“Swap” and “Barter:” these two terms give some people goosebumps, and others hope of not getting the short end of the stick. Exchange and barter, then. This seems like a transaction that can benefit everyone. Or maybe not, because the deal gives an advantage to one party at the expense of the other.
Well, in terms of ‘Swap’ and ‘Barter,’ contemporary history is full of examples. Arrangements that rarely permanently resolve a dispute or conflict involving multiple parties, which have dichotomous agendas.
I am a fervent reader of history and memoirs of political figures. Every time I do, I cannot help but be stunned by the existence of several gray areas related to the management of African conflicts inherited from colonization.
I conclude that geopolitics can sometimes be built based on impressions, all in all false, regarding the outcome of a dispute, a disagreement, or a conventional war that hurts the concerned parties.
Quick swaps, fire in the house
At the center of the controversies are questions of sovereignty, ethnicities, human tragedies, and diplomatic and strategic cynicism. The context plays an important role in the decision-making process. It is only much later that analysis comes into play to take stock and distribute certificates of honor or blame.
Without going too far back, we can mention the Berlin Conference (1884-1885) on the partitioning of Africa, the Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) on the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the partitioning of the Middle East, as well as the various bilateral and multilateral agreements concluded by the former colonial powers and most African countries between 1950 and 1970.
Between swap and barter, sharing and dismemberment, the equation remains the same: the concerned actors aim to maximize benefits without being mindful, ethically speaking, of the reactions of the affected peoples. But as the saying goes, politics gives no room to actors who let themselves be fooled when making arrangements with strategic or even existential heavy impacts.
Examples from history make meticulous observers dizzy. I will mention a few that deserve special attention. We learn that the official history is both biased and full of unpublished material kept far from the public’s curiosity.
First, the negotiations and epistolary wars between Ethiopia and Eritrea after a long thirty-year war. The peace agreement signed between the two countries following the referendum leading to Eritrea’s independence in 1993 includes an episode of glaring diplomatic oversight.
Ethiopia agrees to be deprived of the only access it could have to the Indian Ocean. Tensions occasionally resurface between the two countries despite the signing of peace agreements in 2000 and 2018.
No strategist or political planner detects in Ethiopia’s concession, depriving itself of an opening to the sea, a prospective geopolitical reading that will demonstrate, two decades later, that the Ethiopians, although forced to act as they had, knew what they were doing.
Indeed, in 2018, Ethiopia managed to resolve the issue of its landlocked status by signing an ambitious agreement with China. The agreement includes an estimated 4 billion USD investment aimed at the construction of a 751,5 kilometers cross-border railroad line between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. The cross-border line reaches the port of Djibouti. Ethiopia corrects the mistake made in 1993 and, by the same token, gains access to the ocean.
This entry intensifies the struggle for influence between France, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel with respect to maritime port geopolitics. Better, it allows China to refine its Silk Road strategy from the East coast of Africa.
Secondly, the peace plan the United States presented during the Camp David negotiations in 2000 included the idea of exchanging territories between Palestinians and Israelis. This was intended to allow the future Palestinian state to have its capital in Al-Quds, but not in Jerusalem-East as demanded by the Palestinians and Arab, and Muslim countries.
Indeed, all the resolutions adopted by the Organization of the League of Arab States speak of the State of Palestine on the occupied Palestinian territories, with Al-Quds as its capital. Israel does not see it that way. The Knesset adopted a fundamental law in 1980, considering Jerusalem as the “one and indivisible” capital of the State of Israel.
If the Camp David and Sharm al-Sheikh negotiations had failed in 2000, it was due to a dichotomous interpretation of the idea of swapping lands around Al-Quds. If the Palestinians had accepted, they would have signed the evaporation of their main claim, that of having an independent state with its capital, East Jerusalem, living side by side with Israel.
Henceforth, the other issues related to refugees, water, and settlements seemed secondary. This development did not solve the underlying main issue: Al-Quds as the home of the three monotheist religions.
To a clever person, a clever and a half
Thirdly, the issue of land swap has been legion in Europe, particularly in the aftermath of the two world wars. In this regard, we can mention the shift of the Saar territory between France and Germany. If it is true that this shift was the consequence of power dynamics, it nevertheless posed the thorny question of sovereignty to French and German decision-makers.
