Play as · WW3 2026 · L1 · Cobalt-Copper Belt · Eastern Crisis
Democratic Republic of the Congo - 2026
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is governed by Félix Tshisekedi in his second term - the December 2023 election was contested but the results were institutionally accepted - and the country whose vast mineral wealth (the world's largest cobalt producer at over 70% of global supply, the largest African copper producer, substantial coltan, gold, and the rare-earth potential at the Manono lithium discovery) has placed it at the center of the global energy-transition critical-minerals supply chain. Population about 102M, GDP around $130B PPP. The eastern crisis - the M23 insurgency in North and South Kivu provinces, with substantial documented Rwandan military backing - escalated dramatically in late 2024 and early 2025 with the M23 capture of Goma in January 2025 and the subsequent capture of Bukavu in February. The strategic identity is the cobalt-copper-belt mineral state in active eastern crisis - DRC's strategic-economic centrality to the global energy transition is being played out against an active armed conflict in the same provinces that hold the most strategically critical mining infrastructure.
Starting position
The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) are about 134,000 active personnel, oriented toward the multiple security challenges across the country including the M23 conflict in the east, the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) ISIS-affiliated insurgency in Ituri and Beni, and the various smaller armed-group situations across the eastern provinces. Equipment is mixed and aged. The Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation en RD Congo (MONUSCO) has been substantially withdrawing under the 2023 disengagement plan; the SADC Mission in DRC (SAMIDRC) deployed in 2023 has had limited operational impact and substantial South African casualties; the post-Goma situation has fundamentally restructured the eastern operational environment. The Lobito Corridor's eastern connection through Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces is the principal Western-aligned mining-logistics infrastructure.
What turns the campaign
What DRC under Tshisekedi wants is the M23 insurgency contained or reversed through whatever mix of FARDC operations, regional cooperation, and international diplomatic pressure can be mobilized, the Rwandan-DRC bilateral situation managed without producing direct interstate war, the cobalt-and-copper mining production sustained at the Kolwezi-and-Likasi level the global energy-transition supply chain depends on, the Lobito Corridor connectivity advanced as the Western-aligned counter-investment to Chinese-aligned mining-logistics dominance, and the political consolidation of the second term sustained against the institutional fragility the eastern crisis is producing. What DRC fears is a Rwandan-DRC interstate war that would substantially exceed current containment capacity, an M23 westward advance that threatens additional provincial capitals (the post-Goma trajectory has been the central strategic question), a mining-sector disruption that compromises the foreign-currency and tax-revenue flows, and a domestic political-institutional crisis that the eastern conflict is progressively producing.
Signature challenge
Cobalt-copper state in eastern crisis
DRC's central strategic problem is that the country's strategic-economic centrality to the global energy transition (cobalt, copper, lithium, the broader critical-minerals supply chain) is occurring simultaneously with an active armed conflict in the same eastern provinces that hold the most strategically valuable mining infrastructure, and the institutional capacity to address either is constrained by the simultaneity. The post-Goma situation has demonstrated how rapidly the eastern crisis can produce strategic-territorial losses; the Lobito Corridor strategic positioning has demonstrated the Western alignment is real and substantial; the Rwandan-DRC bilateral situation has demonstrated how thin the room for non-escalatory resolution actually is. NationFall surfaces this as the Congolese campaign's defining tension: a state whose mineral wealth is genuinely consequential to the global energy future, whose territorial integrity is being progressively contested by an externally-backed insurgency, and whose institutional capacity to address either challenge is the principal scarce resource.
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Free demo. Pick WW3. Pick DR Congo. Cobalt-copper belt. Eastern crisis. Defend the mineral state.
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