On 9 March 2023, President Joe Biden released his security assistance budget request for Africa for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the first new budget request he has submitted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The age of American supremacism (in which the United States led an international coalition of allies that sought to dictate global geopolitical relations in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War at the 1980s) has come to an end with a bang and a new age of multi-polar great power struggle to establish a new global geopolitical order has begun. The new security assistance budget request provides us with some clear indications of what place Africa holds in the Biden administration’s vision of a new world order.
US security interests in Africa have evolved significantly since the Bush administration created Africom (the military command with responsibility for managing US military operations and programmes in Africa) in 2008. From the beginning, however, the new command was focused on three missions: protecting US access to African strategic raw materials (particularly oil and rare earth metals) and African military facilities, countering Chinese and Russian economic expansion and military presence on the continent, and backing counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations by its African allies.
Although Theresa Whelan, the Deputy Director of Defense for African Affairs (who directed the creation of Africom), tried to deceive the US Congress about the purpose of the new command, the truth was revealed by officers of the US Logistics Command, who quoted a briefing that she gave to a European Command conference in 2004 in which she stated quite clearly that Africom’s mission was to ‘prevent establishment of/disrupt/destroy terrorist groups; stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction; perform evacuations of US citizens in danger; assure access to strategic resources, lines of communication and refueling/forward sites’ for the deployment of American troops throughout the continent ( US Logistics Command 2004). And in a presentation by Vice Admiral Robert Moeller, the first deputy commander of Africom, at a Defense Department conference held at Fort McNair on 18 February 2008, he specifically cited ‘oil disruption’, ‘terrorism’, and the ‘growing influence’ of China as the principal challenges to US interests in Africa ( Moeller 2008).
New Africom commander testifies to Congress
While the relative ranking of these priorities has shifted over the years since then, they remain Africom’s core missions. In his March 2023 testimony before the Senate and House Armed Services Committee hearings on the budget request, the newly appointed commander of Africom, Marine General Michael Langley was questioned primarily about Chinese and Russian activities on the continent ( US House Armed Services Committee 2023; US Senate Armed Services Committee 2023). ‘The [aspiration] of China is threefold’, Langley asserted,
one from a geopolitical – they’re trying to change the international norms and they’re using some African countries within the UN [United Nations] construct whether it be the General Assembly or … the Security Council trying to affect votes to change those international norms and international … system writ large. ( US Senate Armed Services Committee 2023)
Then,
there is a geostrategic operation and their aspiration for military bases on the continent of Africa. … And the last piece, Senator is geo-economic – our future – our future economy is dependent upon a number of rare earth minerals, and also some are clean energy technologies [that] depend upon the rare earth minerals. About 30 to 40% of those minerals are on the continent of Africa, that – that’s forward thinking by the PRC [People’s Republic of China]. ( ibid.)
Langley claimed that China is trying to get military bases on the west coast of Africa:
They do have other aspirations, and in a closed session, Ranking Member, I know that I can be able to lay that out, … where in West Africa is their next military base aspiration. [If they do establish a base,] it would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland. It would shorten their – if they – they built any capacity on the West Coast, geostrategically it would put them at an advantage. [He went on to declare that] we can’t let them have a base on the West Coast because it would change the dynamics. ( ibid.)
And when asked if he thought it was ‘vital that we keep China from taking over that – that port [Capetown] there in … South Africa?’, Langley replied ‘[a]bsolutely so – sir, because as we look at the Cape of Good Hope and look at how much transit that our … commerce goes across, and it’s also – it can also be a power projection point as well, so we can ill afford, from a geostrategic position [to] allow either the PRC or even Russia to use that as a platform’ ( ibid.).
General Langley also publicly and directly contradicted the repeated assertions by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and many other American officials that Washington did not want to make African countries choose between the United States and its Sino-Russian rivals. As he put it, ‘they make choices, and … they make the wrong choices in siding with – going with either PRC or Russia for especially lethal aid’ ( ibid.).
