Nearly two decades after the United States created Africa Command, the strategic assumptions that produced AFRICOM are being overturned.

When President George W. Bush ordered its creation in 2007, Washington was primarily concerned with terrorism, fragile states and building African military capacity. AFRICOM began initial operations in October 2007 and became a fully independent combatant command in October 2008. Today it is responsible for US military activities across 53 African states.

Approaching its twentieth anniversary, however, AFRICOM confronts a substantially different continent.

Terrorist organisations have expanded across the Sahel. China has become Africa’s largest commercial partner and a significant infrastructure and security actor. Russia has developed relationships with governments from Libya to the Central African Republic and Sahel. Critical minerals have become national-security assets. Drones are transforming African warfare.

At the same time, the United States has lost some of the access from which it previously monitored these threats.

That contradiction—more strategic importance but less assured military access—defines AFRICOM’s emerging doctrine.

General Dagvin R.M. Anderson’s May 2026 congressional posture statement consequently points towards an American strategy built less around permanent American deployments and increasingly around African partners, technology, commercial investment and information.

 

Africa Has Moved to the Centre of Global Strategy

Demography explains part of the transformation.

Africa’s population is expected to approach 2.5 billion by 2050, representing roughly one-quarter of humanity. Its enormous mineral reserves, expanding consumer markets and strategic geography make the continent increasingly difficult for any global power to treat as peripheral.

AFRICOM itself describes an area containing more than 800 ethnic groups, over 1,000 languages, almost 19,000 miles of coastline and enormous natural-resource wealth.

Anderson told Congress in May that Africa stood at a crossroads where terrorism, economic competition and what Washington calls malign external influence increasingly intersect.

This represents a significant evolution.

The original AFRICOM was largely conceived within the post-9/11 security environment.

The AFRICOM approaching 20 is becoming an instrument of great-power competition.

The Sahel Exposes America’s Access Problem

Nowhere is the transformation clearer than the Sahel.

Years of Western counter-terrorism operations failed to eliminate jihadist insurgencies. Coups then overturned governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and contributed to the withdrawal of French and American forces from important positions.

The consequences extend beyond the physical loss of bases.

Intelligence requires geography.

Drones require airfields. Aircraft require overflight permissions. Special forces require staging locations. Human intelligence requires relationships. Hostage-rescue operations require information and rapid access.

Remove these networks and enormous American technological superiority becomes less decisive.

This is AFRICOM’s emerging over-the-horizon problem.

Washington can possess satellites, drones and sophisticated intelligence systems while simultaneously losing the proximity necessary to maintain continuous understanding of events on the ground.

Anderson’s warning to Congress was particularly stark: ISIS remains capable of threatening American interests, while continued al-Qaeda expansion could provide its affiliates with the territorial depth to establish something resembling a state on the continent.

Terrorism Has Not Disappeared

The renewed focus on China and Russia therefore cannot simply replace counter-terrorism.

Al-Shabaab remains entrenched in Somalia and capable of sophisticated attacks. Across West Africa, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin—JNIM—has expanded operations beyond its traditional areas.

This creates a strategic dilemma.

The United States does not want another Afghanistan-style military commitment in Africa.

But withdrawing too far risks allowing jihadist organisations to develop the territorial sanctuaries that the post-9/11 security architecture was created to prevent.

AFRICOM’s answer is increasingly partner-led counter-terrorism.

African forces would conduct most fighting while the United States supplies intelligence, training, communications, specialist technology and, when authorised, precision military capabilities.

It is cheaper politically and financially than large-scale intervention.

Its weakness is dependence upon the capability and legitimacy of partner governments.

From Bases to Sensors

Technology therefore becomes AFRICOM’s force multiplier.

The emerging concept is essentially to reconstruct lost physical visibility digitally.

Space-based surveillance, commercial satellites, artificial intelligence, inexpensive sensors and secure communications can potentially create a distributed intelligence network without requiring large American bases.

Exercises such as Flintlock consequently have significance beyond military training.

They can function as laboratories where African and American forces test communications, surveillance systems, drones and counter-drone technologies under real operational conditions.

This reflects one of the most important lessons from Ukraine.

Cheap technology can sometimes generate effects previously requiring enormously expensive military platforms.

For African militaries operating under severe budget constraints, that lesson is potentially revolutionary.

China Changes the Economic Battlefield

The second major transformation concerns China.

Washington increasingly regards Chinese economic activity through a national-security lens.

Critical minerals illustrate why.

Graphite, cobalt, manganese, lithium and rare-earth elements are no longer simply commodities. They are inputs into batteries, missiles, aircraft, electronics and the energy transition.

Chinese dominance over portions of these processing chains creates vulnerabilities extending far beyond Africa.

Ports create similar concerns.

A Chinese-financed commercial deep-water port is not automatically a Chinese naval base. But infrastructure capable of supporting large commercial vessels can potentially acquire military utility.

Djibouti already demonstrates that Beijing is willing to maintain a permanent overseas military facility when Chinese interests justify one.

