Play as · WW3 2026 · L1 · Déby Continuity · Sudan Border
Chad - 2026
Chad is governed by Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno - son of Idriss Déby Itno (the previous president killed in April 2021 in fighting against rebel forces in the north), confirmed in the contested May 2024 election that the political opposition has refused to accept. Population about 18M, GDP around $30B PPP. The country is the principal Sahel-adjacent state that has not joined the AES confederation, ended its defence agreement with France in late 2024 and completed the French military withdrawal from Adji Kossei in January 2025, and has been a principal recipient of displacement from Sudan's civil war, with refugee totals changing rapidly and concentrated pressure around eastern border communities such as Adré and Tiné. The strategic identity is the Déby-family-political-continuity state with the post-2021 succession-managed institutional architecture, the multi-front security operations against jihadist and rebel armed groups, and a post-French-withdrawal search for diversified security cooperation.
Starting position
The Chadian Armed Forces are about 35,000 active personnel, oriented toward the multi-front border-defense operations (the Sudanese frontier with the refugee crisis and the cross-border RSF activity, the Libyan frontier with the periodic rebel-incursion patterns, the Lake Chad area with the Boko Haram and ISWAP operations, the Cameroonian and Central African Republic frontiers), and the substantial regional-cooperation deployments through the Multinational Joint Task Force, the Lake Chad Basin Commission and African Union frameworks. The G5 Sahel ceased to be an operational pillar after Chad and Mauritania announced its dissolution in December 2023. Equipment is mixed and aged. The January 2025 departure of the final French forces removed a long-standing operational backstop and made maintenance, intelligence and diversified procurement immediate command problems.
What turns the campaign
What Chad under the Déby government wants is the political-institutional consolidation of the post-2024-election architecture preserved against the political opposition's continuing contestation, the Sudan refugee-crisis response funded at the scale the humanitarian situation requires (assistance matched to current UN registration and host-community needs), replacement partnerships built after the completed French withdrawal without exchanging one dependency for another, the multi-front jihadist-and-rebel security operations sustained at the operational tempo the situation requires, and the regional cooperation through the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the Multinational Joint Task Force institutionalized. What Chad fears is a Sudanese RSF cross-border operation that exceeds Chadian containment capacity (the post-2023 RSF activity in eastern Chad has been substantial and politically sensitive given Mahamat Déby's family-political ties to certain RSF actors), a renewed northern rebel offensive on the FACT-style 2021 model, and a domestic political-institutional crisis if the post-2024-election political settlement breaks down at scale.
Signature challenge
The Sahel-adjacent non-AES state
Chad's central strategic problem is sustaining the post-2021 Déby-family continuity while every frontier imposes a different emergency. Chad terminated the defence agreement in late 2024 and the French withdrawal was completed in January 2025. N'Djamena must now replace capabilities and intelligence relationships while preserving freedom to work with multiple partners. The Sudan war has sent large numbers of refugees and Chadian returnees into the east, where aid, water and local markets are under severe pressure and alleged cross-border support can pull Chad into Sudanese factional politics. Around Lake Chad, Boko Haram and ISWAP demand joint patrols with neighbours even as regional alliances shift. Libya remains a route for northern rebels and arms. The contested 2024 election gave Mahamat Déby a civilian presidential mandate on paper, but repression of opponents and uncertainty around succession-era institutions narrow public trust. NationFall therefore asks the player to fund border towns, professionalize command, publish emergency spending and keep humanitarian sites outside military patronage. A force capable of fighting on several fronts still fails if soldiers are unpaid, refugees are politicized, or one foreign patron substitutes for national strategy. Chad’s campaign is an autonomy test after the French departure, conducted under simultaneous eastern, northern and western pressure. Oil revenue and the Chad-Cameroon pipeline add a fiscal lever that must be separated from presidential patronage. Publish transfers to eastern host communities and Lake Chad provinces, maintain the road and air network used for relief, and create legislative oversight for new defence agreements. Farmers and pastoralists need cross-border movement rules that survive diplomatic crises. A successful command can fight insurgents while allowing opposition parties, journalists and aid agencies to work; treating all three as security risks leaves the government blind.
Try the Chad campaign
Free demo. Pick WW3. Pick Chad. Déby continuity. Sudan refugee crisis. Sahel-adjacent non-AES.
Play Free Demo as ChadRegional: Sudan · Cameroon · Libya
Chad across the eras