In a telephonic press briefing Thursday, Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, commander of U.S. Africa Command, shared recent developments on the security conditions in the Sahel and elsewhere. He also shed light on his team’s new approach to enable more African-led solutions that confront contemporary risks, at a time when the continent is seen as an “epicenter” for terrorism, and insurgencies continue to make strides against local forces.

“We are leaning into empowerment over dependency. The United States is actively supporting African militaries through targeted training, advanced intel-sharing and help building institutions that can endure over time,” he told reporters.

Africom continues to evolve since it became a fully operational combatant command in 2008. The organization is primarily responsible for overseeing and conducting U.S. military operations, exercises, and security cooperation in its area of responsibility, which covers 53 African states that encompass more than 800 ethnic groups.

Building on policy shifts at the end of the Biden administration — and in alignment with President Donald Trump’s second-term vision to reduce the U.S. military’s global footprint in favor of homeland defense and a focus on the Indo-Pacific — Africom in recent months has been pulling back its physical presence around certain African nations and pushing those partners to assume more responsibility for their security. 

Langley briefed reporters Thursday from Nairobi, Kenya, where he is participating in the annual African Chiefs of Defense Conference with representatives from 37 African countries. There, he’s been engaging in what he referred to as “powerful dialogue.”

“These conversations reaffirm something critical: African nations are not waiting to be saved. They’re stepping up to take control of their own futures,” he said.

One topic addressed during the conference sessions was African militaries’ intent to “match” technological capabilities to existing threats — and ultimately counter them across multiple domains.

“Most pressing was the information domain, and being able to operate at the speed of relevance and getting information out there to shape the operational environment, to shape the strategic environment. They see their ability to be able to do that for stability and security as important. And then also capabilities to protect the force, whether it be because of the asymmetric capabilities that violent extremist organizations can bring to bear, especially through [unmanned aerial systems] and drone technology. Our partners really want the leading edge-type technologies to protect the force,” Langley told DefenseScoop. “So, that forum gave the opportunity for a number of countries to talk about their initiatives going forward and how they can collaborate on sharing information and intelligence.”

While Africom pivots its approach to more directly assist its partners with becoming more self-sufficient, the commander noted, China is trying to “replicate every type of thing” the U.S. military is doing on the continent. Both China and Russia are also influencing African communities by offering short-term economic gains that could impact America’s national security interests in the years to come.

However, Langley said the command’s top strategic priority at this time involves countering threats to the U.S. homeland from terrorist factions — “the most dangerous of which are based in Africa.”

“Let me speak plainly about the threats we’re facing, especially in the Sahel region, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. It is the flashpoint of prolonged conflict and growing instability. It is the epicenter of terrorism on the globe. Terrorist networks affiliated with ISIS and Al Qaeda are thriving, particularly in Burkina Faso, where the government no longer controls vast parts of its own territory,” Langley explained.

Extremist groups are simultaneously gaining ground across the Lake Chad regions as attacks are resurging.

“Throughout my travels across West Africa and through dialogue here at the conference, the concerns shared by my peers match my own. One of the terrorists’ key goals now is access to the West Coast of Africa. If they gain access to the vast coastline, they can diversify their revenue streams and evolve their tactics more easily — exporting terrorism to American shores. These terrorists conduct illicit activity like smuggling, human trafficking and arms trading. All these activities that fund their nefarious actions and destabilize the region,” Langley said. 

“That’s why our coastal partners, like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Benin, are relentlessly fighting along their northern borders to keep these threats at bay. Africom has and will continue to support them,” he added.

Since 2022, according to Langley, some terrorist factions have multiplied by up to fourfold around the continent.

In response to these threats and in line with its new strategic approach, Africom has been encouraging its international partners outside of Africa to increase burden-sharing. The command is also focused on helping its allies confront instability and other root causes of terrorism.

Further, early into his second administration, Trump made a policy change that empowered combatant commanders with expanded authorities that allow them to take faster action against “violent extremist organizations,” or VEOs.

“When [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] gave me guidance on Africa, he really said his number one priority for me to execute was to be able to hit ISIS, who is inextricably linked to global capabilities, and has a high aspiration and capabilities through their networks to attack the homeland. That was the first priority for me — and yes, with those authorities we’ve been able to execute operations to be able to turn them, degrade them, or affect deterrence of their operations. So, that’s in the name of him telling us to match capabilities to the threat,” Langley told DefenseScoop.

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The role, deputy operations (J3) for information warfare, was established on April 7, 2022, according to a spokesperson, to integrate and synchronize information forces such as cyber and information operations within the command.

