On November 5, the Trump administration unveiled the new National Security Strategy (NSS) for the United States. Since the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, presidents have been required by Congress to provide an NSS. Waiting for this strategic guidance has become a routine across parts of the US government, and the document’s release attracts considerable international attention.
That has certainly been the case with the 2025 NSS, which prompted a surge of commentary and analysis. That attention is rightly deserved, given the distinct changes made to enduring themes and commitments that have characterized American National Security Strategies over nearly four decades. The new strategy is revisionist in a way many thought possible but did not fully anticipate.
While scholars and pundits alike have focused on the dramatic reshaping of Washington’s perceived ironclad relationship with European partners and allies, the new NSS also indicates a significant shift in how the United States will approach Africa in the near term. Those who have been watching the trajectory of the second Trump administration will perhaps find it unsurprising that Africa gets limited attention in the NSS–roughly half a page at the very end. Yet, over the previous several months, the administration’s engagements with the continent have been more visible than one might expect, albeit narrowly cast.
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Most attention reflects a preference for transactionalism, driven by the president’s pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize, his economic agenda, or ideological priorities. From efforts to negotiate a tenuous peace between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and aspirations for critical minerals access in relation to that deal, to an emphasis on protecting Christians in Nigeria, the limited textual attention devoted to Africa in the NSS does not inherently reflect a lack of interest. Instead, it demonstrates that the administration’s interest in Africa will be constrained, selective, and dependent on what Africa can offer in an increasingly competitive world.
This logic exposes the United States to serious strategic risks. Competitors such as China and Russia, as well as middle powers such as Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, continue to treat Africa as a key arena in their foreign policy agendas. And while some African leaders may appreciate the flurry of deal-making diplomacy, Washington’s political appetite for providing the level of investment and aid required to counter persistent social, economic, security, and political challenges appears to be over. Instead, in the second Trump administration, relevancy rests on a narrowing set of issues.
Africa’s Place in the NSS
Throughout most of the post-Cold War era, Africa occupied the margins of American grand strategy. Time and again, successive administrations have recognized the continent’s humanitarian needs and episodic security challenges, yet Africa has rarely been framed as a region capable of shaping the global order. Yet across the last twenty-five years of National Security Strategies, Africa’s place has evolved in ways that reveal not only shifting US priorities but also profound structural changes within Africa itself. Population growth, new political alignments, renewed interest in intercontinental trade, and expanding economic footprints gradually but unmistakably placed Africa on Washington’s strategic radar. Some say it was too little too late, but few argued that it was an unworthy effort.
The 2025 NSS represents a sharp departure from the trajectory of the last quarter-century. Whereas nearly every NSS has steadily elevated Africa’s relevance, the new NSS directly puts Africa on the periphery, looking in. If earlier administrations differed in their interpretations of Africa’s role, they at least shared the premise that Africa was increasingly important to US national security. The 2025 NSS challenges this baseline assumption. Tracing this trajectory illuminates Africa’s growing importance and the strategic choices the United States must make to compete effectively and safeguard its long-term national interests.
Africa’s Evolving Place in the NSS
The first NSS, written during the 1987 administration of President Ronald Reagan, couched Africa’s importance primarily as a vessel for competition with the Soviet Union. However, as the Cold War ended, US policymakers’ approaches toward Africa shifted, focusing on the massive challenges presented by the continent–ethnic conflict, corrupt government, and poverty–which led several documents to decry a growing sense of “Afro-pessimism” among American policymakers. This condition could invariably be addressed with “synergy.” Such buzzwords failed to capture and unpack the complex nature of politics across a continent 14 times larger than Greenland.
At the turn of the century, Africa was framed mainly through the lens of humanitarian crises and development challenges, but the “hopes for democracy” featured prominently in President Bill Clinton’s final NSS. Congressional action in May 2000 led to the passage of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, reflecting Washington’s recognition and commitment to enhancing Africa’s economic development through trade rather than aid. By 2002 and in the wake of 9/11, Africa’s position in the NSS reflected Washington’s shift toward counterterrorism and homeland security. While referencing the developmental needs across the continent and the preservation of human dignity as a key value of the United States, and even applauding the evolution of and transition to the African Union, President George W. Bush’s NSS elevated security assistance and counterterrorism partnerships as the primary instruments of US engagement. Despite this focus on security, Bush’s first NSS laid the groundwork for PEPFAR (the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which remains recognized as one of the most successful global health initiatives in modern history.
2006 and the release of Bush’s second NSS saw a continuation of Africa as an important region for counterterrorism operations. This coincided with ongoing efforts to modify the Unified Command Plan and establish Africa Command (AFRICOM) as a new 4-star headquarters for Department of Defense operations on the continent. Continued securitization was coupled with Bush’s Freedom Agenda and the pursuit of initiatives in education, economic development, health, and governance reforms. The Obama era, well known for its “Pivot to the Pacific” strategy, also saw a lesser-known pivot to Africa. The 2010 NSS situated US policy at the intersection of development, governance, and selective counterterrorism–treating African states and institutions as essential partners in addressing global challenges rather than as passive recipients of US security policy. That theme was echoed in the 2015 NSS, where the Obama administration reiterated the importance of investing in Africa–underscoring the economic dynamism and demographic potential of the continent. While acknowledging persistent security threats and governance challenges, it emphasized regional leadership and resilience over heavy US military involvement.
