Event Details

The CWD work in progress seminar features CWD members and visiting speakers discussing ongoing research.

This paper looks at the CIA's heavy involvement in Chad's efforts to expel Libyan forces from its territory in the 1980s. It examines the nature of the CIA's role within US regional policy targeting Libyan expansion, its activities in Chad, and the character and quality of its analytic production.

Dr Nathaniel Powell is an Honorary Researcher at CWD Lancaster. He received his PhD in International History from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva. His research focuses on the Cold War in Africa and the history of postcolonial Franco-African relations, particularly in the field of security policy and military interventions. He is the author of France's Wars in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His current research focuses on the role of Franco-African intelligence and other security actors as conduits of French influence in former African colonies and as tools for authoritarian consolidation and statebuilding in France’s former empire. He is also working on a history of the Cold War in Zaire in the 1970s, with a focus on the relationship between Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese-Seko and his foreign backers, notably France and the United States. He has peer-reviewed publications in journals such as International History Review, African Security, Journal of Cold War Studies, Relations internationales, Refugee Survey Quarterly, and reviews such as Les Temps modernes. He has also published in press outlets such as The Conversation, Welt-Sichten, War on the Rocks, Libération, Foreign Affairs, and openDemocracy.