While other combatant commands may not have created an analogous position in name alone, some created positions with similar roles. There is currently no official definition or lexicon for information warfare within the Department of Defense. As a result, the services and commands have sought to organize under their own specific lines of how they interpret and approach information warfare.

Those areas generally include cyberspace, the electromagnetic spectrum, information operations, deception, psychological operations and intelligence.

Lawmakers, along with the Government Accountability Office, have expressed concerns regarding the lack of agreed upon lexicon in the information sphere.

The DOD in September revised its doctrine, publishing Joint Publication 3-04, Information in Joint Operations, which builds upon previous doctrine and introduces some new concepts, to include getting away from parochial “information operations” and moving toward broader “operations in the information environment,” as the U.S. military refers to them.

Spacecom’s global operations directorate, or J3, is split between a deputy for space operations and a deputy for information warfare. It sought to create a position to better posture itself to compete in the information environment all the way from the competition phase to conflict.

“Consistent with JP 3-04, the U.S. Space Command commander established the Information Warfare division to synchronize its information forces in a manner that ensures we can effectively compete in the information environment from competition to conflict,” a spokesperson said, adding that each combatant command is organized differently to best address their requirements.

“Consistent with Joint Publication 3-04, U.S. Space Command’s overall Information Warfare effort focuses on conducting operations in the information environment that involves the integrated employment of multiple information forces to affect drivers of behavior by informing audiences, influencing foreign relevant actors, and attacking and exploiting relevant actor information, information networks, and information systems,” the spokesperson said.

DefenseScoop reached out to the other combatant commands to see if they had created an information operations director or an analogous position.

Strategic Command, Central Command and Northern Command said they do not have information warfare directorates.

Transportation Command, typically always the supporting command as a functional combatant command, said while it does not have a director or directorate staff section for information warfare, it coordinates with the supported command’s public affairs office for synchronized communications for messaging in line with DOD’s principles of information and public affairs guidance.

Most combatant commands have a staff section, dubbed the J-39, that handle and coordinate information ops.

European Command “maintains this doctrinal structure through the USEUCOM J-39 Information Operations Division,” a spokesperson said. “In September of 2022, Joint Stuff published the Joint Publication 3-04, Operations in the Information Environment (OIE), superseding the JP 3-13 Information Operations. The OIE term replaced information operations. Although some services use the term ‘information warfare,’ information warfare is not in Joint Staff lexicon with respect to organization and structure. Strategic documents and Service publications may use the term ‘information warfare’ to describe the mobilizing of information to attain a competitive advantage and achieve United States (US) policy goals.”

The personnel within Eucom’s J-39 include military information support operations, operations security, data science and operations research used by information planners to achieve the combatant commander’s objectives, the spokesperson added.

In a similar vein, Southern Command doesn’t have an information warfare director or directorate, but rather a doctrinal Information Operations Working Group, a spokesperson said. This working group brings together a cross section of representatives from offices and divisions such as public affairs, military information support operations and civil affairs, they added.

“The working group’s primary purpose is to ensure synchronized communications planning, implementation, and evaluation in support of the command’s theater strategy, mission, operations, and partnerships,” the spokesperson said. “Though the working group does not have direct meetings with other combatant commands programmed into their schedules, they do coordinate closely with counterparts from other combatant commands when supporting operations, engagements and events requiring collaboration between geographic and functional combatant commands.”

Cyber Command’s information operations entity is also located in its J3 operations directorate and assists in planning, coordinating, integrating, assessing and de-conflicting information-related capabilities for various military operations across all service components, a spokesperson said. That support is provided to combatant commands through the services within their specific theaters of responsibility.

Special Operation Command, which as a functional combatant command is not an operational headquarters and thus doesn’t actually command and control operations, has an official that runs the J-39 division, called the operations in the information environment (OIE) division chief, according to a spokesperson.

This entity works with all other combatant commands and contains three branches: civil affairs, military information support and information coordination.

“The J39 OIE Division leads the integration of Joint Information Operations and is responsible for Special Operations Forces’ Information Operations policy, strategy, plans, and operations to achieve national security objectives globally,” the spokesperson said. “The division is also responsible for USSOCOM’s authorities and requirements as the Joint Proponent for Civil Affairs and Military Information Support Operations.”

Africa Command and Indo-Pacific Command have not provided responses.

Updated on May 16, 2023, at 2:10 PM: This story has been updated to clarify that U.S. Space Command is the only combatant command among the many that responded to DefenseScoop’s queries, to create a new position specifically dedicated to information warfare. A previous version of this story said it was the only combatant command to create such a position. DefenseScoop did not receive comment from Africa Command or Indo-Pacific Command about whether they have created a similar position.

Updated on May 16, 2023, at 5:29 PM: This story has been updated to include a response from Northern Command that was received after the story was first published.

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