The Senate’s 2022 National Defense Authorization Act empowers the Pentagon to establish a strategic competition initiative for the U.S. Africa Command. If the bill passes, this will be the first security initiative expressly authorized by Congress since the Cold War to funnel military aid to African forces to counter Beijing and Moscow. The proposal lays new legal groundwork for a long-term bid to expand U.S. military influence in Africa. But the security initiative it authorizes will likely be dogged by U.S. military and diplomatic negligence and sow instability in Africa and U.S.-Africa relations. It should be cut from the bill before the 2022 NDAA is signed into law.
The proposed initiative aims to fight “coercion by near-peer rivals” against African governments by strengthening their militaries and addressing myriad “sources of insecurity” across the continent. If it’s established, high bipartisan consensus around both U.S. Africa policy and the threat posed by China and Russia suggest that its scope and funding are poised to grow quickly. This proposal warrants more public scrutiny than it has received, particularly given that the United States charted a similar course during the Cold War and African reformers are still facing the aftermath. A long history suggests that the proposed military aid for Africa will escape congressional oversight while the Pentagon and State Department will do little to monitor and account for its consequences.
Near the Cold War’s conclusion, while the Reagan State Department publicly deemed U.S. military aid to Africa “measured and moderate,” a classified Pentagon memo labeled key aid programs “a tragic joke,” “not demonstrably necessary and not sustainable,” based in “intuition and popular wisdom,” with “no success stories to date and none on the horizon.” There has been progress since then but much of that memo could have been written yesterday. U.S. training for coup leaders in Mali and Guinea, funding for rampaging battalions in DRC and Cameroon, and military aid to repressive governments in Uganda and Niger tell much the same story. It’s one that reflects not only a U.S. impulse to prioritize counterterrorism over peace and democracy in Africa, but also inept monitoring and assessment of U.S. “train and equip” programs for African armed forces.
The Pentagon, for example, rarely fails to tout its human rights training for African militaries. But the Government Accountability Office recently deemed its assessments of the scope and quality of this instruction unreliable. The Pentagon has no protocol in place to assess the impact of its human rights training on the “behavior, practices, or policies” of African militaries. It simply doesn’t know, and it doesn’t have a good means of finding out.
According to a Pentagon Inspector General report released through FOIA, the U.S. Africa Command also has a “personnel accountability” problem and is often unable to track the whereabouts and status of the numerous military contractors it employs throughout the continent.
State Department surveysofU.S. defense articles and services licensed for commercial export to Africa often indicate good chances of them falling into the wrong hands. Surveys during the Trump administration revealed record highs in the percentage of these exports deemed “unfavorable,” primarily because they were delivered to “unlicensed” or “unreliable” foreign parties.
Likewise, the State Department often had little idea where military equipment donated through its flagship Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership ended up. Rather than conducting site visits or relying on satellite technology to keep track of the armored vehicles and other equipment it donated to states like Cameroon and Niger, the agency often trusted social media to determine if it was being misused. Earlier this year, the House passed a reform bill for this floundering security partnership. The bill was rightly opposed by a handful of Africa experts and progressive House members because it would’ve also formally authorized the initiative. Its key reforms were written into the House's 2022 NDAA, but they aren’t in the Senate version, and they are sorely needed.
The 2017 NDAA passed even broader reforms to improve monitoring and assessment of U.S. security cooperation programs. Two years later, the Senate Armed Services Committee deemed the Pentagon’s progress toward this goal “wholly inadequate.” Nonetheless, this year the Biden administration requested budget cuts for these activities, from a paltry $8.9 million to $7 million out of a security cooperation budget of more than $6.5 billion.
This void of oversight should be kept in mind when assessing the failures of U.S. security policy in Africa. It should be scrutinized before U.S. soldiers are killed during security cooperation missions in Africa and U.S.-trained troops commit human rights violations and overthrow governments. The Senate’s new security initiative will inherit this legacy of negligence. It's more than enough reason to discard the proposal before the 2022 NDAA reaches President Biden’s desk.
Sobukwe Odinga is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He holds a PhD in Political Science, and his research examines African security politics and the role of race in US foreign policy.
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DJIBOUTI (May 12, 2010) Marine Cpl. Robert Wood, assigned to the armory of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), instructs Ethiopian Lt. Col. Sultan Ebu, a coalition officer for strategic communications at CJTF-HOA, on the proper procedures for firing an M-16 service rifle before a U.S. Marine Corps Enhanced Marksmanship range evolution at the Djibouti City Police Department gun range. Nearly 20 military members deployed to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti participated in the exercise, which focuses on advanced tactical weapons training. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Marc Rockwell-Pate/Released)
Top image credit: Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan March 26, 2025. Sudan Transitional Sovereignty Council/Handout via REUTERS
In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover.
