The US has a New Defence Plan and Africa is Largely Missing from It

The United States (US) has released a new National Defense Strategy (NDS), a 34-page document that explains how Washington plans to use its military power in the years ahead. Produced by the Department of War, the strategy lays out how the US sees the world, which threats it believes matter most, and how it intends to protect its interests without returning to the era of endless foreign wars.

The National Defense Strategy runs to roughly 8 300 words. Africa receives just 82 of them, or about 0.99% of the total. This is striking given that Africa accounts for 28% of all the countries in the world. Africa counts for 19% of the global population, which is expected to increase to over 25% by 2050. Africa now has more cities of over a million inhabitants than Europe and America combined. Excluding South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest growing economic region in the world, in terms of economic growth. Its GDP may be a fraction of the global average, but when the growth rate is multiplied by the population and projected into the future, Africa’s economic influence is set to become very much greater that many analysts understand.

Its strategic importance in global affairs is significant in the sense that it accounts for over a quarter of all votes cast in the United Nations General Assembly. This importance is clearly recognised by Western rivals from China to Russia and Iran, all of whom have advanced Africa strategies to increase their economic and diplomatic influence on the continent.

The Common Sense reported earlier this month that China is developing 49 port construction, expansion, or management projects across 20 African economies.

China, in particular, has spent years investing heavily across the continent. Research tracking official Chinese lending shows that Chinese state banks and institutions provided roughly $182 billion in loans to African countries between 2000 and 2023. Much of that money went into energy projects, transport networks, ports, and logistics systems.

By comparison, publicly available data suggests that major US government-backed financing has amounted to roughly $20 billion over the past decade and a half. That is a fraction of the Chinese total.

The irony is that the National Defense Strategy says, “Out with utopian idealism, in with hardnosed realism”, yet realism today requires seeing Africa as it is becoming, not merely as a place to contain threats.

The National Defense Strategy is released in the same week as a leaked memo from the US State Department, which suggest that Africa is peripheral as opposed to a core interest to the United States. The memo states, inter alia, “To put it bluntly, Africa is a peripheral – rather than a core – theatre for US interests that demands strategic economy… Framing Africa as ‘strategic’ has often historically served bureaucratic and moral imperatives, not hard interests.”

Such thinking from Washington will likely be welcomed from Moscow to Beijing and should extend the strategic lead that Western rivals have developed in the play for Africa’s future economic, strategic and diplomatic influence.

If the United States wants to remain a global power with influence beyond its immediate rivals, it will eventually need to engage Africa not only as a place where risks must be contained, but as a place where opportunities can be built. That means seeing the continent as a political force, a market, a source of resources, and a long-term partner.

For now, the new defence strategy suggests that Washington is still looking at Africa through a rear-view mirror, while others are already planning for what lies ahead.