US, Algeria sign ‘first-of-its-kind’ agreement to expand military cooperation

The United States and Algeria formally pledged to deepen their militaries’ partnerships and pursue possible weapons exchanges and new joint asset deployments, multiple U.S. officials familiar with the deal told DefenseScoop this week.

Signed by military leaders from both nations on Jan. 22, the new U.S.-Algeria Defense Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding paves the way for closer bilateral collaboration between troops. Some predict it also holds potential to curtail Russia’s influence in northern Africa. 

“This is a first-of-its-kind agreement between the U.S. and Algeria, and a major shift in Algerian foreign policy,” a U.S. defense official said on the condition of anonymity.

Generally for the Pentagon, MOUs refer to legally non-binding arrangements that describe the intentions, roles and responsibilities of the entities that opt to be involved. 

The commander of U.S. Africa Command, Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, signed the new MOU during his third official visit to Algeria alongside the country’s minister delegate to the minister of national defense and chief of staff to the National People’s Army, Gen. Saïd Chanegriha.

On Wednesday, a military spokesperson told DefenseScoop that the agreement “states the intention of both parties to explore potential opportunities for cooperation in areas that include maritime search and rescue,  counterterrorism, military training, and military healthcare initiatives.”

Without providing further details on those possibilities, they confirmed that a Joint Military Commission is poised to connect “annually to identify, guide, and review discrete opportunities and proposals for military cooperation.”  

“The first JMC will occur in 2025, with dates to be determined,” the spokesperson said. 

In a separate conversation, a U.S. defense official said that — with the deal officially set — Africom’s Office of Security Cooperation will begin puzzling out next steps and engage with their Algerian counterparts to begin planning future events for personnel to collaborate and jointly participate in.

“Both militaries commit to meeting on a regular basis and to find ways for us to assist one another,” the U.S. defense official said.

At this point, it’s “still to be determined” whether the new U.S.-Algeria pledge will result in expanded data-sharing and technology exchanges between the two militaries, they noted.

The MOU initiates a process to identify areas where the troops can more closely cooperate. 

It also instructs both sides to start meeting on “everything from foreign military sales, exercises, military trainings, etc.,” the official said, noting that “it does not confirm those things will happen — but it does get the ball rolling.”

While the Algerian military “lightly participated in or observed exercises, and attended conferences” on the sidelines over the last couple of years, in the U.S. defense official’s view, the new MOU signals that Algiers is now “opening the door wide open for more engagement and cooperation” with Africom.

According to the official, the agreement had “been in the works for sometime, but slow processes and lack of desire to see it happen on the Algerian side delayed it.” 

However, “the November timeframe is when it got kicked into high gear,” they noted, which was also around the same time Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. 

“Some are calling this part of the ‘Trump effect’ on foreign policy. Not until very recently Algerians kept us at arms length — now it’s completely different,” the official told DefenseScoop.

Leaders from the U.S. and Algeria have interacted since the late 1700s, though permanent diplomatic relations weren’t shaped until after Algeria emerged from subsequent French rule in the early 1960s. Relations between the nations were severed amid the Arab-Israeli conflicts between 1967 and 1974, but they’ve been relatively re-engaged in the recent past. 

Algeria is the largest country on the African continent. A small portion of the nation is located in the conflict-ridden Sahel region, where many people face severe challenges around political instability, violence and food insecurity.

Martin Pimentel, a research associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Middle East Program, noted that in the modern era both governments have a “transactional orientation” and view enhanced cooperation as an element that can mutually serve their near-term demands.

“The Trump administration needs partners to reduce U.S. troop presence abroad. The United States and Algeria share important interests reducing instability in the Sahel, and that makes them natural partners as President Trump seeks to draw down the U.S. military presence in the region,” Pimentel said in an interview on Wednesday.

The two nations are already partnering up on stabilization and counterterrorism efforts, which are ongoing and will likely grow under the new MOU.

“The big question is whether security cooperation can spill over into other domains,” Pimentel said. “With more technical cooperation, intelligence sharing and training, we might see this spilling over into a narrow rapprochement between Algeria and Morocco over security cooperation in the Sahel.”

He explained how Algeria used to be close to the Soviet Union, and to this day it continues to rely on a lot of Russian military equipment. But, he noted, Algiers has also been “recalibrating” its relationships with Washington and Moscow for decades.

“It’s been interested in growing its U.S. relationship for a long time, partly so it’s not over-reliant on Russia, and partly to get things it wants from the United States. Cooperation has been especially strong in stabilization operations, security sector reform, and combatting transnational crime,” Pimentel told DefenseScoop.

“This new agreement continues that pattern of cooperation, but it also comes at a unique moment for U.S.-Algerian relations. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Algeria seized on European efforts to diversify their energy supply chains. Russia has also been slow producing and supplying defense systems to Algeria, and Algeria is concerned about the Wagner Group’s destabilizing presence in Mali. The United States sees a real opportunity in this moment to reduce Russian influence in Algeria,” he said.

In a separate conversation, a U.S. defense official also pointed to how Russia’s losses in Syria have caused Algeria to only be able to depend on Libya in regards to port control on the entire Mediterranean Sea.

“Algeria was ‘a hope’ for Russia — but due to the amount of instability that Russia has brought to the Sahel, they and many Arab nations see Russia as a destabilizer,” the official said.

The signing of this new MOU also follows the U.S. military’s recent withdrawal of all its troops and assets that were previously deployed in Niger.

“Our presence fluctuates pending what is going on around the world, and administration to administration. This agreement shows a shift of Arab countries looking to the U.S. for partnership and stability,” the U.S. defense official said.

In response to DefenseScoop’s questions on Wednesday about what sparked this new commitment, the military spokesperson said the MOU is a result of negotiations between the Defense Department and the Algerian Ministry of National Defense that were held over a period of more than two years.