Latest news with #U.S.AfricaCommand
Business Insider
06-08-2025
- Politics
- Business Insider
3 things to know about America's recent changes in its military strategy in Africa
With a shift in global military policies, the United States has opted to modify key leadership positions in Africa to confront new threats via AFRICOM. The United States has recently revised key military leadership roles to address emerging global threats, particularly in Africa. For the first time, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is led by an Air Force commander, Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, emphasizing air and space-focused strategies. AFRICOM is considering an autonomous structure and evaluating potential new headquarters in Morocco. Recent appointments in the United States military indicate a move toward greater integration of air and space power across Africa. In a nutshell, the United States Africa Command recently appointed its first Air Force commander. As the United States approaches a crucial development phase and AFRICOM focuses on air operations, here are five key points to consider regarding the U.S's involvement in Africa's security landscape. AFRICOM gets its first Air Force commander Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson has been confirmed as the new head of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). His nomination is the first time that the command has been overseen by an airman rather than a soldier or Marine. Anderson, who has a history in special operations and formerly led the United States Special Operations Command Africa, might provide a new air-and-space-focused perspective to AFRICOM's mission. New command headquarters After the Senate approved a new commander for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the United States also began considering an autonomous military command for operations in Africa. Morocco is reportedly being evaluated as the probable site for the new command headquarters, according to unconfirmed reports. Up until now, AFRICOM and European Command shared a headquarters, which restricted its ability to respond independently to Africa's quickly changing challenges. What led to the new developments There was a growing debate concerning AFRICOM's future. The Pentagon has proposed lowering the number of senior generals and even integrating AFRICOM with the US European Command, as they did before 2007. At the same time, AFRICOM is increasing airstrikes across Africa, and putting an airman in command rather than soldiers or marines, who have traditionally led the force, might signify a change toward more air and space-focused operations on the continent. AFRICOM U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is one of the United States' 11 unified combatant commands, in charge of directing all US military activities, partnerships, and security interests on the African continent. africom AFRICOM is currently headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and collaborates closely with African countries to combat terrorism, promote stability, and give humanitarian aid.
The Intercept
05-08-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
Pentagon: U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts Have Failed Africans
The Intercept has been chronicling the U.S. military's futile counterterrorism efforts on the African continent for the last decade. We have reported on increases in the number and reach of terror groups, rising militant attacks, spikes in fatalities, destabilizing blowback from U.S. operations, humanitarian disasters, failed secret wars, coups by U.S. trainees, human rights abuses by allies, massacres and executions by partner forces, civilians killed in drone strikes, and a litany of other fiascos and failures. A new Pentagon report offers the grimmest assessment yet of the results of the last 10 years of U.S. military efforts on the continent. It corroborates years of reporting on catastrophes that U.S. Africa Command has long attempted to ignore or cover up. Fatalities from militant Islamist violence spiked over the years of America's most vigorous counterterrorism efforts on the continent, with the areas of greatest U.S. involvement — Somalia and the West African Sahel — suffering the worst outcomes. 'Africa has experienced roughly 155,000 militant Islamist group-linked deaths over the past decade,' reads a new report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. 'Somalia and the Sahel have now experienced more militant Islamist-related fatalities over the past decade (each over 49,000) than any other region.' 'What many people don't know is that the United States' post-9/11 counterterrorism operations actually contributed to and intensified the present-day crisis and surge of violent deaths in the Sahel and Somalia,' Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, told The Intercept, referencing the frequent targeting of minority ethnic groups by U.S. partners during counterterrorism operations. The U.S. provided tens of millions of dollars in weapons and training to the governments of countries like Burkina Faso and Niger, which are experiencing the worst spikes in violent deaths today, she said. 'In those critical early years, those governments used the infusion of U.S. military funding, weapons, and training to target marginalized groups within their own borders, intensifying the cycle of violence we now see wreaking such a devastating human toll.' U.S. Africa Command acknowledged The Intercept's questions about the report and its findings but did not answer them. Terrorist groups are also gaining ground at an exponential rate. 'The past year has also seen militant Islamists [sic] groups in the Sahel and Somalia expand their hold on territory,' according to the Africa Center. 'Across Africa, an estimated 950,000 square kilometers (367,000 square miles) of populated territories are outside government control due to militant Islamist insurgencies. This is equivalent to the size of Tanzania.' And as militant groups have expanded their reach, Africans have paid a grave price: a 60 percent increase in fatalities since 2023, compared with deaths from 2020 to 2022, according to the report. Even these grim statistics don't capture the true size and scope of U.S. counterterrorism failures. In 2002 and 2003, the U.S. was just beginning its decadeslong effort to provide billions of dollars in security assistance, train many thousands of African military personnel, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on a wide range of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in ground combat with militants in Africa. In those years, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks, resulting in a combined 23 casualties across the entire continent. Last year, there were 22,307 fatalities from militant