Analysis in brief: In pursuit of safe countries where citizens can prosper and investors feel secure, Africa is using its new geopolitical positioning in a multipolar world to reshape foreign relationships away from traditional aid and raw-resource trade. The repositioning aims to build more equitable relationships that can strengthen Africa’s security goals.

Any government’s primary duty is to protect its citizens from harm, from natural disasters to man-made security threats, such as domestic terrorism and incursions by foreign entities. Security is the bedrock of a stable and prosperous society. It is also a primary consideration for investors, who seek environments where their business interests can operate freely without concern over crime or conflict.

In their quest to create the national stability necessary for economic and societal progress, African countries in recent years have added security to issues like trade, the environment and health in their diplomatic and trade engagements with foreign powers. Because a country best understands its own security needs, relationships with foreign powers must recognise the importance of African countries’ knowledge on these matters. In the past, foreign powers often approached security partnerships by building military bases in African countries and imposing security ‘solutions’ that were useful for projecting global military influence but irrelevant to local security challenges. Africa is now seeking equitable partnerships that prioritise African countries’ own security goals. Desired security alignments must be founded on self-determination and local ownership rather than dependency on foreign actors for security.

While foreign powers may indeed become strategic partners, African nations are also increasingly turning to regional bodies to strengthen security against emerging threats. The era of African nations going to war against one another has largely been replaced by threats rooted in internal instability. African militaries face asymmetrical challenges that are, in some cases, decades old, including terrorist insurgencies and armed rebellions. Newer threats include organised crime and the proliferation of non-state actors, such as mercenaries arriving from Russia to overthrow democratically elected governments.

Increasingly, state security is recognised as dependent on regional security. Conflicts affecting a single country tend to spill across borders, impacting neighbouring economies and broader regional development. Consequently, when internal issues become regional, they require collaborative responses. These come from sub-regional bodies, which already exist in the form of regional economic communities (RECs). The African Union recognises eight RECs, from the oldest – the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), founded in 1975 – to the largest – the Community of Sahel-Saharan States. The political will to enhance security regionally exists, but it is often frustrated by a lack of funding.

Because no single state can effectively mitigate threats to its national security on its own, regional military alliances are also essential, combined with the strategic adaptation of national armies to the new realities posed by their adversaries. African militaries must move beyond conventional warfare and adopt methods capable of addressing persistent inequitable threats, including militant groups that employ terror and guerrilla warfare tactics. Asymmetrical threats also arise from climate-induced conflict over water rights and economic pressures that drive waves of economic refugees across borders.

Intelligence capabilities are likewise assuming increasing importance in security strategies. While foreign powers have proved valuable military partners, partly because of the intelligence they share, any in-depth understanding of local conflicts can only come from domestic intelligence gathering at the source.

In a multipolar world, Africa is better positioned to seek security partnerships from a wider range of foreign actors. What is sought from such partnerships is equality. African nations wish to be the leaders of their own security. They seek peace for the welfare of their citizens and for national development rather than merely to ensure the safe passage of natural resources to overseas buyers.

Geopolitics is shaping economic and operating environments

Africa’s geopolitical positioning is shifting from that of a passive, aid-dependent continent to an increasingly assertive actor in a multipolar world. In the past, Africa’s trade relationships were shaped by an imbalance of power, with wealthy Western countries often determining trade terms. These arrangements invariably involved African countries exporting natural resources in raw, unprocessed forms to be manufactured into goods overseas. African countries received relatively little financial compensation because raw materials carry less value than finished products. Trade and foreign relations were largely disconnected from the issue of African countries’ national security.

In 2026, African countries learned to leverage their vast natural resources, economically active young populations and strategic geographic position to secure greater economic and diplomatic influence on the global stage. As traditional Western influence declines, new partnerships with China, the Gulf states, Russia and Turkey are transforming the continent into a critical ‘swing bloc’ in global affairs. This new diplomatic reality has strengthened Africa’s bargaining position while it seeks support for its security policies.

For example, Africa is a central arena in the global competition for critical minerals, such as cobalt and lithium, which are essential to the global energy transition. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), home to some of Africa’s largest deposits of these minerals, has faced security threats from foreign-sponsored militants seeking to plunder these resources since its independence. In 2026, the DRC successfully argued to foreign trade partners that mineral trade will remain constrained unless long-standing security threats are eliminated. The era of large-scale UN peacekeeping missions is over, and the DRC’s foreign trade partners must fill the gap through security assistance. Foreign investors are eager to secure a safe trading environment. Ordinary Congolese citizens would also benefit immensely from peace, which would enable the government in Kinshasa to fulfil its primary duty of protecting the nation’s people.

The defining trend in Africa’s relationships with foreign entities in the 2020s is the overlap between defence co-operation and economic partnerships. Since African nations achieved independence, foreign powers have remained a constant presence in African affairs, although engagements have largely been restricted to aid in exchange for diplomatic support at the UN. This is changing.

