Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 82 posts

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#3

Post by defrost »

For anyone with an interest this article is cut down and pared slice of a portion of the work of Dr. Olivier Walther and Dr. Steven Radil, geographers at the University of Florida.

A somewhat longer article of theirs is Why African Borderlands Keep Burning (April 15, 2026) - https://africanarguments.org/2026/04/why-african-borderlands...

and a recent paper Mapping the long-term trajectories of political violence in Africa (MARCH 2026) - https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06502

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#4

Post by 0xcafefood »

I thought walled towns died not due to state authority becoming stronger, but because offensive weaponry simply became effective enough to overcome walls. Walls can protect you from men with swords, but not from heavy artillery or bombers. Today, wouldn't a fleet of cheap drones render a wall moot?

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#6

Post by cineticdaffodil »

0xcafefood wrote: post #4

I thought walled towns died not due to state authority becoming stronger, but because offensive weaponry simply became effective enough to overcome walls. Walls can protect you from men with swords, but not from heavy artillery or bombers. Today, wouldn't a fleet of cheap drones render a wall moot?

Walls can not protect you from dhijadists either, the mortars take out the city- and besieging starves it out. In sudan- a "walled and ditched" city recently fell to the djandjhawid.. https://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/commentary/fall-el-fa...

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#7

Post by reillyse »

0xcafefood wrote: post #4

I thought walled towns died not due to state authority becoming stronger, but because offensive weaponry simply became effective enough to overcome walls. Walls can protect you from men with swords, but not from heavy artillery or bombers. Today, wouldn't a fleet of cheap drones render a wall moot?

But they also protect you from more low level lawlessness and if the law situation inside and outside the wall are the same (because of stronger states) they stop being worth maintaining.

Think in the US, the cops wouldn’t survive against a couple of machine guns and a drone strike, but they are still useful for security purposes.

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#8

Post by CuriouslyC »

0xcafefood wrote: post #4

I thought walled towns died not due to state authority becoming stronger, but because offensive weaponry simply became effective enough to overcome walls. Walls can protect you from men with swords, but not from heavy artillery or bombers. Today, wouldn't a fleet of cheap drones render a wall moot?

I suspect people are motivated by the desire not not catch stray bullets more than dissuade a concerted attack.

Re: Medieval-style fortifications are back in the Sahel

#9

Post by xphos »

defrost wrote: post #3

For anyone with an interest this article is cut down and pared slice of a portion of the work of Dr. Olivier Walther and Dr. Steven Radil, geographers at the University of Florida. A somewhat longer article of theirs is Why African Borderlands Keep Burning (April 15, 2026) - https://africanarguments.org/2026/04/why-african-borderlands... and a recent paper Mapping the long-term trajectories of political violence in A…

Thank you for the extra links i was think this article seemed to be missing context or a conclusion
Post reply on HN