Islamist violence in Africa. This represents an almost 97,000 percent increase. Somalia and the Sahel saw the most acute violence. U.S. Special Operations forces were first dispatched to Somalia in 2002, followed by military aid, advisers, private contractors, bases, helicopters, and drones. The Pentagon was well aware of fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa as early as 2007, according to a study conducted for the military that was obtained exclusively by The Intercept. Almost two decades later, U.S. troops are still conducting counterterrorism operations there against the Islamist militant groups al-Shabaab and the Islamic State. Earlier this year, the U.S. carried out an attack in Somalia that one top U.S. commander called the 'largest airstrike in the history of the world.' The Trump administration has already conducted 54 attacks in Somalia in 2025, exceeding the total number of strikes by the Biden administration last year. This mirrors the spike in attacks during President Donald Trump's first term. Despite, or perhaps because of these relentless attacks, al-Shabaab's 'capabilities have expanded in the past year,' according to the Africa Center, and its annual revenues — up to $200 million — are 'on par with Somalia's federal member states.' 'Somalia faces Africa's most enduring militant Islamist group with al-Shabaab sustaining extremist violence since it was established in 2006,' according to the Africa Center analysis. 'Somalia has seen a spike in violence linked to al Shabaab since 2023. … The 6,224 fatalities linked to al Shabaab over the past year are double that of 2022.' The findings are even more damning for West Africa, where an increasing number of nations are plagued by terrorist groups that have grown, splintered, reconstituted, and spread across the region. Under the black banners of Islamist militancy, men on motorcycles and armed with AK-47s thunder into villages to impose their harsh brand of Sharia law and terrorize, assault, and kill civilians. Attacks by these militants and government atrocities against civilians in response have destabilized Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and, increasingly, threaten bordering countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, and Togo. 'The Sahel has experienced a sustained high level of lethality tied to militant Islamist groups in recent years,' reads the new Africa Center report. 'The nearly 10,500 average annual deaths over the past 3 years are more than double the 4,900 annual fatalities experienced between 2020 and 2023. This represents a sevenfold increase in annual fatalities since 2019.' As violence spiraled in the region over the past decades, at least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance were key leaders in a dozen coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel including Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022) and Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021). The U.S. has poured billions of dollars in military assistance into Burkina Faso, Mali, and its neighbors over roughly two decades, enabling human rights abuses by providing weapons and training to militaries that have terrorized civilians, according to the United Nations, human rights advocacy groups, and the U.S. State Department. The Africa Center found that Malian and allied security forces were responsible for 82 percent of all civilian fatalities over the past year. In Burkina Faso, the figure was 41 percent. In 2023, The Intercept reported from neighboring Niger on the failure of 20 years of counterterrorism efforts, the spread of Islamist militancy, and abuses of minority ethnic groups by U.S. partner forces. AFRICOM pretended the problems did not exist and said the U.S. was 'further[ing] our mutual security goals.' But Niger has been 'experiencing a rapid deterioration in its security since the military coup against the democratic government of President Mahmoud Bazoum in 2023,' according to the Africa Center. Left unsaid was that at least five leaders of that coup d'état received American assistance. Since then, fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence have quadrupled, including a 49 percent increase in civilian deaths in Niger over the past year. The Africa Center's new analysis echoed a grim assessment of security on the African continent offered by AFRICOM chief Gen. Michael Langley during a June press conference with various media outlets, including The Intercept. The West African Sahel, he said, was now the 'epicenter of terrorism,' and the gravest terrorist threats to the U.S. homeland were 'unfortunately right here on the African continent.' Katherine Ebright, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice and one of the foremost experts on secret military efforts in Africa, noted that the U.S. continued to double down on expenditures of blood and treasure without measuring the effectiveness of its counterterrorism initiatives. 'Clearly, there's been too little congressional and public oversight of these military efforts to determine whether they are strategic and effective,' she told The Intercept, noting that the Department of Defense long delayed compliance with a law that requires it to monitor and evaluate its work with partner forces. Ebright pointed out that during the Biden administration the Pentagon finally published a first-of-its-kind analysis of its long-running counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel. The findings spotlighted shortcomings that have contributed to mass displacement, humanitarian crises, coups, atrocities, and the deaths of around 155,000 Africans. Trump's effort to scuttle the U.S. Agency for International Development and slash funding to the United Nations and other foreign aid this year have further exacerbated humanitarian crises that have deepened over the last two decades. One recent Lancet study warned that USAID funding cuts 'could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4·5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years.' The United Nations recently warned that almost 30 million people across the Sahel 'require life-saving aid and humanitarian protection in 2025.' But only 8 percent of the required $4.3 billion in humanitarian funding had been received by May, forcing aid agencies to reduce assistance to 8.8 million of the most vulnerable people. The Pentagon report on efforts in the Sahel found, notably, that traditional, nonmilitary diplomacy and aid are necessary tools for addressing the economic and governance problems that allow militant groups to proliferate. It also determined that U.S. military involvement was 'insufficient for fundamentally changing the security environment' and that traditional U.S. 'security cooperation programs are unlikely to lead to notable changes in the security environment.'