According to Langley, this means that Washington should make it easier and quicker for African governments to get American military equipment. African governments ‘come and they ask and said, hey General Langley, we don’t want your boots on the ground, we want your equipment’. But regarding the US arms sales programme, ‘it’s moving too slow, Senator, just moving too slow and they make the wrong decisions’ ( ibid.).
And finally, Langley revealed that Africom has established a forward headquarters in Africa (in addition to its main headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany). When asked if Africom might follow the example of Central Command (which has its main headquarters in Tampa, Florida, but which has established a forward headquarters in Qatar), he replied that ‘I can talk about that in closed session, because we do have something established to that contract’ ( ibid.).
Biden’s FY 2024 budget plan for Africa
Now that the Biden administration has released its FY 2024 security assistance budget request for Africa (shown in Table 1 ), what does that tell us about the administration’s intentions and objectives ( US Department of State 2023a)?
US security assistance programmes: FY 2022 actual expenditure, and FY 2023 and FY 2024 requests (in thousands of US$).
| Security assistance programme | FY 2022
Actual | FY 2023
Request | FY 2024
Request |
|---|---|---|---|
| International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) | |||
| Africa total | 71,300 | 50,800 | 51,900 |
| Central African Republic | 4500 | 3250 | 3250 |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | 6000 | 3000 | 3000 |
| Ethiopia | 1500 | 1000 | - |
| Ghana | 3000 | 3000 | 1000 |
| Kenya | 4450 | 3000 | 3000 |
| Liberia | 5750 | 4350 | 3000 |
| Morocco | 3600 | 2500 | 2500 |
| Nigeria | 6400 | 3200 | 3000 |
| Somalia | 3000 | 1000 | 4300 |
| Sudan | 500 | - | 1000 |
| Tunisia | 6000 | 12,000 | 4000 |
| Africa regional | 36,250 | 29,000 | 29,000 |
| Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related (NADR) | |||
| Africa total | 40,500 | 39,500 | 39,500 |
| Kenya | 5500 | 5500 | 5500 |
| Somalia | 4000 | 4000 | 4000 |
| Tunisia | 5000 | 1000 | 2000 |
| Africa regional | 31,000 | 30,000 | 30,000 |
| Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) | |||
| Africa total | 266,809 | 303,659 | 260,558 |
| Central African Republic | 550 | - | - |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | 4000 | - | - |
| Somalia | 208,108 | 233,209 | 208,108 |
| Africa regional | 54,151 | 52,450 | 52,450 |
| Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Partnership | 38,500 | 33,400 | 33,400 |
| International Military Education and Training (IMET) | |||
| Africa total | 17,908 | 19,280 | 20,805 |
| Algeria | 1354 | 1000 | 1300 |
| Angola | 478 | 500 | 600 |
| Benin | 254 | 500 | 600 |
| Botswana | 640 | 600 | 600 |
| Burkina Faso | 31 | - | 1 |
| Burundi | - | 200 | 200 |
| Cabo Verde | 196 | 400 | 400 |
| Cameroon | 596 | 600 | 600 |
| Central African Republic | 141 | 150 | 200 |
| Chad | - | 800 | 800 |
| Comoros | 197 | 300 | 300 |
| Côte d’Ivoire | 344 | 500 | 600 |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | 245 | 400 | 400 |
| Djibouti | 898 | 895 | 895 |
| Equatorial Guinea | 175 | 500 | 500 |
| Eswatini | 100 | 100 | 200 |
| Gabon | 232 | 400 | 500 |
| Gambia | 191 | 200 | 200 |
| Ghana | 835 | 800 | 900 |
| Guinea | - | - | - |
| Guinea–Bissau | 71 | 100 | 200 |
| Kenya | 1245 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Lesotho | 113 | 100 | 200 |
| Liberia | 420 | 360 | 360 |
| Madagascar | 396 | 300 | 300 |
| Malawi | 410 | 500 | 500 |
| Mali | - | - | - |
| Mauritania | 629 | 500 | 500 |
| Mauritius | 337 | 200 | 400 |
| Morocco | 1112 | 1500 | 2000 |
| Mozambique | 818 | 600 | 600 |
| Namibia | 89 | 100 | 200 |
| Niger | 860 | 875 | 1000 |
| Nigeria | 996 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Republic of Congo | 421 | 200 | 200 |
| Rwanda | 420 | 550 | 550 |
| São Tomé and Príncipe | 104 | - | - |
| Senegal | 957 | 200 | 200 |
| Seychelles | 362 | 850 | 900 |
| Sierra Leone | 775 | 200 | 200 |
| Somalia | 344 | 400 | 400 |
| South Africa | 395 | 300 | 300 |
| Sudan | - | 650 | 650 |
| Tanzania | 804 | 200 | - |
| Togo | 305 | 500 | 600 |
| Tunisia | 1488 | 2000 | 2300 |
| Uganda | 761 | 700 | 700 |
| Zambia | 363 | 500 | 500 |
| Foreign Military Financing (FMF) | |||
| Djibouti | 6000 | 5000 | 6000 |
| Morocco | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| Tunisia | 85,000 | 85,000 | 45,000 |
Source: US Department of State 2023b, Foreign Congressional Budget Justification, Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, supplementary tables, Fiscal Year 2024.
