Editor's Note: This assessment is part of a series of analyses supporting Stratfor's 2020 Annual Forecast. These assessments are designed to provide more context and in-depth analysis of key developments over the next quarter and throughout the year. As Western security efforts struggle to keep militants from exploiting local vacuums in governance in the Sahel, escalating jihadist violence across the region shows no sign of slowing down. France has led the counterterrorism charge in the Sahel since its 2013 intervention in Mali to halt an emerging jihadist offensive. But those gains have been slowly and surely slipping away, as the insurgent threat has now morphed into a complex mess of ethnic and religious insurrections throughout most of Mali, and well into Burkina Faso and Niger . In fending off this increasingly formidable threat, however, France has largely been left to go it alone.