Morocco World
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Morocco World
Independence & Interdependence
The Moroccan–American Treaty of Peace and Friendship (The Treaty of Marrakesh) was negotiated and signed in 1786, establishing diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Morocco. Unbeknownst to many Americans at the time (the population of the U.S. was just over three million), the treaty represented the first formal diplomatic treaty between the U.S. and any African or Muslim nation. It remains in force today, 239 years later. The treaty, negotiated by American diplomat Thomas Barclay and his Moroccan counterpart Tahir Fannish in Marrakesh, was conceived by visionary leaders guiding a new and untested republic across the Atlantic as well as a Moroccan sultan, Mohammed III (Mohammed ben Abdallah), who is often credited with forging the modern Moroccan state. History often finds larger meaning for seemingly modest events. This is likely the case for the enduring Morocco-United States relationship. In December 1789, President George Washington, having only been in office for several months, wrote to Mohammad III to acknowledge the sultan's August 1788 diplomatic letter to the US and to explain the delayed response from the newly formed nation. Washington thanked the Sultan for his nation's friendship and for his proactive diplomatic steps that '… make a deep impression on the United States and confirm their respect for and attachment to Your Imperial Majesty.' Over the next 230-plus years, the two nations would find themselves at the center of critical global events—a world war, recurring regional conflicts, the upheaval of the Arab Spring, a global health pandemic and a post-Cold War order that presents ongoing challenges to a global superpower like the United States and new opportunites for a regional power like Morocco. The 239-year relationship endures in ways large and small, from American Peace Corps volunteers teaching English in dar shababs to Moroccan financiers in New York and Moroccan actors in Hollywood. The $7 billion annual trade relationship includes citrus and automotive exports to the U.S. and animal feed and aerospace exports to Morocco. Security & Soft Power On security, the relationship is quite iconic. During the Roosevelt-Churchill summit in Casablanca in January 1943, US General George Patton made this entry in his diary about a car ride he shared with Sultan Mohammad V following a summit dinner held in the sultan's honor: 'I rode with Sultan and Grand Vizier to house of latter. On way Sultan said, 'Truly your President is a very great man and a great friend of myself and of my people'.' In 2025, the security relationship finds meaning across several domains, from combatting transnational drug trafficking to the 2020 Abraham Accords. The yearly African Lion military exercises held in southern Morocco have created a template for Maghreb regional security, and they represent U.S. Africa Command's largest regional annual exercise. For over a decade, Morocco has also established itself as a critical regional security partner to Europe. Following the November 2015 ISIS-inspired terror attacks on several public venues in Paris, French security services utilized critical Moroccan intelligence information to locate key members of the responsible terror cell. A week after the attacks, French President Francois Hollande received King Mohammed VI in Paris in part to thank him for Rabat's critical help. Late last year, four French nationals who were employees of the French Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) were freed from detention in Burkina Faso thanks to discreet intervention by Mohammad VI. The London School of Economics recently noted the approach of Morocco's OCP Group (the nation's phosphate enterprise) within Africa and how it differs markedly from previous models of foreign economic investment that were heavy on sales and light on cooperative knowledge sharing. The result is new agro-business investments, customized fertilisers and sustainable agriculture practices as the continent grows hotter and soil challenges mount. As America celebrates its independence this week, the global uncertainties of 2025 are perhaps more perplexing than those that existed in 1786 when the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was negotiated. That year, the U.S. Constitution had yet to be written and the newly formed United States possessed not a single naval ship, having disbanded the navy following the end of the Revolutionary War. The future had yet to arrive. For both nations, tumultuous and uncertain times demanded visionary leaders like Mohammed III, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. For Morocco and the United States, the benefits of an enduring friendship are, thankfully, still accruing. Tags: Morocco and US relationsUS and Morocco relations
Mint
29-06-2025
- Politics
- Mint
The coup leader who's become an anti-Western hero in Africa and beyond
