Preparing Africa for the Next Era of Great Power Competition

 


The international system is entering a period of intensified strategic competition among major powers. This is neither abnormal nor unexpected. Throughout history, periods of technological transition, energy reconfiguration, and security realignment have produced sharper geopolitical positioning.

The issue for Africa is not whether competition exists. It is whether the continent prepares adequately for it.

In an environment defined by control of critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, energy transitions, and evolving security alliances, regions that lack coordinated intellectual capacity, industrial depth, and credible defence capability risk becoming theatres of influence rather than independent strategic actors.

For the African Union and its member states, this moment calls for deliberate long horizon planning at continental scale. That includes building a critical mass of organised intellectual and policy institutions capable of fifty year strategic forecasting, accelerating continental industrialisation linked to value addition in strategic minerals and emerging technologies, investing in next generation energy systems to underpin economic sovereignty, strengthening judicial and institutional coherence to discipline governance failures, and developing credible collective security and defence capabilities consistent with deterrence, sovereignty, and stability.

Security capacity is not synonymous with militarism. It is a prerequisite for autonomy. Regions that lack credible deterrence often negotiate from structural weakness.

The choice before Africa is not ideological. It is strategic. Either the continent consolidates intellectual, industrial, and security capacity sufficient to shape global negotiations, or it remains structurally dependent within them.

History shows that power respects preparation. The coming decades will reward regions that invest deliberately in knowledge, institutions, technology, and coordinated defence.

Africa’s rise will not be rhetorical. It will be institutional.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author in his personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the positions of any institution or organisation with which he is affiliated.

GMC

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