AFRICA COMMAND TO "DOUBLE DOWN" IN AFRICA

"What we can do," the commander of the U.S. Africa Command, Marine General Michael Langley, declared to the House Armed Services Committee on March 21, 2023, "is double down on what we're doing...in the military sense." In his annual appearance before the Senate and House Armed Services Committee hearing on the FY 2025 budget request for Africom and other military operations in Africa, Langley emphasized the role of Africa in the global military competition with Russia and China, and described how he intends to respond to the growing challenge throughout the continent from "violent extremist organizations" (VEOs, the official U.S. designation for Islamic armed groups)."Africom's campaign revolves around central themes of ensuring strategic access, countering threats to the homeland and U.S. interests, preparing for and responding to crises, and lastly, bolstering our allies and partners," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee."Africa is big, and so are its challenges," Langley said in his prepared statement.There is high potential for strategic-level national security threats to grow this year. Africa's critical minerals and maritime shipping lanes become more important to America's technological and energy independence every day. Coups in West Africa have distracted local security from fighting VEOs, giving branches of al-Qaeda and ISIS room to expand, modernize, and reconstitute capabilities to threaten the U.S. homeland.He warned, "if we fail in Africa, our strategic competitors will move in." And, he emphasized, "recent history shows that Moscow and Beijing jump in to fill the void when American engagement wanes or disappears, and we cannot afford to do that."Langley described the activities of the Russian Federation as "very destabilizing...they want to change the rules-based international order and they want to reshape the world economic order as well, just doing it through socio-economic coercion and also dependence."