, Israeli bombs have flattened entire neighborhoods. Water and electricity are rationed. Movement is restricted. Reconstruction, for many years, has been cyclical and of course, temporary. Palestinians are condemned not just to occupation, but to perpetual vulnerability, in which peace is elusive and suffering is routine.

In eastern Congo, militias, many of which backed by foreign interests, control vast areas. Civilians are raped, displaced, and slaughtered while multinational companies reap profits from gold, coltan, cobalt, and rare earths. The UN has repeatedly warned that the violence is not random but “systematic and lucrative.”

Both Gaza and Congo are resource-prisons – Gaza for its geopolitical position and gas reserves offshore and Congo for its minerals. In both places foreign powers fund multiple sides and aid and arms arrive in parallel. The people are trapped in manufactured cycles of destruction and reconstruction and the logic is the same – crisis enables control and control ensures profit.

How the Global South Can Outsmart the West

For all the global talk of peace, it remains an unprofitable endeavor. That’s why wars persist. Policy analysts have long warned that no psychological reprogramming, no community healing, and no behavioral shift will stop the engines of conflict until peace can outperform war on the balance sheet.

But if peace cannot yet out-earn war, it can at least begin to outsmart it particularly in the Global South, where the greatest wealth lies in the ground itself.

The answer? Control the gates. From ground to port.

Too many mineral-rich nations have watched their oil, cobalt, lithium, and gas enrich someone else. Contracts are signed in foreign boardrooms. Resources are exported without scrutiny. Profits rarely make it past the capital city, let alone to the village where extraction begins. But this is not inevitable. It is a choice and it can be reversed.

Step one is national resource sovereignty. Countries must audit existing deals with foreign firms, renegotiate unfair terms, and cancel those that undermine national interest. No contract should be above the people. No clause should be hidden from them. Renegotiation must not be a one-time event, but a recurring condition. And any regime that inherits a state must also have the right to revisit its obligations.

But laws are not enough. A clause requiring local ownership means nothing if a so-called “local partner” is merely a proxy for the same foreign firm. A nation’s education system must teach the value of stewardship. Love of country must be civic muscle, not mere sentiment.

Governments can take a step further and establish state-owned or public-benefit resource companies, as Chile did with lithium and Bolivia with natural gas. The Democratic Republic of Congo could do the same with cobalt, not in opposition to the global market but in protection of national dignity. Yes, state ownership risks corruption but so does everything. The solution isn’t to shy away from control. It’s to pair control with harsh penalties and radical transparency. If a public official undermines the nation, let it be a betrayal written in law and punished accordingly. It is noted that the DRC cannot do this now while there is still conflict and considering the circumstances where most of its population is either displaced or working in harsh conditions, only a radical and perhaps an inevitably violent movement that is for the people can move the DRC to safer ground.

Legal fortification is critical. Countries must outlaw backdoor contracts and secret arbitration clauses that allow corporations to sue sovereign states in silence. Benefit-sharing should be a legal mandate and not a suggestion.

It must have a fixed percentage of resource wealth staying in local communities. And every foreign deal must include an anti-coup clause. If the government is overthrown, contracts become void. Let the world know that stability is part of the price.

But no nation wins this fight alone. The Global South must act as a bloc – a united front that builds regional legal teams, harmonizes tax and labor laws, and forms alliances for rare earths and critical minerals. No more divide and conquer. Standardize the rules and you raise the cost of exploitation.

Then comes the leverage. Act like equals. Tie access to resources to technology transfer, infrastructure co-development, and climate finance. If the world wants clean energy, let it invest in the custodians of the raw materials that will power it.

Above all, weaponize transparency. Make every contract public. Track every ton of ore using satellite and blockchain tools. Let journalists, civil society, and everyday citizens inspect the books. Turn the people into auditors. Silent conquest thrives in secrecy but you can let it die in daylight.

And finally, avoid the new traps – debt disguised as aid, mercenary security deals, and celebrity-endorsed greenwashing projects that loot in the name of climate justice. None of these are rescue or humanitarian. They are recolonization dressed in shinier clothes.

To the nations of the Global South, you don’t need permission to protect your future. You need a plan and you need solidarity. Your minerals are the foundation of tomorrow’s technologies. Your forests absorb the carbon of a warming world. Your people build the cities others dream in. Act accordingly.

You are not the battlefield. You are a gold mine. Guard yourselves like it.