The United States and Africa
Chapter 12 investigates the evolution of US Africa policy from 1991 through 2017, focusing especially on the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations. As the dominant world actor after the Cold War, the United States used its political, economic, and military clout to sway international bodies and influence world events. In Africa, the United States supported initiatives that improved health and promoted economic development—prerequisites for social stability. It also strengthened the military capabilities of African states and intervened with force when its perceived interests were deemed threatened. During the 1990s, US actions were most often justified by the response to instability/responsibility to protect paradigm. However, after the September 2001 attacks, the US counterterrorism agenda took increasing precedence. Washington provided money, training, hardware, and equipment to dozens of countries that were considered vulnerable to terrorist activity. It provided air support in conventional military actions and engaged in a growing number of covert military operations. The increasing securitization of US Africa policy shifted attention and resources from health and development to counterterrorism and favored countries that were rich in resources or strategically located over other countries that may have had more pressing needs.
Chapter 13, focusing on 2017, surveys the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency and suggests how his administration’s policies and perspectives are likely to affect Africa. Based on statements made during the presidential campaign and evidence from Trump’s first year in office, the chapter explores continuities and discontinuities with policies of past administrations. It foresees the continued militarization of US Africa policy and a diminished emphasis on public health, economic development, good governance, and human rights. Although the counterterrorism agenda gained precedence in the Bush and Obama administrations, officials in those administrations regarded physical well-being, economic prosperity, and accountable governance as critical components of the counterterrorism toolkit. Trump, in contrast, sees little value in diplomacy and foreign aid. He opposes US support for UN peacekeeping efforts and for postconflict nation building. Although early renditions of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy hinted at a rollback of US intervention, his subsequent actions in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia suggest an intensification of US military involvement in global trouble spots. In Africa, such interventions are likely to be justified by the war on terror paradigm.
THE NEXT CHAPTER advances the book’s agenda in three ways. First, it offers an overview of Africa in the 1990s, when political and economic crises opened the door to a new round of external involvement. Second, it develops more fully the paradigms used to justify foreign invention, providing historical context for the constituent ideas and examining their evolution. Finally, the chapter discusses common misunderstandings about Islam that have influenced the execution of the Western war on terror and that continue to influence government actions.
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The Post–Cold War Context
Shifting Paradigms and Misconceptions
THIS CHAPTER PROVIDES historical context for foreign intervention in Africa after the Cold War, performing three important tasks. First, it describes how the political and economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s, which were rooted in colonial and Cold War policies, ushered in a new wave of external involvement in the 1990s. Second, it shows how the outside powers that responded to this instability had additional tools at their disposal. Post–World War II institutions and legal frameworks threw into question longstanding views concerning state sovereignty and international law. Postwar conventions and interpretations advanced new rationales for foreign intrusion into the affairs of nation-states that threatened regional stability and civilians’ lives. The paradigms of response to instability/responsibility to protect and the war on terror—put to use after the Cold War—emerged from this intellectual ferment. Third, the chapter investigates Western misconceptions about Islam that underpinned the war on terror and had devastating effects on millions of Muslims worldwide.
Africa after the Cold War
The roots of many problems afflicting Africa today lie in its colonial and Cold War past. Distinctions in power and privilege and conflicts over natural resources have long been a part of human history; in Africa, these phenomena predated the colonial period. However, the plundering of riches through unequal exchange was embedded in colonial economic practices, and colonial-era ethnic and regional hierarchies—sometimes built on preexisting distinctions—often assumed new potency after independence. Internal corruption, economic mismanagement, and pyramids of privilege resulted in unstable societies marked by huge disparities in wealth and power. Money and weapons distributed by Cold War patrons entrenched power differentials and rendered local conflicts deadlier than those of previous eras. The end of the Cold War introduced a new set of problems with roots in this troubled past.
The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed economically and politically. African conflict zones that were once Cold War battlegrounds were increasingly ignored, and dictators who were no longer useful to their Cold War patrons were rapidly abandoned. Across the continent, nations suffered the consequences of depleted resources, enormous debts, dysfunctional states, and regional wars over the spoils. Weapons left over from the Cold War poured into volatile regions and fueled new competition for riches and power. Countries already weakened by economic and political crises descended into violent conflicts that often transcended international borders. In some cases, popular movements or armed insurrections ousted dictators who had lost the support of outside powers. However, because war and repression had stymied organized political opposition in many countries, warlords and other opportunists often moved into the power vacuums. Unscrupulous leaders manipulated ethnicity to strengthen their drive for power and privilege, sometimes unleashing ethnically based terror.
During the first post–Cold War decade, foreign intervention assumed a new character. Many Western nations that had been implicated in African conflicts during the Cold War turned their attention elsewhere. The United States, as the self-proclaimed Cold War victor, showed little interest in direct military intervention and severely reduced its economic assistance as well. However, in keeping with its call for African solutions for African problems, Washington initiated new programs to bolster African military capabilities and others that focused on free market economic development and trade. Recognizing that Africa’s enormous external debts, often incurred by Cold War clients, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic contributed to political and economic instability, the United States also introduced programs to address these problems. The policy shift meant that most military interventions during the 1990s were conducted by African countries—sometimes to reestablish regional peace and security, but in other cases to support proxy forces that granted access to their neighbors’ resources.
Although extracontinental powers were less likely to intervene unilaterally during the 1990s, multilateral intervention by both African and non-African powers intensified and took shape under new auspices. The UN, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and various subregional bodies