Togo

Unlikely (roughly 20–30%): Togo is more likely than not to avoid significant armed conflict over the next three years, but faces a persistent tail risk of escalation driven by jihadist spillover in the Savanes region.

Localized militant violence in Savanes is likely to persist, with raids/ambushes and occasional IED incidents near the Burkina Faso border. Current evidence also suggests governance-related incidents and protest cycles will continue, but are more likely to be contained through coercive policing than to evolve into organized armed confrontation. The most important near-term stabilizer is continued frontier hardening plus community-linked early warning and resilience spending.

If Burkina Faso’s eastern theatre continues to deteriorate and militants deepen cross-border logistics, the risk of a durable insurgent foothold in northern Togo rises, especially if abuses and service gaps erode community cooperation. If border defenses, accountability, and coastal-neighbor coordination improve while resilience programs deliver visible benefits, violence is more likely to remain episodic and peripheral. Interstate war remains very unlikely.

Definition and scope Significant armed conflict means sustained, organized fighting with recurring clashes and some durable denial of state control in part of Togo, or a broader internal war. Sporadic raids, isolated IEDs, riots, and episodic protest violence do not meet this threshold.

Threat drivers The dominant risk remains cross-border jihadist pressure from Burkina Faso into the Savanes region. The pattern is consistent with probing and intimidation: raids/ambushes, occasional complex attacks, and IED use aimed at security forces and local authority presence. Regional security fragmentation and uneven cross-border coordination create seams for militant logistics and sanctuary cycling.

A secondary driver is domestic political strain following constitutional changes and coercive crowd-control practices. Repression can degrade community trust and intelligence flow, especially in peripheral areas where counterterrorism depends on local reporting. However, available indicators still point to recurrent civil unrest and governance incidents rather than the emergence of a coherent armed challenger with territorial ambitions.

A tertiary driver is external alignment risk. Togo’s diversification of partnerships, including expanded engagement with Russia and discussion of closer ties with Sahel juntas, could complicate relations with some Western partners. This is more likely to affect aid, training, and diplomatic bandwidth than to pull Togo into interstate war. The key risk would be if external security assistance incentivized heavy-handed operations that increase local grievances in the north.

Resilience and systemic firebreaks (pre-mortem: why peace can hold) Exposure is geographically concentrated in the far north, enabling prioritization of key axes, posts, and population centers. The security apparatus remains cohesive and capable of surge deployments. Reported investments in forward posts, surveillance, and community-linked early warning raise the cost of militant penetration.

Non-military resilience measures also matter: expanded social and development programming in Savanes, including World Bank-supported cohesion and resilience projects, can reduce recruitment space if implemented credibly. Economically, Lomé’s port and transit role sustains strong regime incentives to prevent nationwide destabilization.

Net assessment and signposts Baseline holds with a modest upward drift in chronic insecurity but not a clear structural shift to durable insurgency. Watch for repeated overruns of fortified posts, persistent IED belts on main roads, parallel taxation/justice, sustained displacement emptying border communes, or evidence of semi-permanent militant bases deeper inside Togo.