U.S. Military Drafts Plan For Intervention In Nigeria

The United States military has drawn up contingency plans for possible intervention in Nigeria in compliance with President Donald Trump’s directive to protect Christians from attacks by terrorists, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

According to the Times, officials said American forces were unlikely to be able to end Nigeria’s decades-long insurgency despite Trump’s order, cautioning that only a full-scale Iraq- or Afghanistan-style campaign could achieve such an outcome.

“The American military cannot do much to quell the violence unless it is willing to start an Iraq- or Afghanistan-style campaign. But there were some steps available to American war planners that could have limited impact on the militants,” the paper quoted U.S. defence officials as saying.

Plans drafted by the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) included a range of options—light, medium, and heavy—each representing levels of engagement. These were submitted to the Pentagon’s Joint Staff following the president’s announcement threatening military action to stop what he described as attacks on “cherished Christians”.

Under the light option, AFRICOM proposed “partner-enabled operations” in which U.S. forces would support Nigerian troops in targeting Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) militants.

The United States would provide intelligence and operational backing to Nigerian security forces, though it would have to do so without the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which closed its Abuja office in July after a directive from the Trump administration.

The Times reported that the medium option involved drone strikes on insurgent camps, convoys, and vehicles in northern Nigeria using MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator drones. However, that plan faces logistical challenges since the U.S. vacated its two nearest drone bases in Niger (Agadez and Niamey) in August, both now under Russian control.

The heavy option would involve deploying an aircraft carrier group to the Gulf of Guinea to launch long-range airstrikes deep into northern Nigeria.

But according to several officials cited by The New York Times, such a move “was not deemed a 2025 national security priority” as recently as last week, especially since the U.S. Navy’s carrier assets are currently deployed elsewhere.

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton (Rtd.), a veteran of the Iraq War, told the Times that a large-scale U.S. military intervention in Nigeria “would be a fiasco,” noting that neither the American public nor the administration has shown appetite for a new ground war in Africa.

He described limited airstrikes as “pounding a pillow,” implying they would have little long-term effect.

President Trump had announced on social media that he was instructing the “Department of War to prepare for possible action” in Nigeria, asserting that “Christianity is facing an existential threat” in the country.

He added that Nigeria had been officially designated a “country of particular concern,” a legal classification under U.S. law reserved for nations involved in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.

Trump vowed that the United States “cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries,” adding that his administration was “ready, willing, and able” to act to protect Christians worldwide.

The Federal Government of Nigeria has, however, rejected what it described as a mischaracterisation of its internal challenges.

In a statement on November 1, President Bola Tinubu said Nigeria “stands firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.”

He maintained that his administration has “continuously engaged both Christian and Muslim leaders to address security challenges across regions,” adding that portraying Nigeria as religiously intolerant “does not reflect our national reality.”

The New York Times said officials at AFRICOM acknowledged that the complex mix of ethnic, religious, and economic factors driving the violence in northern Nigeria makes a purely military solution unfeasible.

The conflict, they said, “falls along linguistic, cultural and religious lines” and is often rooted in land disputes and local corruption.

Boko Haram and ISWAP have long targeted both Christians and Muslims, the paper noted, taking advantage of regional grievances to expand their reach.

While the United States weighs its options, the Nigerian government has reiterated that any foreign involvement “must respect Nigeria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“Deploying an American aircraft carrier to the Gulf of Guinea to take on Islamic insurgents in Nigeria was not deemed a 2025 national security priority as recently as Friday,” the Times added.

U.S. Military Drafts Plan For Intervention In Nigeria is first published on The Whistler Newspaper