China is putting the final coat of paint on a dock in the East African nation of Djibouti that is large enough to host its nuclear submarines and aircraft carrier. It’s not the only location in Africa where China is trying to gain a military advantage; it just happens to be the one down the road from an American base.
China has of late placed big bets on the African continent, building everything from ports and roads to soccer stadiums and presidential palaces, often using “debt diplomacy” or loans structured so that a few missed payments yield a 99-year lease to the Chinese government. U.S. Africa Command, stood up in 2009, oversees 6,000 troops operating across 53 nations on the continent with just 0.3% of the DOD budget. Its objectives include helping to fight al Qaeda- and ISIS-affiliated terrorists and train up partner militaries in the great power competition unfolding across the continent.
AFRICOM commander Gen. Stephen Townsend spoke to the Washington Examiner Thursday after testifying before Congress to describe how he delicately pursues access and influence with partner nations to prevent China from gaining a military advantage in Africa that can pose a national security threat to the United States.
ARMY COUNTERS CHINESE INFLUENCE IN AFRICA WITH KNOW-HOW AND FRIENDSHIP
“Competition is forever. It’s endless. It’s like mowing the grass. You don’t just do it once,” he said after his Senate closed session concluded.
“You want to achieve your strategic objectives. You want to thwart your adversaries’ strategic objectives, and you want to avoid major war. So, you always want to be in a state of competition to avoid major war,” he explained with a hint of his north Georgia twang.
“What do we want? We want access and influence, right? And how do you get access and influence? Well, you can get that by helping your partner with a problem that they have,” he said.
Many African nations have a terrorism problem.
When President Joe Biden announced last week the full withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, he said the terrorism threat had become more globally dispersed. He mentioned al Shabab in Somalia and said ISIS had established several affiliates in multiple African countries.
Those include the Sahel nations of Chad, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. It includes Somalia, and most recently, Mozambique.
The AFRICOM mission on the continent is not to defeat terrorists, Townsend said. It is to train and equip partner nations so that they can defeat terrorist groups themselves.
“Counterterrorism operations in Africa is GPC,” he said, using the acronym for great power competition.
Townsend has said most terror groups in Africa do not pose a direct threat to the U.S. homeland. Others have ambitions to attack U.S. interests and must be contained.
“Some people will say, ‘Oh, that’s just you AFRICOM guys wanting to keep doing your [counterterrorism] stuff that you’re so comfortable with,” he said. “No, if you want to get access and influence, if you have a terrorism problem, that’s your biggest concern, it’s existential for you. I help you with that. And now, I have access.”
He added: “We can not compete economically with China.”
‘Partner of choice’
While AFRICOM leaders claim and often give anecdotes from the leaders of unnamed African countries that the U.S. is the “partner of choice,” China is expanding its influence on the continent with military infrastructure.
“They’ve got a strategy to expand there and to be able to project power in regions of the world that they haven’t previously,” Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, told the Washington Examiner after exiting the Townsend closed session.
“Depending on what forces and what systems they’re putting in place, it puts our assets, including merchant fleet and shipping lanes and the ability for us to move our naval forces across the globe, it puts those at risk,” the 25-year Navy veteran explained.
China’s latest big military move in Africa is a goal to gain a military port on Africa’s Atlantic coast. Such a naval base would not be for “gas and groceries,” Townsend said, but for Chinese warships to rearm with munitions and repair naval vessels.
“They have placed bets from Mauritania in the north to Namibia in the south and many countries in between,” Townsend told Kelly in Thursday’s open session. “This is the most significant threat, I think, from China, would be to gain a militarily useful naval facility on the Atlantic coast of Africa.”
Townsend often describes the value African nations place on education, military exercises, and training offered by the U.S.
He told senators that poorly made Chinese equipment frequently breaks within a year or two and is left to rust on the side of airfields or ports and that Chinese training has been described to him by one African leader as “not much more useful than a Hollywood demonstration.”
Still, Chinese gifts and deep discounts on military equipment are appealing to financially strapped African countries. But Townsend explained to the Washington Examiner where he must draw the line.
“All the competitors, strategic competitors, us, the Chinese or Russians, whomever, we’re all bringing a lot of offers to the table,” he said.
American offers are smaller and more specific, he said, Chinese offers are bigger and broader as the country reaches deep into the pockets of its command economy.
“Our influence has limits, right? It has limits. And we also limit how we spend it,” he said.
“If you buy Chinese uniforms and trucks, that’s not really a threat to the United States. I don’t care about that,” he said. “If you’re going to start buying Chinese drones, if you’re going to start doing intelligence cooperation, OK, if you’re going to have a Chinese base, now that crosses a threshold that I start caring about.”
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Returning to the point of access and influence, Townsend referred to an example he gave senators earlier in the day. He described a rescue operation of an American citizen held hostage in Nigeria last October. At the time, the U.S. was quickly granted access for its armed forces to enter seven African countries.
“Here’s what I’m willing to bet: Tonight, if I call seven African countries, and I say the U.S. military needs to come in and do something, I bet I get, if not all seven, I get most of them to say, ‘Yes.’ I bet if the Chinese called seven African countries and the Chinese military needs to come in tonight, I bet they get seven ‘Nos,’” he said. “That is access and influence when you need it. It’s not about who’s buying whose trucks and who has what trade and who’s building the soccer stadium. It’s about when the chips are down, who do they say ‘yes’ to?”
