On February 3, 2026, diplomats and corporate executives gathered to herald a new chapter in US-Congo relations: the Orion Critical Mineral Consortium announced a preliminary agreement to acquire a 40% stake in Glencore's vast Congolese copper and cobalt operations for approximately $9 billion. The deal, framed as a landmark partnership to diversify global supply chains away from Chinese control, was celebrated as evidence of America's commitment to the Democratic Republic of Congo's development.
What was not mentioned in the press releases was the military operation that had concluded just weeks earlier. In January, Erik Prince's Vectus Global forces were conducting drone reconnaissance missions over Uvira, South Kivu, supporting Congolese army units as they pushed Rwanda-backed M23 rebels from the strategic city. The timing raises uncomfortable questions about how resource security is actually achieved when corporate partnerships and privatized warfare converge in a state with weak institutions and abundant minerals.
The tactical convergence
Prince's firm arrived in the DRC ostensibly to establish a "fiscal brigade"—a euphemism for armed tax collectors targeting artisanal mining operators. But according to four people briefed on the mission, Vectus Global's actual deployment included specialized security support with drones, intelligence specialists, and operational coordination to Congolese forces attempting to reclaim Uvira from M23 control.
The operation succeeded. Uvira, positioned along the critical corridor linking eastern Congo's mining heartland to transportation routes toward East African ports, returned to government control. The city's recapture stabilized an area that had been convulsed by fighting since M23's renewed offensive in 2021, creating conditions more amenable to the kind of large-scale industrial extraction that companies like Glencore operate.
That this military intervention preceded the announcement of America's largest resource investment in the DRC is not, officially, a connection anyone is drawing. There is no formal contract between the US government and Erik Prince. But the operational reality on the ground reveals a strategic architecture that functions without requiring such formalities.
The mineral imperative
The Orion consortium's target—Glencore's Mutanda Mining and Kamoto Copper Company assets—represents one of the world's most significant concentrations of cobalt and copper reserves. Cobalt is essential for lithium-ion batteries; copper underpins the infrastructure of electrification. Chinese companies currently control approximately 68% of global cobalt refining capacity, much of it sourced from the DRC.
The Trump administration's response to this asymmetry has been institutional: the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), announced by Vice President JD Vance, and the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement signed on December 4, 2025, with sustained diplomatic engagement framed around "diversifying supply chains" and "promoting responsible sourcing." The Orion deal is the clearest manifestation yet of this strategy translating into actual asset acquisition.
But mineral deposits are not portfolios that change hands in conference rooms. They exist in physical space, often contested space, where armed groups challenge state authority and where instability makes industrial operations untenable. More than 200 killed in eastern Congo coltan mine collapse illustrates the precarity of extraction in the region. The question becomes: who creates the security conditions that allow billion-dollar deals to proceed?
Members are reading: How the privatization of warfare enables resource extraction without accountability, establishing a new model of strategic influence.
The sovereignty question
The DRC government's perspective cannot be dismissed entirely. Kinshasa faces a genuine security crisis in the east, where M23—widely documented to receive Rwandan support—has displaced hundreds of thousands and disrupted state authority. If the Congolese army lacks the capacity to secure its own territory, contracting external support is a sovereign decision. If that security enables economic development, it could be argued as serving national interest.
But sovereignty is not simply the formal right to sign contracts. It includes the capacity to set terms, to enforce accountability, and to ensure that security arrangements serve public rather than private interests. When the actors providing security answer primarily to corporate investors and foreign strategic imperatives, the sovereignty being exercised becomes increasingly nominal. The question is not whether the DRC has the right to hire Prince, but whether the arrangement serves Congolese priorities or merely provides local legitimacy for external resource competition.
What emerges in eastern Congo is a model of intervention designed for an era when direct colonialism is unacceptable but resource access remains imperative. The mechanisms have changed—private contractors instead of colonial militaries, equity stakes instead of concessions—but the fundamental dynamic persists. Mineral wealth flows outward. Security decisions are shaped by external interests. And accountability remains elusive, dispersed across a network of actors who can each plausibly deny responsibility for the whole.
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