Three years ago, Ibrahim Traoré was a junior army officer in Burkina Faso's armed forces. Today, he has emerged as a surprising anti-Western hero preaching self-reliance and resilience with fans across Africa and beyond. Since toppling the West African country's previous military leader in 2022 and making himself president, Traoré has won the kind of glowing admiration from people across the continent that has eluded African leaders since the days of antiapartheid icon Nelson Mandela and the generation that led the independence struggles. 'Many Africans are disillusioned with the West," said Ayotunde Abiodun, an analyst with SBM Intelligence, a Nigeria-based geopolitical research consulting firm. Traoré, he said, has become the anti-imperialist face of that sentiment. Russia has tried to court him, seeing him as a way to accelerate the decline of France's influence across the arid countries of the Sahel, the wide band of land bordering the southern reaches of the Sahara. But Traoré has his own agenda of reviving the Pan-African movements of the past. Whether he succeeds in putting Burkina Faso on a stronger footing and pushing back a long-running Islamist insurgency could influence what happens elsewhere across the region. The 37-year-old appears to be genuinely popular as people across the region tire of a generation of aging leaders widely seen as corrupt and beholden to the West. In April, thousands of Burkina Faso citizens poured into the streets of Ouagadougou, the capital city, in solidarity with Traoré after an alleged counter-counter-coup failed to oust him from office. The protesters were also incensed by comments by Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command, accusing Traoré of misusing the country's gold reserves. Traoré partisans saw Langley's comments as a pretext for Western intervention, and members of the African diaspora held solidarity marches to show their support for him. In London, Traoré supporters held banners that read, 'Hands off African resources, Hands off Ibrahim Traoré." In Jamaica, demonstrations took place outside the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, and on the north coast in Montego Bay, where protesters sang, played drums and hailed Traoré as a 'Black liberator." Motorized rickshaws, a common mode of transport among working people, display photos of the beret-wearing Traoré in Nairobi, a city on the opposite side of the continent. Part of Traoré's appeal comes from how he styles himself after his countryman and Pan-Africanist leader Thomas Sankara. Often called 'Africa's Che Guevara," Sankara renamed the Republic of the Upper Volta as Burkina Faso, or 'land of the upright people," and set about making the country more self-sufficient before he was assassinated in 1987. In taking a leaf out of his book, Traoré has revived interest in Sankara and his pan-Africanism. Last month, a newspaper published by the Nation of Islam, the Black religious and political movement of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, featured side-by-side photos of Traoré and Sankara on its front page. Traoré primarily came to power on a promise to improve security, however. As a captain, he ousted Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had himself overthrown a civilian government eight months earlier. Both Traoré and Damiba had justified their actions by accusing their predecessors of failing to quell dual insurgencies by Islamists affiliated with al Qaeda and Islamic State. Traoré has since surfed a wave of public discontent with France, the former colonial power, whose continued involvement in the political and economic lives of its former West African colonies created resentment, according to analysts. In a popular move, Traoré expelled French troops, who had also been unable to tame the insurgencies. U.S. Green Berets, who had arrived to train local commandos shortly before the coup, suspended military aid after the putsch. Donning the populist mantle, Traoré renegotiated international gold-mining contracts to guarantee the government a greater share of the revenue. He distributed tractors and cheap fertilizer to farmers and built factories, such as a tomato-processing plant and the country's first gold refinery—efforts to keep value-added businesses at home. A survey by Afrobarometer, a Ghana-based pollster, found last year that a majority of Burkina Faso's people supported military rule as the best way to combat corrupt civilian elites. The survey showed that across the continent, more than half of Africans were willing to tolerate military intervention in politics if 'elected leaders abuse power for their own ends." Two-thirds, however, rejected military rule as the default system of government. Analysts say Traoré has gained strong support from the country's rural poor by placing land under state control, nullifying previous land allocations that favored agribusinesses and recognizing customary rights of rural communities. Supporters see the measures as an attempt to undo decades of land policies that favored corporate investors over smallholder farmers, said Burkina Faso analyst Luc Damiba. The new land policies have also gained him favor from young people, who have cheered his promise of land and agricultural training. Analysts say sections of Burkina Faso's urban, educated