External powers are moving from presence to participation

In 2026, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama spoke both with foreign capitals and to an assembly of fellow African heads of state when he proposed that Africa take firmer command of its affairs and destiny as an emerging global actor. He expressed dissatisfaction with the status quo as a ‘triple dependency’ on foreign security, donor aid and raw materials. The new paradigm, which elevates African countries as equal partners in trade and security matters, is already well underway. However, progress continues to be disrupted by the use of Africa by foreign powers to pursue geopolitical influence at the expense of Africans’ security and prosperity.

Russia deployed mercenary forces to the Sahel in 2023 to assist in overthrowing democratically elected governments, and the military juntas that assumed power embraced Moscow as a partner in securing and maintaining their rule. These same regimes’ simultaneous expulsion of France as the geopolitical order in the Sahel, was reshaped through force.

However, France’s presence was already unpopular among the people of Mali, who like many others in the Sahel viewed French troops as remnants of colonial-era oppression rather than developmental partners. France’s principal reason for remaining in the Sahel was to help control illegal migration to Europe, favouring a military presence over nation-building as the means to achieve this objective. This strategy failed because it did not address the region’s underlying developmental needs. France may yet have a second opportunity to redefine its role. Russia, meanwhile, has shown little interest in African nation-building. For any foreign power to engage sustainably, military capabilities must be used to support national security, not merely install allied governments.

Meanwhile, African nations are navigating the China-US rivalry by maintaining relations with both powers, as well as with other foreign actors. Reliance on any single superpower is becoming increasingly outdated. By cultivating multiple partnerships, African countries are strengthening their bargaining positions to assure security assistance through bilateral agreements. In the past, security pacts were largely symbolic. Today, African countries are increasingly demanding and receiving tangible military assistance in the form of troop training, participation in international military exercises to build combat readiness and management skills and other practical support.

To both China and the US, African countries have made clear that all partners must move beyond a narrow long-term development focus and recognise the links between security, economic growth and resilience to environmental challenges.

Multilateral platforms are being used defensively

Africa’s security goals may best be achieved through collective bargaining through RECs and the African Union (AU). Because African countries possess highly varied political systems – ranging from autocracies and traditional monarchies to democracies – as well as diverse economic interests, engagement through RECs has become a more efficient way of securing the advantages of collective bargaining when dealing with foreign partners on security matters. AU was designed to allow the continent to speak with a single voice and, ultimately, to act as the legitimate representative of its member states on security issues in engagements with foreign partners.

The AU is also positioning itself as a driver of innovative solutions and pre-emptive policies aimed at anticipating security challenges. The principal obstacle is financial capacity. The AU Peace Fund has secured US$400 million from member states, which falls short of the UN peace missions that cost billions of dollars. For this reason, conflict anticipation has become increasingly important, along with the intelligence capabilities required to support it.

The UN has historically engaged Africa on security matters in a reactive manner. Crises emerge, UN humanitarian organisations arrive with emergency relief and peacekeeping missions are assembled to enforce ceasefires and stabilise conditions. Africa has hosted the UN’s largest and longest-running peacekeeping missions. The United Nations’ longest peacekeeping mission in Africa, as well as its longest-running globally, is the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), which was established in 1991 and remains active in 2026. The era of extended peacekeeping missions is ending, partly because of the costs involved but also because of Africa’s growing determination to manage its own security landscape.

Military components are now integrated into RECs and are being deployed in 2026 to areas of instability that threaten regional security. One example is the Southern African Development Community’s mission in Mozambique against insurgents in Cabo Delgado. Private actors are also playing greater roles in maintaining order, particularly in the DRC, where private armed forces protect mines and counter militant incursions. A 20 000-man Paramilitary Mining Guard is a US$100-million union that is state run using private contractors and is aimed at thwarting rebel factions and smuggling syndicates. International Private Military Companies (PMCs) provide security in the southern Katanga and copper-rich regions.

In the Sahel, the imposition of order has effectively involved propping up military juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger through the Russian mercenary operation formally known as African Corps, the successor to the Wagner Group, which is now fully controlled by the Russian Ministry of Defence. The juntas have formed their own REC, the Alliance of Sahel States. The military governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have used this alliance to replace the Economic Community of West African States, of which they were previously members.

The alliance is an anachronism because it represents a return to a period when Africa served as a battleground for proxy conflicts between superpowers and at a time when countries aligned themselves exclusively with a single global power. For this reason, the alliance is likely to prove non-viable should the juntas in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger collapse.

Most other African RECs and states have instead chosen multiple partnerships, guided by the broader principle that Africa’s security must originate domestically and follow national policies rather than depend on foreign intervention.

The critical points:

• African countries seek to become self-sufficient authorities of their national security rather than rely on foreign powers for aid and military intervention
• In today’s multipolar world, African countries are integrating security priorities into trade, diplomacy and economic partnerships as they strengthen their bargaining power with foreign partners
• African countries are increasingly pursuing security objectives through collective bargaining through RECs and the AU, whose Peace Fund is being positioned to assume a greater regional peacekeeping role

Written by In On Africa