However, the secret to Operation Barkhane�s success has less to do with advancements in French counter-terrorism doctrine and more to do with the failures of the region�s various insurgencies. A 2003 RAND study indicates that successful occupations or nation-building exercises have generally required a ratio of 20 soldiers per thousand civilians in the host country. It is difficult to say whether the American-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq conform to the conclusions of this study or if revisiting the issue of successfully occupying a country, particularly as instability persists in both Afghanistan and Iraq, would result in the conclusion that a lower ratio would be needed. Regardless, the terrorist elements in the Sahel have failed to gather the critical mass of fighters and resources necessary to establish an �Islamic Caliphate� in the region.

According to the US State Department, AQIM had not more than 1,000 members at its height, most of whom were located in Algeria. Meanwhile, Ansar al-Dine had approximately 300 fighters in northern Mali prior to the French intervention. Estimates as to the size of Al-Mourabitoun�s fighting force are vague, but French sources have the group at no more than 100 members concentrated on the Niger-Mali border. On 2 March 2017, the three groups committed to band together as �Jama�at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin�, more colloquially known as Nusrat al-Islam, and was recognized by al-Qaeda as its regional affiliate a little over two weeks later. Despite this, these Islamist and secessionist forces lack the resources necessary to mount a serious challenge to the sovereignty of any of the G5S countries.

If even the most generous estimates of Nusrat al-Islam�s resources are to be taken at face value, the organization has no more than 4,000 members. The combined population of the G5S is just over 75.6 million people, and so Nusrat al-Islam would require a force of more than 1.5 million well-trained and well-supplied fighters to successfully occupy and govern the whole region, based on the findings of the 2003 RAND study. If the Islamist coalition were to lower its sights to simply occupying Mali, a force of 360,000 fighters would still be needed to keep the country of 18.0 million people in check. Even holding the northern Malian territory of Timbuktu against a determined insurgency or a foreign intervention would be beyond Nusrat al-Islam�s resources: such a task would require almost 14,000 fighters.

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In a very real sense, Operation Barkhane succeeds because it does not seek to project power throughout the Sahel; it merely sets out to deny militant Islamist organizations from doing so. With so few fighters to draw upon, and with its resources spread across thousands of kilometres of desert, it is unlikely Nusrat al-Islam or any of its constituent organizations will ever be able to seriously challenge a G5S country for sovereignty. This seems to have been implicitly recognized by Nusrat al-Islam�s leadership, as much of the recent activities conducted by the organization have been reverted to isolated attacks, mainly intended to terrorize civilian populations or challenge the legitimacy of UN forces, rather than mounting any assault intended to seize territory or resources. For example, in June 2017, Nusrat al-Islam launched a series of mortar shells at a UN camp near Kidal, Mali that killed three peacekeepers while several gunmen attacked a resort complex outside the Malian capital of Bamako, reportedly killing three civilians and two Malian soldiers. These attacks, while tragic, represent an entirely different scale of operations to the rebellion that drove government forces out of northern Mali in January 2012.

This may also go some way toward explaining the failure of other asymmetric security threats to mount a lasting challenge to state sovereignty in sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram has been largely dismantled through a coordinated military response from Nigeria and other regional partners, such as Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Recent estimates suggest Boko Haram has somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 fighters within its ranks, whereas it was once claimed by Amnesty International that the group had more than 15,000 fighters. With much of its activities concentrated on Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram would have needed a force of more than 118,000 soldiers to bring the region fully under its control.