Giving Compass' Take:

• Michael Shurkin reports how pulling up stakes in West Africa and cutting support for France's war effort has dangerous implications, even if the dangers are not immediate.

• How can funders best support communities and countries in their transitional justice efforts? 

• Here's how to make an impact for refugees in Africa and the Middle East. 

News that the U.S. Department of Defense is contemplating a major drawdown in West Africa—potentially cutting support to France's 4,500-strong combat mission in the Sahel as well—comes as the region is in crisis. Islamist groups affiliated with al Qaeda and the Islamic State have spread violence across central Mali, northern Nigeria, and throughout Burkina Faso. West Africa's much more heavily populated coastal nations, such as Benin, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast, could be next.

France has been lobbying its European allies to help stem the tide, but they appear torn between a desire to help France and a reluctance to become more entangled in a war that is looking like another Afghanistan.

For Americans, who are much less directly involved, the Sahel crisis raises a fundamental question: Beyond basic humanitarian concern, if the Sahel falls apart, why should Americans care?

Yes, the Sahel and surrounding countries could get a lot worse. But rather than thinking in terms of falling dominos, a better metaphor might be a spreading airborne virus that ravages organs and limbs without fully killing the patient. International aid may keep capital cities alive, but a complete recovery is hard to imagine. Life will become more difficult for growing populations, who will become more susceptible to radicalization. Radical Islamist groups could consolidate power and end up governing large areas with significant populations. Such African emirates might bring order, but also bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, and cruelty of the sort exhibited by ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Read the full article about if the U.S. withdrawals from West Africa by Michael Shurkin at RAND Corporation.