International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement programme (INCLE)
INCLE funding for Africa will remain almost unchanged at $59.1 million for regional programmes in East Africa, West Africa and the Sahel, as well as bilateral programmes in Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and other countries. Africa is also likely to receive substantial funding through the Countering People’s Republic of China Malign Influence Fund ($70 million), the Prevention and Stabilization Fund ($15.5 million) and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ($66 million).
Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related programmes (NADR)
The Biden administration proposes a modest increase in NADR funding for Africa from through a variety of programmes. The most important is the Antiterrorism Assistance programme, which will increase to $274 million for Bureau of Counterterrorism (CTF) programmes throughout the world, including programmes in Kenya, Somalia, Tunisia and other African countries. In addition, African countries are likely to receive a significant proportion of the $55 million requested for the Terrorist Interdiction Program/Personal Identification, Secure Comparison, and Evaluation System (TIP/PISCES), as well as some of the $237.1 million requested for the Conventional Weapons Destruction programme (CWD) to secure and combat the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons, including Man Portable Air Defense Systems in the Sahel-Maghrib region and ‘countering the PRC malign influence in Africa and Asia through high-visibility, high-impact demining efforts’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 154).
Peacekeeping Operations (PKO)
The Biden administration intends to maintain funding for Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) at nearly its current level. The administration is requesting $260 million for regional and bilateral programmes to enhance the ability of African partners to conduct counterterrorism operations in East Africa (specifically in Somalia and South Sudan), sustain counterterrorism operations in East Africa and West Africa, conduct maritime security operations, and strengthen land and maritime borders. It is also asking for $33.4 million for the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership in the Maghrib and ‘across the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin countries (including potentially the littoral West African countries of Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, and Togo)’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 157).
It is also requesting $52.5 million in regional PKO funds to pay for a variety of programmes, including the African Maritime Security Initiative, African Regional Counterterrorism programme, the Countering Strategic Competitors programme and the Partnership for Regional East African Counterterrorism.
In addition, African countries are likely to receive some of the funding requested for the Prevention and Stabilization Fund ($5 million) ‘to bolster the capacity of partner governments to conduct [counter-terrorism] operations’, the Global Peace Operations Initiative ($71 million) ‘by reinforcing partner country capacity to generate, train, deploy, and sustain peacekeepers’, the Global Defense Reform Program ($18 million) ‘to enhance the ability of these countries to provide for their own defense in an effective, transparent, and accountable way’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 156–157).
International Military Education and Training programme (IMET)
The Biden administration plans to boost spending on for the International Military Education and Training (IMET) programmes for African countries (under which African military officers receive professional military training at home and at military facilities in the United States) to $38.6 million. Major recipients include Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and South Africa. The request specifically identifies Djibouti, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal as ‘priority recipients’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 158).
Foreign Military Financing programme (FMF)
The budget request for FMF funding (through which the United States provides loans and grants to African governments for the purchases of US-made military equipment) includes another $6 million for Djibouti in FY 2024 to ‘help bolster the bilateral relationship with Djibouti and counter malign [Chinese] influences in the region – a top U.S. national security priority’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 160).
