What about the Golden Hour?

How another coup in West Africa shows that truth is still stranger than fiction

Aug 06, 2023

Heads up: This post is not about energy, but I’m dying to write about the coup in Niger and multiple strange coincidences with my alt life as a thriller author.

Tell me if you know this one. A pro-American president of a strategic Sahelian country is overthrown and imprisoned by his own military. The reasons for the coup are personal, but shady Russians may be involved, while the US military is alarmed over the rise of extremist groups and the potential spillover of chaos. Meanwhile, a bright young American official named Judd is working furiously behind the scenes to restore democracy and prevent bloodshed. But Judd has to work fast because the window for influence – oh, let’s call it the Golden Hour – is closing fast.

A coup in Niger follows the script

This exact story is playing out in real time in Niger. President Mohamed Bazoum was deposed on July 26 and is being held hostage by his own bodyguards. The US military has drone bases in the country where it monitors extremist activity, while American diplomats are dismayed that the region has experienced seven coups in the last three years. Inside the White House, Judd Devermont, President Biden’s Special Assistant and Senior Director for Africa at the National Security Council, is a primary architect of the US policy response. President Biden’s statement calls for the immediate release of President Bazoum and the return of Niger’s democracy.

As of writing, a quick reversal looks unlikely. Peter Pham, the former State Department Special Envoy for the Sahel, bemoaned the missed opportunity, declaring in the Wall Street Journal: “The golden hour has passed.”

Peter’s phrase is no accident. Not long ago, I wrote about a pro-American president of another strategic Sahelian country who was overthrown by his own military and held under arrest. The reasons for this coup in Mali were personal, but shady Russians and extremist rebels were both threatening trouble. The Pentagon worried the political chaos would hurt its war on terrorists. Meanwhile, a bright young American official named Judd Ryker worked furiously behind the scenes to restore democracy and prevent bloodshed. But Judd Ryker had to work fast because the window for influence was closing fast. Of course, my book, The Golden Hour, was a work of fiction.

That The Golden Hour seems to be coming true in 2023 is not really all that unexpected. The original book was inspired by a real coup in Mauritania in 2008. I was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State at the time, effectively Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s lead official for West Africa. I fell into the job by a random coincidence tied to Nigeria’s debt negotiations when I met Bobby Pittman who eventually recommended me to Jendayi Frazer after he moved to the NSC to take the job Judd Devermont holds today. After General Aziz arrested the democratically-elected President Abdallahi in August 2008, I was sent to Nouakchott a few days later to try to reverse it. I failed.

Despite the defeat for democracy, the experience taught me a lot about how the US government does – and does not – respond to crises. I saw many impressive acts of bravery and conviction. But I also saw how a bureaucracy can be painfully slow to react, and how different government entities can have different goals that affect how they behave.

Diplomat to think tanker to thriller author

After I left government, my amazing boss at CGD Nancy Birdsall encouraged me to write a book about how interagency dysfunction impacts US foreign policy. Of course I couldn’t put the real juicy bits into a nonfiction book, but I did want to find a way to share what happens inside the secure rooms of a US embassy or in the Situation Room (actually it’s a complex of many rooms) in the lower levels of the West Wing. I decided it would be better – and more fun to read – as a thriller.

So I made up the adventures of Judd Ryker and his mysterious wife Jessica. Since few Americans have ever heard of Nouakchott, I set the plot in neighboring Mali on the premise that at least everyone’s heard of Timbuktu, even if many probably don’t realize it’s a real place. In the story, Judd Ryker is a polisci professor who has discovered a statistical pattern that the chances of a coup reversal decline over time, with a clear turning point at 100 hours. He dubs this the Golden Hour. After explaining his findings to diplomats, he’s invited to Washington to lead a special new Crisis Reaction Unit or S/CRU. The name is a harbinger. Of course the rest of the State Department doesn’t want some number-crunching interloper getting in the way of real diplomats. Crisis after crisis, Judd is iced out. After a coup in Mali, he finally gets his chance to prove his theory – and himself (cue dramatic music!)