Indeed, Saarland was initially placed under the supervision of the League of Nations within the French rules, mainly in the aftermath of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. This lasted for a while as France was granted the status of protectorate over the territory. The population of Lasserre, mostly German, rejected this status.
Finally, in 1957, Saarland was permanently reunited with Germany. The idea of swap or barter is not visible because it has been concealed by the memories of the more general dispute between France and Germany over Alsace-Lorraine. Indeed, the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) resulted in the annexation of Alsace-Moselle by the Germans. An occupation that would end in the aftermath of the First World War by virtue of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1920, Alsace-Lorraine returned to French Sovereignty.
Fourthly, the issue of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir is much more original. The two islands administered by Egypt from 1950-2017 were the subject of a dispute between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Very tiny, with a total area of 113 km2, they nevertheless hold significant strategic importance. They present a vital navigation transit in the Red Sea, allowing ships to access ports of Aqaba and Eliat.
The transfer of the two islands to Saudi Arabia sparked heated debates in Egypt at a time when the Arab world was barely recovering from the fallout of the Arab Spring (2011-2014). Some saw it as the triumph of the post-Arab Spring counter-revolution. Others have perceived it as a reconfiguration of regional geopolitics, relegating the rise to power of Islamist movements in some Arab countries to the background.
Swap and barter take on an original form here. Besides ending a dispute that would no longer have any reason to exist, they allowed both parties to achieve their goals to the extent that significant investments were promised by Saudi Arabia as part of the promotion of ambitious tourism projects benefiting both parties.
Fifthly, the issue of swap and barter is prominently present in the Maghreb sub-region. It follows the same logic as the arrangements proposed by the colonial powers. On the occasion of the latest developments in the Moroccan Sahara issue, revelations have been made public, according to which, on the eve of Algeria’s independence, France proposed the retrocession of the Eastern Sahara to Morocco in exchange for the continuation of nuclear tests in these territories. Morocco refused, preferring to settle the border issue directly with Algeria, once it became independent.
However, we won’t linger on this track for long, as the cynicism in the French proposal at the time was glaring. Even more cynical, and above all, was the French proposal contained in the so-called “Sahara Tomorrow” plan in 1979.
The plan included the idea of swapping lands under the guise of a narrow sharing that primarily allowed Algeria to have access to the Atlantic. This plan was concocted at a time when negotiations sponsored by Algeria were taking place between Mauritania and the Polisario, with Mali playing the role of undercover main mediator. The plan envisions that the former would cede Terris al-Gharbiyya (Oued Eddhab) to the latter.
Bad losers on the verge of being browbeaten
All this explains why, in 2002, in Houston, Algeria, once again tried to champion the idea of splitting the Sahara territory while dangling the scheme of swap or barter. Algerian decision-makers firmly thought that the north of Mauritania was acquired, as Polisario elements roamed there without any problems. However, for at least a year now, the situation has changed, and Mauritania is now aware of the dangers this presents to its own sovereignty.
For about four years, a plan to transfer the populations of Tinduf to northern Mauritania has been devised by Algeria. No doubt, the Algerians had in mind the broad outlines of the failed agreement between Mauritania and the Polisario in 1979 on the eve of Morocco’s recovery of Terris al-Gharbiyya.
The agreement between Mauritania and the Polisario would have provided for a kind of union, once the fait accompli against Morocco had been imposed. The idea would have gone beyond the execution of a transaction based on swap or barter.
A few days ago, voices claiming to be from northern Mauritania declared their intentions to request the establishment of an autonomous regime in this region within the framework of Mauritanian sovereignty. This means returning to the initial plan, which is to allow the Polisario to have a foothold. Soon, we would learn that people involved in this proposal were elements belonging to the Polisario who had acquired Mauritanian nationality decades ago. They would therefore fit into the initial plan of swap, barter, and separatism.
Algeria suffers from a blue fear every time the issue of borders is raised. Caught in endless contradictions, Algerian decision-makers are racing against the clock to avoid losing everything in October 2026 if Algeria does not fully comply with the United Nations Security Council’s decision of October 31, 2025.
Curious behavior bordering on the ridiculous. Indeed, Algeria defends the principle of the inviolability of borders inherited from French colonization, and turns a blind eye to the fact that it acquired territories belonging to Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Mali, and Niger, thanks to the former colonial power.
