China is able to change world order, US must fight in Africa: CENTCOM
The Chief of US CENTCOM says that Russia's Wagner is filling the gaps of US' absence in Africa.
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A US special forces soldier stands in front of Chadian soldiers during Flintlock 2015, an American-led military exercise, in Mao, February 22, 2015 (Reuters)
Washington considers that Beijing is the only power with fundamental capabilities to produce a new world order, while political shifts in Africa toward China and Russia pose a great risk to US' influence in the continent.
"Recent political transitions [in Africa] challenge US military assistance as well as access and influence to help counter advances by malign actors, namely Russia and the PRC [People's Republic of China]," US Assistant Defense Secretary for International Security Affairs Celeste Wallander told the US House Armed Services Committee in congressional testimony on Thursday.
Read more: US-Africa Summit attempt to assert competition against China: Experts
Wallander told the committee that Africa currently represents the only arena where the US could fight back China's growing global influence, adding that Beijing, Moscow, and Iran constitute a great challenge to America's strategic positioning, in addition to "rising terrorism" in the Sahel and the coastal West Africa regions.
Wagner filling US' void in Africa
General Michael Kurilla, chief of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said that the US should make it a top priority to counter China and Russia strategically in addition to deterring Iran.
Kurilla also stated to the committee that Russia's private military company Wagner Group is filling the "void" where the United States is absent in Africa.
"Let me state that Wagner, Wagner and Yevgeny Prigozhin, they're about power and profit. ... They fill a void where we are not, where we have backed off because of one reason or another," Kurilla told the US House Armed Services Committee.
China could damage US' positioning in Africa
Earlier this month, the United States Africa Command issued a warning that if China were reportedly successful in setting up a military facility in West Africa, it would fundamentally alter the geostrategic equation governing the country's defense.
AFRICOM Commander Gen. Michael Langley warned during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that "they would change the whole calculus of the geostrategic global campaign plans of protecting the homeland. If they build any capacity on the west coast, geostrategically [it] will put them at an advantage."
"Right now we have a clear advantage... we can't let them have a base on the west coast because it will change the dynamics," suggesting that China might want to militarize the Port of Doraleh in Djibouti.