A real coup intercedes

After I finished The Golden Hour, my first novel, I had a hard time finding an agent (which, unlike for nonfiction, is a prerequisite for finding a publisher). A mainstream thriller set in Africa was, and still is, a rarity. After multiple rejections, one prospective agent I met through a client of my cousin’s husband (never underestimate the power of networking) was watching BBC news when he saw a wild story about French troops fighting jihadists in northern Mali after (what else?) a coup. He realized he had a manuscript about a coup in Mali on his desk. He read it, agreed to represent me, and a few weeks later we had a deal with Penguin’s Putnam Books for a 4-book series. After Mali, Judd & Jessica jump into crises in Zimbabwe, then Cuba, and finally in Nigeria.

What’s real and what’s make-believe?

Reading the news of the Niger coup has been one of the few times since I left public service that I longed to be back in the action. Here’s a few things that are real from both my novels and the events unfolding today:

The two Judds. People often ask if Judd Ryker is really me? Judd & Todd are pretty similar names. I’m also a data dork that fell into the State Department. And I did draw on the Mauritania coup experience as inspiration. But, no, he’s not me. If I had anyone in mind as a model for Judd Ryker it’s Chris Blattman, the war-studying political scientist now at the University of Chicago. But, yes, I admit, Judd Ryker is named after my friend whom I got to know when he was a government analyst specializing in Nigeria… Judd Devermont.
The Golden Hour is real - sort of. While the statistical part is pure imagination, the concept of a “golden hour” is a real one I learned working as an EMT in Boston. In emergency medicine, getting a multi-trauma victim into a hospital within 60 minutes is considered critical to survival. I can’t prove it with data, but it seems similarly plausible that a country suffering a trauma, especially a coup where all the players are watching to see who’s going to win, would have a very short window before a new equilibrium sets in. If you wait too long, your chances of reversal go way down.
Good people are trying to defend democracy, but their tools are limited. Despite understandable cynicism and many counterexamples, the US government usually does try to uphold the ideals of democracy. Without committing military force, however, the US is left largely with punitive sanctions, cutting aid or military cooperation, and diplomatic persuasion. I have of course not asked the real Judd what he's doing to reverse the Niger coup, but I’m confident he’s pulling all the levers he has. And the faster he does it, the more likely he’ll succeed. But – like the fictional Judd – I’m also sure he’s facing bureaucratic delays and conflicting pressures from other actors.
The Sahel is sadly coup-prone. Many readers asked if I predicted the 2012 Mali coup with the novel. Not really. The region has suffered multiple military takeovers, and they usually follow a somewhat clichéd pattern: a personal grievance leads to the arrest of the president by his own security. The putsch is announced on TV by a beret-wearing soldier who justifies the overthrow on the grounds of some grand ideal, like saving the nation or fighting corruption. The US (and sometimes the Europeans) denounce the move, but wait to declare a coup to give them time to try to reverse it. We usually don’t succeed. And then we quickly move on, often after a promise for eventual elections. The West’s coup reversal losing streak is partly because these countries are rarely strategic enough to devote blood or treasure. But it’s mostly because the root of the instability has nothing to do with outside powers. Even the Russians can make trouble, but they’re rarely responsible, as is the case in Niger. As Ken Opalo writes, the string of coups in the Sahel is a sign, above all, of state failure.
Always watch the neighbors. While the US has limited leverage, the neighborhood could be decisive. The regional grouping ECOWAS has a decent record of democratic interventions, and it has come out forcefully against the Niger coup, even threatening military action. The ECOWAS chair is Nigeria’s new president Bola Tinubu who has set a deadline of today, August 6. I have no idea what comes next, but this is a deadly game of chicken.

One more crazy set of coincidences

Again, I have not predicted anything, but one more random coincidence from my novels feels worth sharing: The fourth Ryker book is The Shadow List, where Judd and Jessica go deep into the world of Nigerian scammers and Russian organized crime. Judd’s most influential ally is a fictional Nigerian judge named Bola Akinola who is based on the real-life Nuhu Ribadu, the former anti-corruption czar who is now… the National Security Advisor to President Bola Tinubu. Ribadu is a real-life hero and I’ll write about him in a future post.

So… what’s next?

I have not written another novel since The Shadow List. I’m cooking up a new idea, so I may jump back in. However, the second in the Ryker series, Minute Zero, is about an autocratic president in Zimbabwe who refuses to leave power after he loses an election. Judd Ryker has to overcome thugs, crooks, and myopic diplomats to find a way for democracy to win the day. Back in reality, Zimbabwe has an election on August 23. If I ever hope that one of my books does predict the future, this is it. 💛