Algeria feels stunned every time the issue of borders comes back into the spotlight. Algerian decision-makers were crucified when Sergei Lavrov alluded to Algerian borders drawn by colonization, on the eve of the adoption of resolution 2797/2025 on the Sahara. Moroccan YouTubers play with the patience and restraint of Algerians by bringing up the issue of the Eastern Sahara. The Algerians are fuming and crying scandal like never before.
It goes without saying that voices in Mali, Libya, and Tunisia have lately questioned Algerian borders inherited from colonization. This brings me to mention the border agreement signed between Algeria and Morocco in 1972.
The agreement refers to the previous agreements concluded between Morocco and France before the protectorate regime. It also includes, and mainly, provisions on the joint exploitation of natural resources, notably the Garat Jbilat deposit. International law dictates that agreements between sovereign states must be fully respected, or they are fully called into question.
This explains why Algeria is stepping up its efforts to play diversion, as it did by hastily organizing a conference on the criminalization of colonization last week. Or instead of focusing on the main claim of the consequential compensation demand, Algeria, through its foreign minister, went into a monologue on the so-called Western Sahara issue. Claiming compensation from European colonial powers and attempting to add Morocco to it was a ridiculous move.
Algeria will have to face the hawks within the military establishment who are playing for their survival by continuing to support separatist projects in the sub-region. Already, diplomatic chancelleries and decision-making centers in Europe, the United States, and Africa no longer distinguish between separatism and terrorism.
Certainly, the hawks within the Algerian military establishment and the Polisario do not accept losing across the board. They will be tempted to continue the policy they have implemented for two decades, namely the promotion of instability in the Maghreb and the Sub-Saharan Africa regions.
Already, complicities with foreign interests that have lost on other fronts are coming to the forefront. Certainly, the die is cast, but accepting the fait accompli is not the favorite taste of these actors who can only live in and through the destabilization of the Europe-Maghreb-Sub-Saharan Africa space.
Algerian decision-makers are on the run. They have done everything to thwart the plan for autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty that Morocco proposed in 2007 to resolve the Sahara issue.
They fear seeing the idea spread to their own territory, particularly in Kabylia. Too late, the Algerian decision-makers’ lasting misperception of geopolitical changes has caused them to lose it all. On December 14, 2025, the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia (MAK) proclaimed the independence of Kabylia to the great dismay of the military establishment.
A Misleading Compass in the air
Sixthly, I can’t resist sharing the following anecdote about a bad-inspired decision, reeking of amateurism, whereby the colonial powers drew the African borders. One of the most hilarious examples is the Caprivi Strip. This depicts the status of one of the most bizarre borders in Africa.
All that this tiny territory now witnesses would be an accident of history. The secessionist temptations of the Caprivi Liberation Army that plague Namibia are a reminder that this territory, then controlled by South Africa, was to serve as a Bantustan for black people in 1976.
It all started when Germany and Britain signed a territory swap agreement in 1890, under which the islands of Zanzibar were ceded to Britain in exchange for the Heligoland archipelago, near Hamburg, Germany. However, in the transaction, a bonus was added, namely the Bechuanaland Strip (British protectorate, which became independent in 1966 as Botswana).
The Germans thought they had struck a good deal. They aimed to control the Zambezi River. They needed a route that would allow them to access the Indian Ocean, passing through the West African territories they already controlled.
This proved to be a big mistake, as navigation on the Zambezi River via the Caprivi Strip was impossible due to underground currents and natural obstacles around Lake Victoria. The Germans gave up the islands of Zanzibar and inherited a useless strip, and lost it all.
As paradoxical as it may seem, the transaction on the islands of Zanzibar occurred in the wake of the conflict between Germany and France over Alsace-Lorraine (1870-1871) mentioned earlier and in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference on the partition of Africa (1884-1885).
In 2020, a conference and a symbolic tribunal were organized in Berlin to remind new generations of historians and international experts of the unjust partition of African countries on the occasion of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Some observers interpreted the venue as a shot in the dark. Nevertheless, this didn’t rule out the idea of awakening dormant consciences in the heat of geostrategic changes that caused a shift of priorities on the global stage.
If challenging borders on a large scale is a risky gamble, solutions exist to allow all conflicting parties to combine the useful with the pleasant. Among the suitable solutions, there are integration and the promotion of common prosperity in areas where tensions, bordering on direct military confrontation, are the highest.
The geopolitical compass no longer accommodates the strabismus of bad losers, who shoot at anything that moves. They risk missing all the targets and end up shooting themselves in the foot
