The broader strategic challenge remains unchanged: preserving freedom of navigation while reducing incentives for repeated militarization of disputed territory.

The United States should arrive in Africa offering contracts before combat, commerce space before battlespace, and partnership before prescription. That approach does not ask America to surrender its own interests; it recognizes that American interests can be advanced by creating relationships in which African countries, African businesses, American companies, and American workers all have something tangible to gain from stability.

South Korea continues to receive an American security commitment while facing pressure to contribute more to both its own defense and wider allied objectives.