While not predominantly mentioned in the 2022 National Security Strategy report released Wednesday, U.S. officials said they are keeping a close watch on the African continent's growth and relations with nations like China and Russia as an important part of maintain national security.
"In Africa, the dynamism and demographic growth of the region make it central to solving every single significant global challenge we face," National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a speech at Georgetown University following the release of Wednesday's report. "And we will continue to revive and deepen our partnerships in the region that most directly impacts the United States more than any other: our own region, the Western Hemisphere."
The report itself spends most of its time evaluating other regions and nations, including Chinese expansion and Russia's war in Ukraine, but also highlights the importance of the African continent in future geopolitical relations.
"Africa's governments, institutions and people are a major geopolitical force, one that will play a crucial role in solving global challenges in the coming decade," the report said. "Africa is more youthful, mobile, educated and connected than ever before. African countries comprise one of the largest regional voting groups at the UN and their citizens lead major international institutions."
Gen. Stephen Townsend, outgoing commander of the United States Africa Command, told Congress in March that his command, with 10,000 troops on the continent, worked to implement the prior National Security Strategy there to bolster the U.S. "deterrence to better safeguard vital U.S. interests."
"I am certain of two things," Townsend said during his testimony, "First, access to a stable and prosperous African continent will be increasingly important to the United States, politically, economically and militarily, and will become more so in the future.”
Key concerns include the increasing expansion of Chinese military bases on the continent and arms coming in through Russia.
Russian President Valdimir Putin's war against Ukraine and his losses on the battlefield, however, have dwindled the number of arms it can now sell to Africa, Foreign Policy reported in July, before Russia sustained major military setbacks into the fall.
"We anticipate that they're going to have a real problem delivering equipment at the rate they're losing equipment in Ukraine," a senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity based on ground rules set by the Pentagon, told the publication at the time.
As Russia's influence decreases, China is flexing its muscles on the continent by wanting to build additional military bases there, National Defense reported in July.
Townsend told the news outlet that China has a "desire to establish more military bases on the continent."
"Why they need that capability there, I don't know," he said in the report. "I suspect they're thinking very deeply about the future and their future role in that region."
China has one base in the east African country of Djibouti, and is actively seeking to establish another along the Atlantic coast, which Townsend said could cause security problems for the U.S.
"They seem to have a little bit of traction in Equatorial Guinea," he said in the report. "We haven't asked Equatorial Guinea to choose between us or China. What we're doing is we're trying to convince them that it's in their interest to stay partnered with all of us, and not choose one over the other."
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