The challenges facing the various regions of the African continent cannot be addressed or solved by one country alone, nor can solutions be imposed from outside. That’s the core of U.S. Africa Command’s strategy, said Marine Corps Gen. Michael E. Kennedy. Mr. Langley today.
Kenya’s Langley spoke to reporters on a conference call about his travels through the Sahel region and talks with African leaders from Somalia to Niger to West Africa.
Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, said the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Niger was “executed without incident.” U.S. military planners are working with State Department officials to consider how to proceed in the region. Security cooperation in the Sahel is needed, the general said. The threat of terrorism in the region remains, and regional countries need support to maintain security and stability for their populations.
“We will continue to have dialogue with them,” the general said. “In the meantime, we are pivoting to some degree of like-minded countries with democratic values and common goals and common challenges across the West African coast. We are negotiating with Ivory Coast. “We are in talks with Ghana and Benin as well” to begin resetting and realigning some of our assets. ”
This effort, like all efforts by the command, is driven by the principle that “all of our operations and partnership-centered approaches should be Africa-led and U.S.-led,” Langley said. said. “We will follow these first principles in any engagement with African forces across the continent.”
The military will continue to consult with partners on all security issues, including combating violent extremist organizations and transnational criminal organizations. Overlapping all of this is a continent-wide concern about how climate change will affect us. Climate change could exacerbate large-scale migration and tribal conflict, leading to conflicts over scarce resources. “All of this will be addressed first with our African partners and then I will listen, learn and then devise collaborative solutions that can be implemented and moving forward,” Langley said.
Earlier this year, Langley visited Morocco to observe Exercise African Lion, which involves military personnel from 20 countries. He also visited Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. “This is all about unity of effort, because we know that on the world stage there are other pressures across the Maghreb and that violent extremist organizations could rise again. ” he said. “Each of those countries had different types of challenges. I was there to listen. I was there to learn and understand their approaches to counterterrorism.”
Mr. Langley also mentioned the situation in Somalia. He has been in frequent consultations with Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to address some of the challenges and discuss the future course of the campaign against the terrorist organization Al-Shabaab.
Langley is working with the African Union, which is assisting Somalia. That means supporting the establishment of the African Union’s new Assistance and Stabilization Mission (also known as AUSSOM). The general said he was optimistic that the Somali military would be able to liberate areas controlled by al-Shabaab and provide the stability needed for the region to prosper.
Langley pointed to the influence of Russia and China on the continent. He said Russian influence was destabilizing from the Sahel region to the Central African Republic. He said both Russia and China are transmitting disinformation and misinformation across the continent.
“Since I took command in 2022, a lot of my efforts to be able to align with some of these countries on how to address the challenges have been based on misinformation and (Afrika News) and sought to have relations with certain countries that have been distorted by false information and false information,” he said. “Misinformation and disinformation have caused a lot of instability throughout civil society and some of the military.”