The arrival of Donald Trump to the White House in 2017 marked a decisive pivot in the NSS. The release of the 2017 NSS embedded Africa in the framework of great-power competition. Engagement became refocused on security and counterterrorism partnerships, prioritizing sovereignty over democracy promotion and development assistance. Countering China sat at the apex of Africa’s relevance for US national security. Where previous administrations invoked the importance of investment and development, the 2017 NSS articulated Trump’s “America First” approach and demanded partnerships, not dependency. The 2022 NSS, under the Biden administration, retained the competitive framing introduced in 2017 but softened certain elements by recentering Africa within a broader agenda of governance, economic modernization, climate resilience, and global health security. While it acknowledged China’s expanding influence, it argued that long-term US interests were best advanced through revitalized democratic partnerships, deeper regional integration, and sustained development initiatives rather than transactional ties alone.
Rethinking Africa
In crafting an NSS, there are always inherent risks. Not every issue or region can be treated with equal attention, nor should they. But the 2025 NSS moves Africa further to the margins precisely when Africa is becoming more consequential in world politics. The Trump administration identifies critical mineral development and opportunities across the energy sector as priorities on the continent. Islamist terrorism remains a talking point, but the focus on trade and investment, rather than aid and dependency, serves as a hallmark of this approach to Africa.
The reality is that Africa today sits at the crossroads of a generational demographic explosion, critical minerals supply chains, assertive approaches by middle powers and strategic competitors, and dynamic sociopolitical shifts. More African states now play essential roles in shaping and influencing outcomes at the United Nations, G-20, BRICS, and so on. A US strategy that relies exclusively on transactionalism may sound good to Americans, long frustrated with a foreign policy that appears to prioritize others over them, but this strategic calculus is out of touch with the economic and political potential of improved relations across Africa. The NSS does not outright reject that potential, but it sharply narrows the pathways through which it can be realized.
Strategic disengagement will carry long-term tangible costs. Washington’s narrow path to engagement disadvantages the United States in ways that not only open new doors for adversaries but also entrench partnerships that will become increasingly complicated to counter. Russia has adapted its expeditionary security model through the Africa Corps, which it has deeply embedded within security institutions and political structures from Equatorial Guinea to Sudan. China continues to advance its Belt and Road Initiative as it secures multi-decade agreements for port access, entrenches its telecommunications networks, and dominates critical-mineral export networks across the continent–all but ensuring a structure of economic dependencies for decades to come. The 2025 NSS rightly acknowledges the need to disrupt this effort, but the tools available are limited.
Meanwhile, the Gulf states and Turkey are increasingly engaged, shaping events in Sudan, Niger, Libya, and across the continent. Like Russia and China, they bring resources with few normative strings attached. Where the 2025 NSS emphasizes the need for Africa to bring value to America, Africa is not waiting for Washington’s return. New alignments are forming and, once cemented, they will be challenging to unwind. By assuming Africa is a low-return investment, either by narrowing the issues that promote engagement or by vacating the field, the United States all but guarantees that others will benefit.
Beyond strategic competition, a focus on national sovereignty at the expense of democracy promotion will significantly affect Africa’s democracies. This type of norm-shifting stands in stark contrast to Trump’s reform-minded 2017 NSS, which prioritized the rule of law and effective governance. In regions where civil-military relations remain fragile and democratic institutions are weak, this approach signals that political transition and governance standards are no longer central to US foreign policy. Over time, this environment could make military interventions into politics appear less costly or embolden autocratic tendencies in ways that pose long-term risks to US and African interests.
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A bigger risk in the 2025 NSS is that it misdiagnoses the nature of competition on the continent. Africa is not a passive arena in which great powers maneuver for influence; it is a networked political landscape in which agency rests heavily with African governments, regional bodies, and civil society. Durable influence is earned through sustained governance support, crisis response, economic opportunity, and the ability to deliver tangible benefits. The decision to sideline governance, development, and institutional capacity building is more than a philosophical shift; it challenges the very foundations of long-term stability. State fragility remains a core driver of terrorism, conflict, displacement, and foreign penetration. From the Sahel to Sudan to the eastern DRC, every crisis that now consumes policymakers has roots in eroded governance.
It is not surprising that the 2025 NSS reflects a narrowing conception of Africa’s relevance to US national security. Yet while this approach may align with domestic political instincts and fit within the administration’s broader strategic reorientation, reducing Africa to a venue for episodic deals or a peripheral theater of great-power competition overlooks the long-term economic, demographic, and geopolitical trends that are steadily elevating the continent’s strategic weight.
Navigating between selective engagement and strategic retreat will be difficult, but neither course is likely to reduce the pressures that will draw the United States back to the continent. Instead, it risks deferring engagement, ensuring that future interventions, when they become unavoidable, are costlier and less effective.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Foreign Policy Research Institute or the Naval War College.
Image credit: AFRICOM Commander visits Cameroon Minister of Defense, September 2025. (US Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. Donato Maffin)
Christopher M. Faulkner is a non-resident Senior Fellow in FPRI’s Eurasia Program and an Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs in the College of Distance Education at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) where he teaches courses on Foreign Policy Analysis, International Security, and Irregular Warfare. Raphael Parens is a Fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program. He is an international security researcher focused on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and specializes in small armed groups and NATO modernization processes.