Somalia

Where the choice is between the Islamists and the pirates.

A tough call for those with a record of backing the Islamists who are also pimps, the Islamists who are also heroin barons, and so on. Which side will they be on this time, and why?

There can be no compromise with piracy, an easily identifiable phenomenon in the way that terrorism very often isn't. India and China show growing signs of understanding that in the Indian Ocean, just as we did there and elsewhere when we were a superpower. Good luck to them.

But I suspect that the country which remains a de facto superpower in Africa will have the last word on this one. For all the cheap jokes about the French, the last thing that they are is "surrender monkeys" who have never won a battle. They just don't believe in sacrificing their sons for interests unrelated or even hostile to their own, that's all. And good for them.

A significant Somali pirate (or, for that matter, Islamist) attack on a French interest and they'd be in like a shot. Neither the pirates nor the Islamists would be left in power. Even though not in a part of Africa's vast "former" French Empire, a functioning and possibly even official protectorate would be set up, a European colonial outpost on the mainland of the African continent once more.

Once that had started, it wouldn't stop. Zimbabwe, here we come. And possibly South Africa as well.