African state's brief ploy, spiking articles (3,6)

I believe the answer is:

the gambia

'ploy spiking articles' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this definition defines the answer.

'african state's brief' is the wordplay.
'african state's' becomes 'The Gambia's' (country in Africa).
'brief' means to remove the last letter (a shorter or briefer version of the word).
'thegambias' with its last letter removed is 'THE GAMBIA'.

(Another definition for the gambia that I've seen is " Country".)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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