For AFRICOM, preventing strategic dependence therefore increasingly requires something the Pentagon traditionally does not specialise in: economic competition.

Defence Economics Becomes Strategy

This explains AFRICOM’s growing interest in what Anderson calls defence economics.

The command’s 2026 African Chiefs of Defense Conference placed unusual emphasis on the relationship between security, industry and economic development. AFRICOM described defence economics and commercial innovation as central pillars of its longer-term strategy.

That represents a conceptual shift.

America cannot compete with Chinese infrastructure financing by simply deploying additional soldiers.

It needs ports, communications, logistics networks and private investment that provide African governments with credible alternatives.

Security infrastructure can simultaneously serve civilian economies.

A runway capable of handling military transports can also facilitate commercial cargo. A port useful to naval vessels can support trade. Fibre-optic networks can support military communications and civilian businesses.

The battlefield is therefore becoming partly economic.

Russia Offers a Different Challenge

Russia operates differently.

Where China emphasises infrastructure and commerce, Moscow has exploited security vacuums.

Russian military relationships in Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic have provided Moscow with influence while offering African governments weapons, trainers and political-security relationships with fewer governance conditions than Western assistance traditionally carries.

Washington portrays this activity as destabilising and exploitative.

African governments involved often present the relationship differently—as diversification away from former colonial powers and Western security arrangements that failed to suppress insurgencies.

Both perspectives matter.

If AFRICOM treats every African relationship with Moscow simply as evidence of Russian manipulation, Washington risks misunderstanding why governments seek alternatives in the first place.

The Information War

That explains the third pillar: information.

Russia, China and the United States are competing not only for military access but for interpretation.

Who caused instability?

Who exploits African minerals?

Whose military assistance works?

Who respects African sovereignty?

These questions increasingly influence basing agreements and diplomatic access.

AFRICOM therefore intends to expose activities it considers exploitative or environmentally damaging while presenting American partnerships as more transparent alternatives.

But information operations have limits.

Narratives ultimately have to correspond with African experience.

If populations see Western governments condemning competitors while overlooking failures by Western companies or partners, strategic communications can easily be interpreted as propaganda.

Credibility cannot simply be manufactured.

The Quiet Power of Military Education

One of America’s less visible advantages remains military education.

For decades, International Military Education and Training programmes have brought African officers into relationships with American military institutions.

The objective extends beyond battlefield skills.

Professional military education exposes officers to doctrines concerning civilian control, military law, command structures and defence administration.

The National Guard State Partnership Program provides another relatively inexpensive mechanism for maintaining long-term institutional relationships. The programme now operates globally across more than 100 partner nations, and AFRICOM continues expanding African participation.

These relationships may ultimately be more durable than temporary deployments.

Generals retire. Governments change. Bases close.

Institutional networks can survive all three.

The Original AFRICOM Paradox Remains

There is nevertheless an irony at the heart of AFRICOM.

The command responsible for Africa remains headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

That arrangement originates partly from the controversy surrounding AFRICOM’s creation. American officials initially explored establishing the headquarters on the continent but encountered substantial African opposition and abandoned the idea. A senior AFRICOM official later described the early handling of that proposal as a serious mistake.

Almost twenty years later, the episode remains instructive.

African governments want security cooperation.

They do not necessarily want foreign military dependency.

The African Choice

For African countries, the changing AFRICOM strategy creates opportunities but also risks.

US intelligence and counter-terrorism technology can strengthen forces confronting insurgencies. American military education can improve professionalism. Infrastructure investment can produce civilian as well as military benefits.

But Africa should avoid becoming merely terrain for another great-power confrontation.

The continent’s interests are not automatically identical to those of Washington, Beijing or Moscow.

African states can cooperate with the United States while trading with China, buying Turkish equipment, maintaining relationships with Russia and developing indigenous defence industries.

Indeed, AFRICOM’s own 2026 conference acknowledged the importance of sovereign African defence-industrial capability, with discussions emphasising that African security cannot remain indefinitely dependent upon imported systems.

That may be the most important development of all.

Twenty Years Later

AFRICOM was created when Washington feared that weak African states could become sanctuaries for terrorists.

Nearly twenty years later, that threat remains.

But it has been joined by something much larger.

Africa has become part of the competition over minerals, maritime routes, artificial intelligence, defence production, infrastructure and the future international order.

The Pentagon’s response is therefore evolving from American presence towards American connectivity: fewer assumptions about permanent access, greater reliance on partners, more commercial technology, distributed intelligence and closer integration between security and economics.

Whether it succeeds will depend on something military technology cannot guarantee.

African consent.

For DWA readers, this is the strategic significance of AFRICOM approaching its twentieth anniversary.

America has finally recognised that Africa is indispensable to twenty-first-century global power. But it is discovering that recognising Africa’s importance does not automatically translate into influence over Africa.

The next phase of AFRICOM will consequently be determined not by how many American troops Washington can deploy to the continent, but by whether African governments believe partnership with the United States advances their own security, sovereignty and economic interests.

Majemite Jaboro writes for DWA