The request also calls for another $10 million in FMF for Morocco and $45 million for Tunisia. The Biden administration says the Tunisian armed forces ‘remain on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups and the instability emanating from Libya, and serve as an important apolitical institution in Tunisian society’ ( ibid., 161). This appears to be an attempt to demonstrate America’s concern about the deterioration of democratic institutions in that country.
In addition, African countries will receive some of the $50 million in FMF funding that is being requested for the Countering People’s Republic of China Fund. The money will be used ‘as seed money to incentivize partners to commit national funds to modernizing their militaries and divesting from PRC-provided equipment’ ( ibid., 162). This is intended to ‘reduce opportunities for the PRC to coerce and exert influence over [US] partners’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 162). And the budget includes $113 million to fund a new global FMF line called ‘Emerging Global Priorities’ to ‘address emergent foreign policy priorities in the age of heightened strategic competition’ ( ibid.) with China and Russia. It will be used, in part, ‘to support regional stability in Africa and NATO’s southern flank, especially if Tunisia shows signs of a return to democratic governance’.
Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme
The delivery of 12 A-29 Super Tucano counterinsurgency aircraft to Nigeria through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme was completed in July and October 2021, not long after the inauguration of President Biden. The sale to the Nigerian Air Force (which cost Nigeria $593 million), completed an arms deal initiated by the Obama administration and continued by the Trump administration. The planes are armed with twin machine guns, and can carry up to 1550 kilograms of additional weaponry, including air-to-air missiles, bombs, rocket pods and gun pods. And on 14 April 2022, the State Department announced that the Biden administration will proceed with the sale of 12 Bell Helicopter AH-1Z helicopter gunships to Nigeria, armed with 20mm machine guns and guided missiles ( US Defense Security Cooperation Agency 2022). The deal (worth $997 million) was initiated by the Trump administration in January 2021, before the inauguration of President Biden.
US Congress questions Biden’s policy
In December 2022, Reuters published two reports on its investigation of major human rights violations by the Nigerian military. In the first ( Reuters 2022a), it reported that Nigerian security forces have murdered thousands of children captured during military operations against jihadi insurgents. Babies, infants, and young children were executed because they were believed to be child soldiers or the children of insurgents. In the second ( Reuters 2022b), it reported that since at least 2013, the Nigerian military had conducted a secret, systematic, and illegal abortion programme that ended at least 10,000 pregnancies among women and girls. Many of them had been kidnapped and raped by jihadi insurgents.
In reaction, US Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking Republican member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to request a review of US security assistance to Nigeria ( Reuters 2022c). Risch also called for the State Department to examine the potential use of American sanctions against Nigeria for its violence against women and children. In his letter to Blinken, Risch said
I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s planned response to the serious and abhorrent allegations levied against a long-standing beneficiary of U.S. security assistance and cooperation which, if deemed credible, have done irreparable harm to a generation of Nigerian citizens and to U.S. credibility in the region. ( Reuters 2022c)
In February 2023, two members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representatives Sara Jacobs (Democrat, California) and Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey), sent a letter to President Biden calling upon him to cancel the sale and review US security assistance and cooperation programmes in Nigeria ( Jacobs 2023; Sahara Reporters 2023). As they pointed out, ‘the assistance we have provided has done little to stem the conflict – in fact, insecurity has worsened from the abuses committed by Nigerian forces’ ( Jacobs 2023). Therefore, they concluded,
we believe continuing to move forward with the nearly $1 billion arms sale would be highly inappropriate and we urge the Administration to rescind it. Given the recent reporting of Nigeria’s previously unknown mass forced abortion program – which allegedly ended at least 10,000 pregnancies – and the targeting of potentially thousands of children, we also urge a review of security assistance and cooperation programs in Nigeria. ( Jacobs 2023)
Of course, US arms sales to Nigeria are also a response to the escalating violence and political instability throughout West Africa, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa: military coups in Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon; the Tuareg rebellions and the Islamic extremist insurgencies in the Sahal; military rule in Chad; the civil war in Sudan between rival military commanders; continuing ethnic conflict in Ethiopia (particularly in the Tigray and Amhara provinces); and the war in Somalia between the government and al-Shabaab insurgents. And the president of Nigeria has now assumed the rotating post of head of the Economic Community of West African States. American military support probably played a role in the decision by the recently elected Nigerian President Bola Tinubu to suggest that Nigeria and other ECOWAS countries might send troops into Niger to restore the democratic government.
