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The coming year will see the major stakeholders in Africa — France, the United States, China, Nigeria and South Africa — shift their priorities to other affairs.
While it still will intervene to protect its citizens and economic interests, France under a non-Gaullist government will have less time for flag-waving in its former African colonies. When interference is necessary in Francophone Africa in circumstances of little obvious payout, Paris will be more likely to seek international intervention than to keep such actions strictly French affairs.
The United States will remain engaged in anti-jihadist Special Forces operations in Somalia, but its actions in Africa will be slight; most U.S. activity instead will be limited to Saudi Arabia and Iran. What does happen in Africa from the American point of view will be largely limited to paperwork. In 2008, the Pentagon will launch the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), but little more than the forging of initial partnerships and the groundbreaking of its Africa-based administrative headquarters or logistics hub in the region is likely this year. That base probably will be established in one of the island states of the Gulf of Guinea: Equatorial Guinea or São Tomé and Príncipe.
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