USSOCOM looking at using Africa as a test bed for military capabilities
NewsMay 20, 2026
TAMPA, Florida. The commander of Special Operations Command Africa said his command is looking at using the continent's operating environment to develop and refine emerging capabilities that cannot be tested in higher-end theaters without exposing them to adversary observation.
"What AFRICOM is looking at is using Africa as an innovation incubator, where you can take a number of reps and sets to try to work on the technology," said Maj. Gen. Claude Tudor during a panel at SOF Week 2026. "If you do it in maybe some of these other theaters, where the higher end could be looked at, captured -- what do you reveal and conceal, where you may not be able to use it again?"
Tudor said Africa's large operating areas and comparatively lower adversary sophistication in many regions provide a higher-volume, lower-visibility environment for operational testing, and that the approach also builds partner capacity. He added that some capabilities that underperform in contested high-end environments remain viable against counterterrorism threat sets on the continent, including Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, creating additional testing opportunities even for systems that would not survive peer conflict.
"There's an opportunity for us to continue to develop out and use some of those things to increase the interoperability," Tudor said.