The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.
For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity.
Khartoum, once a symbol of confluence, bears deep scars — widespread destruction, looted homes, and streets haunted by the unburied dead. It was against this backdrop of devastation and military gains that al-Burhan made his trip across the Red Sea.
Early in the conflict, Saudi Arabia played a prominent role by facilitating the evacuation of thousands of foreigners via Port Sudan, an effort that garnered significant goodwill. Building on this, and alongside the United States, the kingdom stepped into the role of mediator hosting the Jeddah ceasefire talks in May 2023.
This mediation aligned with Riyadh’s broader strategic pivot toward de-escalation, evident in its rapprochement with Iran and its transformation from aggressor to peacemaker in Yemen. Instability across the Red Sea poses a direct threat to the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic overhaul — particularly its crown-jewel projects like NEOM and the Red Sea tourism megaprojects along its western coastline, as well as the Yanbu Terminal expansion, which aims to diversify oil export routes away from the Strait of Hormuz. Such turmoil also risks undermining Saudi Arabia’s critical food security investments in Sudan, where vast agricultural ventures had become a linchpin of bilateral ties.
However, the Jeddah process withered and the commitments signed on paper dissolved under the reality of continued fighting. A subsequent U.S.-led effort in Geneva, pivoting to humanitarian access after the Jeddah talks collapsed, faltered when the SAF boycotted the talks entirely. By 2025, the return of President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine gutted what remained of American diplomatic capital. USAID’s funding slashes — which shuttered 77% of Sudan’s emergency food kitchens — not only deepened famine but stripped Washington of a key lever it could use to compel concessions. With the U.S. retreating inward, the vacuum proved irresistible to Saudi Arabia.
The tipping point arrived in February 2025. As the RSF and its allies formalized their charter for a parallel administration in Nairobi, Saudi Arabia, alongside Qatar and Kuwait, issued a firm public rejection. The Saudi Foreign Ministry unequivocally stated its opposition to "any illegitimate steps taken outside Sudan’s official institutions that threaten its unity.”
Al-Burhan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia and its timing solidified this alignment. The agreement announced by both nations during the visit to establish a “coordination council to strengthen relations” signaled long-term engagement, moving beyond the neutral arbiter role. Crucially, this meeting directly followed a high-level Saudi delegation's visit to Port Sudan days earlier, focused squarely on reconstruction.
While Riyadh actively cultivates the role of regional stabilizer, Abu Dhabi faces mounting scrutiny regarding its alleged role in fueling the RSF’s war effort.
In March 2025, Sudan filed a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing the UAE of violating the Genocide Convention through its alleged military, financial, and political support for the RSF, thereby facilitating atrocities, particularly the ethnic cleansing of the Masalit in West Darfur. While the UAE’s foreign minister dismissed the case as "feeble media maneuvers," the charges echo findings from a U.N. Panel of Experts report, which deemed evidence of UAE arms supplies (including drones and air defenses) to the RSF as "credible."
This alleged support has triggered significant political fallout in Washington. U.S. lawmakers Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) publicly confirmed in January, citing administration briefings, that the UAE was indeed arming the RSF, directly contradicting prior assurances it gave the Biden administration. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also placed holds on arms sales to the UAE over its role in Sudan.
The UAE's actions in Sudan appear consistent with a wider regional modus operandi. Abu Dhabi’s playbook involves empowering non-state actors, often with secessionist leanings, to secure access to resources and strategic geography. We see this pattern in Libya with its backing of Khalifa Haftar, and in Yemen through its enduring support for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose push for independence directly counters Saudi efforts to maintain Yemeni unity under the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).
Somalia offers another vivid example, where the UAE circumvented Mogadishu to directly arm and fund regional entities like Puntland (reportedly using its Bosaso base for RSF resupply), Somaliland, and Jubaland, thereby fragmenting the country while securing coastal footholds. The announcement of the RSF's parallel government in Nairobi last month seemed a direct application of these tactics. The UAE finalized a $1.5 billion loan to Kenya the same week, prompting speculation that its influence played a role in Nairobi hosting the event.
The widening gulf over Sudan, therefore, is not an isolated disagreement but symptomatic of a deeper strategic divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Where they once coordinated closely, particularly in countering the perceived threat of the Muslim Brotherhood and attempting to reshape the GCC during the Qatar blockade, their paths now diverge sharply.
Economically, they compete fiercely, with Saudi Arabia challenging Dubai's business hub status through policies requiring regional HQs in Riyadh and launching rival mega-projects. Within OPEC+, tensions have simmered between the two over production quotas, reflecting differing priorities and misaligned projections on the proximity of the decarbonized future. Even maritime borders near the Yasat Islands has become a point of contention, with Riyadh lodging complaints at the U.N. against Abu Dhabi's unilateral demarcation of the potentially oil-rich area.
