I'm not a fan of the geographic argument as it removes agency from state and non-state actors who are backing various groups partaking in the Sahel insurgency.

The most obvious ones are the France/US-Russia, the UAE-Turkiye, and UAE-KSA rivalries, but even those is being exploited by Morocco and Algeria in the Sahel due to their existential rivalry.

Morocco and Algeria view each other as existential threats, and the Sahel will never become peaceful until that rivalry is resolved. Instead, it is becoming worse - Morocco is now transferring military IP and technology from the US, Israel, India, and the UAE while Algeria from Turkiye, China, Pakistan, and Russia.

The geographic argument also ignores the ethnic tensions that have always existed in the Sahel. Vast swathes of Maghrebis, Baggaras, Amazigh, and Tuaregs continue to down on Sub-Saharan Africans, and they tend to be the leadership in JNIM, AQIM, ISSP, ISWAP, and other Islamist groups in the Sahel. Their leaders remember how they and not Africans were the rulers of slave states in the Sahel before the French came.

And those who don't subscribe to ethnic chauvanism subscribe to religious chauvanism, hence why leadership of formerly secular insurgent groups like the Polisario Front and MPLA became hardened Islamists who are trying to enforce Sharia in states where the religious demography is not uniform.