American troops are on the ground. The conversation Nigeria needs to have is being avoided.

The first C-17s landed at Maiduguri on Thursday night. The United States is deploying approximately 200 intelligence analysts, advisers, and trainers to help Nigerian forces combat Boko Haram and ISWAP. Nigeria's Defence Headquarters says they are "technical and training personnel." They will not have combat command. Nigerian forces remain in full operational control.

That framing is probably accurate. It's also not the complete story.

These troops arrived because Trump ordered a Christmas Day airstrike on Nigerian soil, which he called a "Christmas present" to terrorists. They arrived weeks after AFRICOM began surveillance flights over northern Nigeria from Ghana. They arrived the same week US Congress introduced a bill naming a Nigerian opposition senator for visa sanctions and asset freezes. And they arrived as Trump continued framing the entire security partnership around the protection of Nigerian Christians, a framing the Nigerian government has repeatedly rejected but has not been able to stop.

Nigeria's Defence Chief told the House of Representatives last week that foreign partnerships are being managed carefully "to protect sovereignty." That's the right thing to say. The harder question is whether sovereignty is being protected or managed after the fact.

In Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, American forces were expelled following coups. Nigeria is now the anchor of US military engagement in West Africa, partly by default. That's a significant strategic position that arrived without a national conversation about what it costs.