The United States is in the midst of a shift in strategic focus from countering terrorism to countering China and Russia in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Africa, a location for great-power competition during the Cold War, is yet again summoning more interest from the United States’ great-power competitors — China and Russia. This report — part of a four-volume series — explores where and how the United States, China, and Russia are competing for influence in Africa; what kinds of interests they have in the continent; what kinds of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic influence-seeking measures they are using; where and why competition might turn into conflict; what form that conflict might take; and what implications the findings have for the U.S. government at large, the joint force, and the Department of the Air Force in particular. This research was completed in September 2021, just after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The report has not been subsequently revised.
The research reported here was commissioned by Headquarters Air Force A5S and conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE.
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