While the order of battle information is interesting, I'd be interested in
(1) the Air Order of Battler and
(2) a professional assessment of:
- How much experience do the ECOWAS nations have in coalition operations? (Some have contributed to various UN and regional security initiatives in the past)
- how much experience the nations intending to intervene have in combined operations?
- How good they are at logistics?
- How is their air logistics / cargo / supply situation?
As I look at the map, that's a non-trivial undertaking that they are proposing, the kind that is difficult even for well trained and well experienced organizations like NATO ... who are well funded.
Even more daunting in that Niger already has two allies who have spoken up to indicate they'll interfere on behalf of the Niger coup leadership.
They just raised the ante.
Complicating the political problem further is that the US may want to keep their footprint there at the aforementioned base (or maybe not).
If the decision is to keep that base active, they will likely not offer support to the ECOWAS initiative in a supporting role (or a 'lead from behind' effort such as Obama did in a few of the North African and West African conflicts when he was in office).
I am sure that the Nigerian president already has people on the phone with various counterparts in Washington to work out a deal, but what kind of a deal that might be could take a lot of different forms.
Another thought on the coalition/combined operations theme:
I wonder if ECOWAS is going to look for backing at the UNSC.
I don't think that they need to, as they are a regional security organization, but at the political level I suspect that they will before crossing any borders.
All in all, I am not sure if this is a bluff.
If they choose to follow through, and the two allies stand up to support the coup leadership in Niger, this could be a substantial mess.