And even more guns!
On 27 March 2024, US Vice President Kamala Harris announced that even more American weapons would be sent to Africa ( Deutsch Welle 2023; Reuters 2023; Voice of America 2023). She travelled to Accra, Ghana, and held a joint news conference with Ghanaian president Nana Akufo-Addo. She revealed that the Biden administration would give $100 million worth of new military support over the next 10 years to Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo, in addition to the aid in its budget request for these countries. The bulk of the money – at least 86 million – will be delivered over the next three years, according to the Biden administration, and does not require congressional approval.
Although it is impossible to calculate a precise figure, it is clear that security assistance programmes administered by the State Department will spend approximately $600 million on programmes in Africa in FY 2024 under the administration’s budget proposal ( US Department of State 2023a). At the same time, the Defense Department budget request includes approximately $750 million in spending on Africom, including the costs to operate the US military base established in Djibouti, conduct Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug operations, and provide equipment and training to African military and internal security forces. The Defense Department also spends large amounts of money each year to dispatch ships to make calls at African ports, to conduct annual training exercises like the annual ‘Flintlock’ exercises in West Africa and the annual ‘African Lion’ exercises in North Africa and the Sahel, to send teams of Special Forces instructors to conduct training in African countries, to conduct drone attack and surveillance operations, and to send excess/surplus defence equipment to African recipients. But it is only possible to provide a rough estimate of these expenditures. Taken altogether, the United States government spends at least $1.5 billion on African security programmes every year, and probably as much as $2 billion.
This does not include funding for the State Department’s Development Assistance and Economic Support Programs, much of which is directed to countries facing humanitarian disasters and/or violent conflicts. For example, the Biden administration is asking for $12.5 million for the Economic Support Program in Libya ‘to mitigate the effects of violent extremism and other ongoing conflicts and threats’ ( US Department of State 2023a, 123).
The militarisation of US policy toward Africa and the constant expansion of Africom has had disastrous consequences for Africa. From a small headquarters established in Stuttgart, Germany, in 2008, Africom has constructed a major military base in Djibouti and signed base access agreements for the use of local military facilities all across Africa; Africom has deployed drones and dispatched military units to bases in African countries, including Somalia, Niger, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo; and it has conducted training, intelligence-gathering, and combat operations throughout the continent, most notably in Somalia, Libya, the Sahel and Uganda. President Donald Trump curtailed Africom operations in Somalia for a short time, but they were immediately resumed by President Biden. Other than this brief episode (which was little more than a symbolic fulfilment of Trump’s pledge to put ‘America First’), the militarisation and escalation of US military activities in Africa has proceeded unabated under four American presidents and has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in Congress.
America is certainly not the only external power that has contributed to the militarisation of Africa, the resurgence of military coups, the rising toll of violence against civilians, the increasing violations of human rights, and the repression of popular struggles for democracy and economic development. France, Belgium, Portugal and the United Kingdom, of course, bear a heavy responsibility as the chief colonial powers in Africa. Russia and China have also played a major role by making Africa a major arena in their strategy of challenging America’s global hegemony. And a number of new external actors – most notably Turkey and Iran – have been increasingly active in Africa as part of their efforts to extend their influence in predominantly Muslim countries and to promote trade, particularly in advanced military drones and other weapons systems.
But America bears a unique responsibility for its historical role in the militarisation, political destabilisation, economic underdevelopment, impoverishment and exploitation of Africa. American policy will continue to undermine Africa’s peace and security, and its political and economic development, until American policymakers abandon their futile and disastrous policy of relying on military and security programmes to control the continent.