Photo: Constantine Johnny/GETTY IMAGES
This series—featuring scholars from the Futures Lab, the International Security Program, and across CSIS—explores emerging challenges and opportunities that NATO is likely to confront after its 75th anniversary.
In the future, NATO will seek to expand its southern flank to Africa to counter the growing influence of China and Russia. African populations, however, will oppose such an expansion, which will cause tensions between the West and Africa. It behooves NATO strategists and planners to think carefully as they chart their engagement with Africa.
With a median age of 19 years, Africa is young. These youngsters, who make up the majority of Africa’s population of 1.4 billion, have little to no connection to NATO. At 75, NATO is a relic of the Cold War that younger Africans either know nothing about or barely study in school. Insofar as Africans remember the Cold War, it is a traumatic memory.
In their scramble for control of the continent and quest for victory over their Cold War adversaries, the great powers of the day pushed African countries to pick sides, propped up strongmen, and ensured that these leaders remained divided. Africans mistrusted and fought one another over foreign ideologies that drained their resources and left them worse off by the time the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended.
For these young Africans today, NATO represents the old colonial and postcolonial systems
from which they seek to wean themselves. For many of them, particularly those in the Sahel, their appreciation of NATO is shaped by the alliance’s 2011 intervention in Libya that culminated with Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi’s death and the collapse of the country. For many Africans, these two events fueled the conflict in the Sahel, and they blame NATO for the ensuing insecurity and instability in the region.
Further complicating matters for NATO are the often-difficult relations that African countries have with the former colonial powers, such as France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. France’s recent experience in the Sahel, where Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have severed ties with the old colonial power and longtime security partner, speaks to this challenge. How will NATO push for this expansion in a space where some key members of the alliance are not welcome?
A successful expansion would be as much about winning the hearts and minds of African populations, which drives citizen support, as it would be about the advancement of the alliance’s interests. Without a paradigm change and a new framework through which to engage African countries, NATO’s expansion in Africa would fail. African countries are not clamoring to join the alliance, which they view as a Western imperialist organization. The nuanced voting pattern of African countries related to the war in Ukraine at the March 2, 2022, UN General Assembly emergency session underscored their leaders’ determination to keep their distance from the alliance. Africa’s position seemed to have caught EU policymakers and NATO leaders off guard. It should not have.
The European Union, whose membership overlaps with NATO’s, has maintained a highly militarized Africa migration policy. In the Sahel, this policy was partially reflected by the EU Groupes d’Action Rapides-Surveillance et Intervention (GAR-SI), staffed by Italian Carabinieri, Spanish Guardia Civil, and Spanish national police, alongside Portuguese and French experts. GAR-SI’s zone of operations included Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. While Brussels applauds initiatives such as GAR-SI, which ran from 2016 to 2023, as important antiterrorism and migration deterrence tools, and as proof of positive security cooperation, the region’s youths and populations view them differently.
NATO may see itself as separate from the European Union, but many Africans see the alliance as an extension of the union or vice versa. Others see the two organizations as the same.
As the alliance’s uber power, the United States could play a decisive role in reconfiguring the West’s relations with Africa, as African countries have continued to express their interest in strong partnerships with the United States. But the United States has relied so much on European powers in Africa that it has been difficult for it to define its objectives in Africa and chart a sustainable Africa policy beyond competition with China and Russia.
Great power competition adds another challenge to a potential NATO expansion into Africa. A plethora of players, including Gulf Arab states, China, India, Russia, and Turkey (a non-EU NATO member with an independent Africa policy), have shown sustained interest in Africa. They have invested and engaged African countries from the four corners of the continent, offering Africans choices, options, and opportunities. In this new scramble for Africa, NATO’s appeal is limited.
Africa needs human security. Roads, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure projects are in high demand across the continent. As a hard security organization, NATO is ill equipped to address African human security needs. Meanwhile, the West’s competitors, such as China, India, and Turkey, have figured out ways to partner with Africans across the full spectrum of needs, from defense and security to technology to infrastructure.
It is unclear how NATO would address the trust deficit and Africa’s spectrum of needs, given its North Atlantic security mandate. An expansion into Africa would have to start with that question.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is the director and senior fellow of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
