Nigeria is not South Sudan or a small island nation easily destabilized by external interference. Nigeria is a sovereign state of over 220 million people, with deep military experience in asymmetric warfare and decades of coordinated internal security campaigns. There is a misconception that the U.S. or a superpower can simply “invade Nigeria” and solve insurgency overnight.
That is unrealistic. No nation, not even America has a “magic wand” to solve terrorism. Any foreign intervention still depends on Nigerian intelligence, Nigerian coordination, and Nigerian security architecture. Without cooperation from the host country, their operations would be blind and a total failure. The highest thing they can do is to carry out airstrikes on hideouts. Superpowers do not operate by instinct, they operate by access, permissions, and local knowledge.
The U.S. military is not designed for Nigeria’s terrain.
Hollywood creates the illusion that elite forces can appear anywhere and win instantly.
But the harsh reality is this: The U.S. Army is used to structured battlefield combat. Nigeria’s insurgency is terrain-based, asymmetric, psychological, and local-language dependent. Sambisa forest and the islands of Lake Chad are not Afghanistan or Iraq.
The U.S. cannot survive Sambisa without Nigerian Air Force ISR coordination, local ground intelligence, and the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) community grid. And more importantly: The mosquitoes alone can defeat a foreign force.
Those who fantasize about foreign troops entering Sambisa underestimate environmental warfare:Malaria prevalence, Extreme heat and humidity, Terrain without mapped routes, Zero night-time visibility without local scouts.
Survival in Sambisa or Timbuktu triangle requires familiarity, not firepower. In Timbuktu, the ISWAP are hiding under threes and rocks. Some of the terrain were more like Afghanistan.
Those waiting for foreign armies to “come and save Nigeria” are misunderstanding geopolitics.
Nigeria will be secured by Nigerians. Because no one, absolutely no one, understands this battlefield more than those already fighting in it.
