President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
Wright’s “Africa in Global Society,” despite being twenty years old, contains a set of timeless lenses for viewing Africa in the contemporary era: Regionality, Continentality, New Issue solutions, and Democracy. When analyzed through this four-pillared framework, strategic and political engagement strategies may be more coherently framed and contextualized to facilitate the elusive whole-of-government approach.
With its emerging emphasis on strategic competition, the United States must focus on renewing its engagement with potential allies on the African continent. The rise of insurgencies in West and East Africa, the geostrategic importance of natural resources from the continent, and the ability to provide a credible alternative to China that offers African countries the freedom to self-determine their economic futures necessitates a new approach towards African countries as vital and enduring economic and security partners.
President Biden’s Africa team will face three dilemmas that would be recognizable to any American statesman responsible for Africa policy in the post 1945 period. The answers to these three foundational questions, set out in key strategic documents like the National Security Strategy, provide the intellectual framework that foreshadows subsequent resource allocations and shapes the policies through which the United States engages the African continent.
The U.K. government should look closely at the Niger incident report. The U.S. looks set to engage in a frank discussion about what went wrong, and more generally raise a number of concerns about the deployment of U.S. special forces to West Africa. It is indicative of a recognition within the U.S., as among many of the U.K.’s allies, that greater openness is not inherently incompatible with the operational security or utility of special forces. The U.K. government should consider its own options. Its no-comment policy is not risk free and presents a number of dangers to the effectiveness of U.K. military engagement abroad.