This rivalry now spills into the public domain via social media. Recent online clashes saw well-known and widely followed Saudi commentators brand Emirati counterparts as "outcasts," describing them as being "hated by Arabs and Muslims." In tightly controlled media environments, such sharp exchanges often reflect official displeasure.
Ultimately, Sudan is paying the price for this fractured Gulf relationship. Saudi Arabia, driven by its Vision 2030 imperatives and a desire to reassert regional leadership through stability and state institutions, has placed its bet on the SAF. The UAE, focused on resource access and countering perceived ideological threats, continues its alleged support for the RSF despite the mounting condemnation.
As long as the rivalry persists, Sudan will remain tragically caught in the crossfire, its future held hostage by a geopolitical struggle reshaping the contours of power across the region.
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Top image credit: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is joined by Massad Boulos, who was recently named as a 'senior advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs,' during a campaign stop at the Great Commoner restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., on November 1, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
As the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and allied militias against the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group continues, the Trump administration is reportedly tapping Massad Boulos as the State Department’s special envoy to the African Great Lakes region.
In this capacity, Boulos will be responsible for leading the American diplomatic effort to bring long-desired stability to the region and to end a conflict that has been raging in the eastern DRC for decades.
Other than serving as an adviser on Middle East policy for President-elect Trump’s team during the transition period between the election and inauguration, Boulos has no U.S. foreign policy experience.
Much of his previous work was in the private sector, where he most recently worked at a small automotive conglomerate for a West African company, called SCOA Nigeria, whose profit was less than $66,000 last year.
Boulos also has familial connections with the first family. The president’s daughter, Tiffany Trump, is married to Massad Boulos’ son, Michael.
In an email to Responsible Statecraft, the State Department would not provide comment on Boulos’ reported appointment.
Since the early days of the most recent incarnation of this conflict in late 2021, two major peace processes have been running in parallel. In one, Kenya brought together many of the 120 disparate armed groups fighting in the eastern Congo, successfully reaching a truce between some of these groups and the Congolese government. However, the most powerful of these groups, the Rwandan-backed M23, was absent from the talks and remains the major threat to the DRC.
In a separate peace track, Angola had been serving as the leading mediator, attempting to set up negotiations between M23 rebels, their backers in Rwanda, and the DRC government. But exhausted and disheartened following numerous failed mediation efforts, Angolan President Joao Lourenco announced in mid-March that he will no longer lead this mediation process.
In an interview with Responsible Statecraft, Onesphore Sematumba, a senior analyst on the DRC and Burundi at the International Crisis Group, said that “peace efforts have been further complicated by the involvement of multiple state actors, each with their own interests.”
Burundi, Rwanda’s southern neighbor, has provided direct support for the DRC and Congo-backed armed groups seeking to attack Rwandan assets. Uganda, which borders Rwanda to the north, has also sent troops to the region. Although Uganda’s involvement is more enigmatic, the United Nations found that Uganda has supported M23 rebels in the eastern Congo.
Mediating an end to such a long and complicated war with numerous state and non-state actors is a difficult task. Just launching negotiations has proven to be a challenge, with each side at times refusing to accept the basic parameters set forth by mediators before negotiations even begin. In December, Rwandan president Paul Kagame refused to attend Angolan-initiated mediation efforts if M23 rebels were not also present, something DRC president Felix Tshisekedi, who discredits M23 as an unserious armed group whose entire financial and military strength rests on Rwanda’s support, refused to allow.
If confirmed as special envoy, Boulos and the American delegation would have the advantage of coming to the table with a relatively fresh voice. Recent news that Trump is considering agreeing to a deal offered by the DRC to grant critical minerals access to the United States in exchange for military support through the provision of military resources and training to the Congolese military risks violating American neutrality, consequently hindering its influence to broker a peace agreement.
Agreeing to such a deal, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering, would immediately collapse American credibility in the eyes of Rwanda, hurting U.S. efforts to bring about a lasting peace deal. According to Sematumba, funnelling more weapons into the arena and tilting the military scales in favor of one side would only intensify the fighting and exacerbate the conflict. The U.S., Sematumba said, “should not come to the region with a plan centered around adding to the violence.”
In a major surprise, Tshisekedi and Kagame united in Doha on March 18 for peace talks hosted by Qatar, opening a third track of peace negotiations.
Although Sematumba is skeptical that any major player, including the U.S. government, will be able mediate an end to such a complicated war anytime soon, he says that any American effort to do so should “consider all the existing peace initiatives,” rather than adding yet another one to an already “incoherent” peace effort.
