JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The Pentagon has only one permanent base in Africa, on the coast of Djibouti, a former French colony the size of West Virginia placed strategically where the Red Sea begins its journey north to the Suez Canal.

With the growing closeness of Djibouti’s president, Ismail Guelleh, to both Russia and China In recent years — both U.S. adversaries now also have troops in the country — the appeal of another location for U.S. forces on the vast, strategic continent has been on the rise.

Whether Botswana emerges as a badly needed option for the Pentagon could depend on a key election in the southern African country in just a couple of months.

Botswana routinely votes with Washington in international forums on key issues, including every United Nations debate criticizing Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In June, when the U.S. military mission for Africa brought together the continent’s army chiefs, the conference was held in Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military presence elsewhere in Africa is complicated, delicate and under a cloud.

Gen. Michael E. Langley, the head of the Pentagon’s U.S. Africa Command, told Congress a year ago that in addition to Djibouti and a logistics hub on Ascension Island off the continent’s south Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. military operates out of a dozen other “posture locations” that offer “low-cost facilities and limited supplies for these dedicated Americans to perform critical missions and quickly respond to emergencies.”

Critics say the U.S. military is low-balling the number of actual sites housing U.S. forces in Africa, but there is no doubt that the American military presence is under pressure and retreating on some key fronts.

Earlier this month, Africom withdrew the last American forces from two bases in Niger after the Biden administration clashed with the new military junta that ousted the country’s pro-Western president last year. While not large, the two sites were seen as a critical piece in U.S. and Western efforts to monitor and contain powerful jihadist militant movements that have been gaining power in the region.

Adding to the concerns are reports that Russian Wagner Group mercenaries, now operating under the direct control of the Russia Defense Ministry, have been deploying in Niger and other countries of the Sahel as U.S., French and other Western personnel are leaving.

Pentagon officials dispute the extent of Russian military influence in the region but concede the loss of a sophisticated listening post for U.S. forces in Niger was a setback.

“Niger has been really an anchor for our counterterrorism efforts over a decade,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters in a background briefing in May.

Botswana’s appeal

In the South African press, analysts frequently point to this former British territory as the obvious choice should the U.S. need more muscle, at a time on the continent where military coups are back in style, anti-Western sentiment is on the rise in many former colonial states, and Islamic terror movements have yet to be contained.

Botswana is landlocked, only slightly smaller than Texas, with the population of Houston (about 2.3 million). Most of the country is desert.

Although its global profile may be low, it is the only one of Africa’s 54 U.N. members not to have undergone a period of autocratic rule in the past half-century. It leads the global trade in diamonds but is perhaps better known as the setting for Alexander McCall Smith’s popular novels, which chronicle the cases of “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency,” about a local woman who solves mysteries in Gaborone.

In addition to diplomatic support, Botswana’s armed forces have experience working with American troops. In July, Pentagon officials said, U.S. Special Forces held joint combined exchange training maneuvers with the Botswana Defense Force at Thebephatshwa Air Base, the third such exercise in three years. The U.S. Army is also planning joint exercises this month.

If the Pentagon does have its eye on this part of southern Africa, things could change with elections due in October.

The Botswana Democratic Party has prevailed in every vote since founding President Sir Seretse Khama led his nation to independence in 1966.

His eldest son and former army commander, General Ian Khama, went on to lead the BDP and was head of state for two five-year terms as allowed by the constitution, striking up a notable friendship with former President Barack Obama. The two bonded over the fact that both were the sons of a Black African father and a white Western woman.

In 2019, Mr. Khama’s vice president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, took office and accused his predecessor of stealing billions of dollars from the treasury and trying to overthrow the state. He also accused Bridgette Motsepe, a mining magnate from Johannesburg whose sister is married to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mr. Masisi provided no evidence on either count, but fearing arrest, Mr. Khama, now 71, moved to South Africa, where he remains in exile. Both he and Ms. Radebe have denied any wrongdoing. The government even issued a list of banks in Europe and South Africa where the stolen funds had been stashed, but an independent audit has not found the suspect deposits.

A coalition known as the Umbrella for Democratic Change, led by 54-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer Duma Boko, is challenging Mr. Masisi’s bid for a second term in October.

In 2002, the respected polling firm Afrobarometer found that almost three-quarters of those surveyed in Botswana were “satisfied with how our democracy is working.” A decade later, the positive support had fallen to just 30%.

In an interview, Mr. Boko said his country was “desperate for change,” but he added that he saw no reason a new government would alter relations with the U.S., noting that both countries are in the middle of hotly contested campaigns.

“We both have elections coming up, and no one can predict who will be in power by Christmas,” he told The Washington Times. “But I was educated at Harvard and have great affection for America.”

Botswana’s problems, he said, were not about foreign policy: “Thousands are unemployed, there is a drought, the cost of living here is out of control and the price of diamonds, our major export, is falling. The task of my government will be to fix things at home.”

Mr. Boko said democracy needed “a regular change at the top” for work properly. “A single party in power for more than half a century is just not healthy.”

He and Mr. Masisi, 62, have been staging massive rallies. and the president has been more visible since reports surfaced in the media questioning his health.

In 2013, his brother died from kidney failure, and Mr. Masisi has made frequent trips out of the country, but his office describes him as “fit as a fiddle.” In June, he was guest of honor at the world’s largest diamond expo in Las Vegas and moved freely among the crowds.

Diamonds and pressure

Regardless of who wins the election, a future Gaborone government may be under pressure.

Botswana is the world’s largest supplier by value of gem-quality diamonds, mined and sold in conjunction with the London-based Anglo-American (AA) via its subsidiary, de Beers. In April, Australian mining giant BHP made a $49 billion bid to buy Anglo American, whose board declined the offer and then put the company’s South African platinum mine on sale along with de Beers.

Earlier this year, AA wrote down the value of its gem company by more than $1 billion. The parent company allowed de Beers to enter the market for artificial diamonds under its storied brand, but this only made the problem worse. On realizing the mistake, the company has reverted to trading in rocks taken from the ground rather than a lab.

Mr. Masisi wants his government to hold a larger share in de Beers. Mr. Boko would go even further, promising to assemble a consortium including AA and BHP, then buy the company outright and relocate its headquarters to Gaborone.

Sold on the open market, de Beers risks being bought by investors hostile to the West, who would then control the lion’s share of Botswana’s economy. Relations with the West and the U.S. — not to mention talk of a permanent American military base — could be greatly complicated.

There is already a cautionary example in the region: In the Congo, 15 of the country’s 19 valuable cobalt mines are now owned by Chinese interests.

Any sale would likely take well over a year to complete, and by then, both the U.S. and Botswana may have new leadership.

Duma Boko says the task for Washington is to make sure the October election is free and fair. “Send big teams of observers so there are no doubts over the outcome.”

He noted that the Biden administration had not asked for a military base, “so let’s not waste time on hypothetical issues. In what should be a rich country, we have thousands who live in shacks, hungry and unemployed, and that is a recipe for trouble. The problems at Anglo American are not helping.”

He called on U.S. investors to assist with the purchase of de Beers. “We’re not asking for charity. Run properly, this diamond company still has a lot of potential. Work with us to bring it home to Gaborone and back into profit.”