classes, including academics, journalists and civil‑society activists, worry that Traoré doesn't intend to return the country to elected civilian government. Traoré has postponed elections scheduled for last year until 2029, saying voting will take place when the military has wrestled enough territory from jihadists to allow all citizens to vote. Like the African liberation leaders of the 1960s, Traoré has cozied up to Moscow. Last month, he attended a Moscow parade celebrating the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany. Russia has launched an influence operation in Burkina Faso involving pro-Moscow local radio stations as well as sports and musical events, says the nonprofit African Digital Democracy Observatory. Paid content lauding Traoré also began to appear across pro-Russian social-media platforms after he seized power, according to a 2023 report by the Paris-based watchdog All Eyes on Wagner. 'Allowing Burkinabé to sleep peacefully and live without hunger. These are his ambitions. This man deserves the greatest respect," read a caption on one Traoré portrait. The posts were disseminated widely across the continent by the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force active in Africa, the watchdog said, though only a fifth of Burkina Faso's population has internet access and only 12% use social media, limiting the domestic influence of online campaigns. Russia has a clear interest in getting on Traoré's good side. Hobbled by Western sanctions, it needs gold to shore up its struggling economy and has expanded its presence around West Africa through resource‑for‑security pacts, providing military trainers, mercenary units and media campaigns in exchange for mining rights. Burkina Faso, a major gold producer, struck a deal with the Russian company Nordgold, which took an 85% stake in a gold-mining project. The government, which retained 15% of the ownership, expects the project to contribute $101 million to its coffers over an eight-year span. However, unlike in countries like Mali or the Central African Republic, where Moscow's mercenaries play a key role in protecting local regimes, Traoré has been reluctant to accept Russian boots on the ground. A 400-strong contingent of Russian mercenaries, who arrived in Ouagadougou with much fanfare last year, departed within three months, according to current and former French and Burkinabé officials. 'Traoré feels the army is the guarantor to preserve his country's sovereignty," said a former minister in the Burkina Faso government. 'Russian mercenaries are not his cup of tea." Traoré's Achilles' heel, however, may be the very issue he used to sell his power grab: security. Violence has gotten worse since the military seized power. More than 17,000 people have been killed in insurgent violence since the takeover—more than triple the death toll from the final three years of civilian rule, according to an analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, part of the Pentagon's National Defense University. The center analyzed data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit monitoring service. In August, jihadists massacred hundreds of villagers in Barsalogho, a remote town in north-central Burkina Faso. Rights groups report that the Burkina Faso military has committed extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions during Traoré's time in power, and has used an emergency law to forcibly conscript civilians, including critics and activists, to quell dissent. Burkina Faso officials didn't respond to requests for comment. 'There's a possibility for this symbolism and popular legitimacy that he enjoys right now to erode if there's no improvement in the security situation and economic condition of the Burkina Faso people between now and then," said Abiodun, the Nigeria-based analyst. Write to Caroline Kimeu at and Benoit Faucon at
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - How to avoid Africa's next water war
In 2023, Gen. Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, warned that African countries face new destabilizing challenges, including 'climate change [that] is increasing desertification.' One year earlier, Morocco, a close U.S. ally on the northwestern edge of the Sahara Desert, had already started taking bold steps to get ahead of the negative effects of climate change. In particular, it began building a series of dams to better manage its increasingly precarious water resources. Scheduled for completion between 2026 and 2029, the dams will lessen the impact of more frequent and more violent floods, and they will allow Morocco to adapt to longer and more acute droughts. However, while the dams proactively mitigate the risks climate change poses to Morocco's domestic stability, they are catalysts for broader regional destabilization. One of the dams, and its projected 35 billion cubic feet reservoir, is only 19 miles from Morocco's border with Algeria. The watershed filling the reservoir flows southeasterly, not further into Morocco but away from it and across the border into nearby Algeria. While the dam will safeguard Moroccan communities' water supplies, it will cut