Attaching itself to Qatar’s negotiating track might be the way to go, seeing it is the only peace initiative so far that has successfully brought together the heads of state of both the DRC and Rwanda to discuss the conflict face-to-face.
U.S.-ties to each country can help contribute to an end to the conflict. Both the DRC and Rwanda have close economic and diplomatic relations with the United States. Both have also benefited from large amounts of U.S. foreign aid over the decades, with the U.S. budgeting $990 million for aid to the DRC and $188 million to Rwanda in 2023, the most recent year with complete data. Although a recent analysis finds that Trump’s policies will cut 65% of aid funding directed towards Rwanda and 34% directed towards the DRC, the U.S. is still a major contributor of aid to the region, and through it has the requisite soft power to influence peace negotiations.
Any successful and lasting peace agreement is likely to require Rwanda to end its support for M23 and remove Rwandan troops currently stationed in DRC territory. The challenge to Boulos will come if Rwanda remains intransigent on that issue.
American sanctions remain a more extreme option. The United States last month sanctioned a senior Rwandan government official as well as a member of the larger rebel group of which M23 is a part. Sanctions were a key part of the United States’ strategy to ending the less severe incarnation of this crisis in 2012, the first time M23 threatened regional security. Donors back then froze $240 million in aid to Rwanda, and President Obama used American diplomatic and economic leverage to successfully pressure Kagame to end his support for the rebellion. This, however, proved to only be a temporary reprieve, with M23 returning more powerful than ever in 2021.
Sematumba expressed doubt that sanctions would lead to a lasting peace, saying that sanctions are “more likely to hurt villagers than the country’s leadership,” and that the numerous sanctions already in place against Rwanda, including by the EU and the UK, have failed to move the needle, and have quite possibly made the conflict worse. Once the EU implemented its sanctions on Rwanda on March 17, M23 pulled out of peace talks just a day before they were scheduled to be held in Angola as a form of protest against the EU’s new sanctions policy.
Although the power of the U.S. dollar and the sizable levels of American foreign aid funnelling into the region give the U.S. some leverage to implement economic sanctions against Rwanda, in 2022, the last year with full data, the U.S. was only Rwanda’s tenth-largest export market and eleventh-largest source of imports. Rwanda, therefore, has plenty of alternative trading partners it could turn to if the U.S. were to implement sanctions.
Despite the complexity of this conflict and the difficulty facing Boulos and his team once they take the helm, using American soft power and leverage can help them mold peace talks and incrementally move the conflict towards a resolution.
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Top photo credit: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) (Gage Skidmore /Creative Commons) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) )( USDA photo by Preston Keres)
Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.
“Rather, these campaigns only served to embolden the Houthis and rally their recruiting base,” the senators said in the letter. “U.S. military action must have a clear strategy that advances our country’s long-term national security objectives and is compliant with the law of armed conflict.”
In addition, “Congress should be briefed about the recent strikes against the Houthis and the total cost expected to be incurred by this campaign at the American taxpayer’s expense.”
Rand and Merkley also correctly connect the Houthis’ recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea with the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire, pointing out that no such Houthi attacks took place while the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (brokered by the Trump team ahead of the presidential inauguration) had been in place.
Paul and Merkley also questioned the Constitutionality of the strikes, given there has been no Congressional declaration of war on the Houthis. Congress wasn’t even consulted.
“We also recognize that any U.S. military response — especially sustained military engagement — must be conducted within the framework of the Constitution,” the Senators said in a release Tuesday. “Although the Constitution assigns the President the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military, it is Congress that is entrusted with the power to declare war — and Congress has not done so with respect to the Houthis.”
The letter comes amidst an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. In a post on Truth Social yesterday, President Trump warned that if the Houthis did not cease shooting at U.S. ships in the Red Sea, the real pain would be “yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”
Such rhetoric calls into question whether the strikes on the Houthis are to set the stage for war with Iran itself. Recognizing this possibility in their letter, the senators call on the Trump administration to make clear to Congress and the American public if they indeed intend to strike Iran directly. They conclude the letter by warning of the United States “stumbling into another costly and unnecessary war.”
Bipartisan opposition to military escalation in the Middle East is urgently needed, moving beyond the procedural ‘Signalgate' debacle to a more substantive focus on what the strikes on the Houthis are to realistically achieve, and what they portend for greater regional peace and stability.
In intensifying strikes against the Houthis, President Trump appears to be contradicting his own expressed desire to rein in American military action in the Middle East, risking a broader, regional war, while seemingly failing to identify the Houthis’ strategic calculus tied to the war in Gaza.
While President Trump pledged a legacy of peacemaker in his inaugural speech, continuing along his current path in the Middle East threatens to permanently derail this worthy pursuit, particularly if war with Iran were to break out.
Skepticism from across the aisle to avert this outcome is a welcome development.
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