Africa

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Addressing China's Military Expansion in West Africa and Beyond

Last updated 03:18 PM EDT • Read time: 2m

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Executive summary

The next National Defense Strategy (NDS) is being drafted at a critical moment when the United States risks permanently ceding strategic influence to China in Africa—especially West Africa—without a reimagined approach to the continent. With lifesaving foreign assistance drastically reduced due to the current administration’s budget cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department programs, along with uncertain economic effects from tariffs, the United States has voluntarily weakened its diplomatic and economic tools to influence and support Africa.

This reality gives additional weight to the importance of defense diplomacy and military cooperation as critical means by which the United States can exercise strategic influence in the region. While the U.S. administration may be looking to narrow the United States’ role on the continent, Africa is too vast, important, and complex to attempt bilateral defense diplomacy, military-to-military relations, and counterterrorism efforts on the cheap, by proxy, or from afar.

Key issues for the Department of Defense (DoD) include acknowledging the looming strategic dilemma posed by China’s increased influence in Africa; developing a cohesive and responsive strategy to counter that influence; managing bilateral defense relationships; and addressing other regional priorities such as Russia’s growing influence and counterterrorism issues, which also have inextricable connections to China. The new NDS needs to lay a foundation to address these challenges. The alternative is over-regionalization of the China challenge to the Indo-Pacific, which could impose short-sighted limitations that will affect the U.S. role in Africa for years to come.