off water for more than 300,000 Algerians just on the other side of the border. Waters from the Oued Guir and the Oued Zousfana Rivers flow east out of Morocco's craggy Atlas Mountains and form the transboundary Oued Saoura watershed. The Saoura watershed is the primary water source for Algeria's Bechar and Tindouf provinces. Combined, these two semi-arid provinces are bigger than the United Kingdom or Italy. Bechar and Tindouf depend on Saoura water for drinking, agriculture and industry. Bechar, an Algerian city only 37 miles from the Moroccan border, is not some scrappy Saharan outpost, but a well-developed regional hub. The eponymous seasonal Oued Bechar flows through town, its banks brimming with palm trees. A brand new university with faculties in medicine, biology, physics, political science and other disciplines caters to 15,000 students. Fountains burble and splash in shaded campus courtyards. There is a state-of-the-art oncology hospital. Nearly all (98 percent) of Bechar's 35,000 households have running water. They also all have electricity, gas and internet access. Morocco's dams blocking the Saoura watershed threaten all of this. In April, the University of Bechar hosted a conference on water resource management and equitable usage. Water resource specialists and geopolitical experts from other Algerian universities and around the world presented studies about the calamitous effects that Morocco's dams will have on Algerian communities and case studies of other successfully resolved cross-border water crises. The burgeoning dam dispute between Morocco and Algeria is hardly unique: Climate change is exacerbating water conflicts around the world. In many instances, like disputes about water usage on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers between Turkey and Iraq, or between Ethiopia and Egypt on the Nile, or more recently between India and Pakistan on the Indus River, opposing parties pursue a negotiated solution for equitable cross-border water sharing. Negotiations are typically protracted, taking years, and they are often fraught, but guided by the United Nations' 1992 Water Convention, which obliges countries with cross-border water resources to 'use transboundary waters in a reasonable and equitable way,' negotiations aim at a mutually acceptable compromise. Algeria and Morocco are a long way from any compromise. Morocco is unilaterally pursuing a water resource management strategy that will negatively impact Algeria, accelerate desertification in the Sahara and potentially internally displace hundreds of thousands of Algerians. But because there are no diplomatic ties between Algeria and Morocco, there are no formal channels to negotiate equitable transboundary water usage. Bechar, however, is not just home to a palm-lined river, a shiny cancer center and a university bustling with students. It is also home to Algeria's 3rd Military Region. The military base stretches for miles on the city's southwestern side, including an airfield, a hospital, barracks, a school and even a playground and a pool. In May, Algeria's Army chief of staff, the country's highest-ranked uniformed officer, oversaw a live fire military exercise with 3rd Military Region forces, showcasing tanks, drones, mobile rocket systems, fighter jets, attack helicopters, shoulder-launched missiles and a mock ground assault. All within 30 miles of the Moroccan border and 60 miles from Morocco's dams. With a 2025 defense budget estimated to be $25 billion, Algeria has the largest defense budget in Africa and almost double that of Morocco. For Algeria, the dams' disruption of the Saoura watershed is a violation of Algeria's sovereignty. Langley, who just visited Morocco in May at the conclusion of the U.S. African Lion joint military exercise, is no doubt correct: Countries need to take steps to counter climate change's destabilizing effects. But countries also need to ensure that the preventative measures they take accommodate broader contexts so that they do not become drivers of the very instability that they are trying to counter. This is the case of Morocco's dams: They are solving for potential instability in Morocco while simultaneously increasing its likelihood in Algeria. The U.S. has exceptionally good relations with Morocco. Morocco is a major non-NATO ally, the highest ally status a country can have with the U.S. outside the NATO framework. It is one of only four Arab countries to have a free trade agreement with the U.S. and is a signatory to the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations with Israel. The U.S. should use its considerable influence with Morocco to encourage it to reach an agreement with Algeria for the cooperative and equitable management of their shared transboundary water resources under the U.N. Water Convention, lest Algeria feels compelled to secure its national interest and its citizens' wellbeing through other means. Geoff D. Porter, Ph.D., is the president of North Africa Risk Consulting, a nonresident fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, and a professor at Fordham University. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
