Africa in International Politics

External Involvement on the Continent

Ian Taylor, Paul Williams, Ian Taylor, Paul Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134367115
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Locating Africa on the global stage, this book examines and compares external involvement in the continent, exploring the foreign policies of major states and international organizations towards Africa. The contributors work within a political economy framework in order to study how these powers have attempted to stimulate democracy, peace and prosperity in the context of neo-liberal hegemony and ask whom these attempts have benefited and failed.

1 The contending currents in United States involvement in sub-Saharan Africa

James J. Hentz

When in the course of a presidential debate with Vice President Albert Gore, George W. Bush was questioned about United States’ foreign policy towards Africa, he responded that we do not have any vital interests there. This royal we, of course, meant a splinter of the US foreign policy establishment ensconced in the world-view of a particular branch of the Republican Party. However, in general, Africa is well down the list of American priorities.

This does not mean that the US has ignored Africa. President John F.Kennedy and his Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Mennan Williams, for instance, were considered very ‘pro-Africa’, and President Ronald Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Chester Crocker, spent almost eight full years trying to cobble together a peace in Angola. In 1994, the Clinton White House hosted a conference on Africa and later dispatched Jesse Jackson to broker a (widely disputed) peace agreement in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. President Clinton himself made a rare presidential visit to the continent, which included his famous mea culpa for doing less to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the first African-American to hold that post, visited Africa in 2002 and again in 2003 with George W. Bush.

The 2002 visit by an American luminary is revealing and foreshadows the theme of this chapter. The Washington Post on 19 September 2002 stated:‘ Africa, the neglected stepchild of American diplomacy, is rising in strategic importance to Washington policy makers, and one word sums up the reason – oil.’ Powell visited oil exporters Angola and Gabon, and in September 2002 Gabon became eligible for assistance under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) (signed into law as Title 1 of the US Trade and Development Act on 18 May 2000). This followed the lifting of longstanding sanctions against The Gambia six months earlier, which had prevented the country from benefiting from any US bilateral assistance. Nigeria’s oil also remains important: according to a source at the American Institute of Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, the US is hoping to double its oil imports from Nigeria from 900,000 barrels per day to around 1.8 million barrels daily in the next five years (This Day (Lagos), 6 July 2002). By the end of the century, Africa is expected to supply as much as 25 per cent of US oil imports. Finally, there are also reports of interest in a US naval base in the Gulf of Guinea and on the southern tip of South Africa.

Why the sudden interest? In the wake of 11 September the US–Saudi Arabian relationship in particular and US–Arab relations in general have become increasingly strained. While during the Cold War the US viewed Africa mainly as a Cold War battleground, oil has changed American perceptions of Africa’s importance. However, while Africa’s importance, or lack of it, to the US has almost always been defined by exogenous factors, it has been so within competing master narratives of US foreign policy. These might be summarized as: realpolitik (or geopolitics), Hamiltonianism (or geoeconomics) and Meliorism (essentially, humanitarianism).

The realpolitik school emerges from what Mead calls ‘continental realism’ (2001: 34–55). This approach resurrects the foreign policy approach of Metternich and Bismarck and in the American context was typified by Henry Kissinger and by the overall philosophy of the Ronald Reagan presidency. The heart of this approach is a balance-of-power game where ‘a pawn is advanced here, a rook sacrificed there; here a feint, there an advance, there a strategic retreat’ (Mead 2001: 39).

The Hamiltonian tradition – geoeconomics – in American foreign policy focuses on the promotion of a global order through the creation of an international legal and financial order (Mead 2001: 127). Critics say that this is basically a system that creates an integrated world market that promotes American interests. The creation of the international financial institutions (IFIs), in particular the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), in the immediate years following the end of World War II are classic examples of Hamiltonianism. From this perspective, economic stability is considered the lynchpin of security (see Chapter 9).

Finally, global Meliorism is described by Walter McDougall as ‘the socioeconomic and politico-cultural expression of an American mission to make the world a better place’ (1997: 173). Although it is intrinsic to Wilsonianism, Wilson’s vision was much more circumscribed. In McDougall’s words, ‘after all, Wilson just hoped to make the world safe for democracy … Global Meliorism [is] economic, cultural, and political’ (1997: 175).

The pull of these different currents can vary depending on the times. The Hamiltonian tradition has been the longest and strongest and can also be considered the default option. The Meliorist, associated with American exceptionalism, also has a long history, but a relatively weak pull on US foreign policy, and has often been subsumed on the one hand by Hamiltonianism, through tied aid, or on the other by realpolitik, through aid for ‘friendly’ dictators. The realpolitik current is often overwhelming and destructive but, due to the relative neglect of Africa as a major part of American foreign policy, has not particularly been a consistently strong current in American relations with the continent. US foreign policy for Angola during the Cold War is an interesting case in point. In an ironic twist, the Cuban troops supporting the MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) government against the USbacked UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) rebels helped to protect the interests of US oil companies against rebel attacks.

This chapter explores these three themes in US foreign policy towards Africa. The constant theme across the Cold War and immediate post-Cold War period was that American policy in Africa was framed by specific US interests and/or was delegated to others to manage. To some extent, this was a legacy of the colonial era: colonial powers only secured their relatively short-run interests, rather than the security of the African countries (Howe 2001: 29) and the US allowed Europe to ‘watch over’ Africa. In particular, Washington tended to follow the British lead in anglophone Africa. As Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Herbert Cohen (2003) described it:

Ever since the late 1950s, when most of the African colonies were in the final stages of the independence process, the United States has attempted to play a secondary role to that of the Europeans. During President Eisenhower’s second term (1957–1961), the National Security Council proposed a division of labour for the developing world. The Europeans would be responsible for Africa, while the United States would play the dominant role in Latin America, its own backyard.

Certainly, at points and at particular places during the Cold War, American policy was driven by its geopolitical chess game with the Soviet Union. In addition, to a large extent the US farmed out much of its policymaking to the IFIs, and continued to do so well into the post-Cold War era.
As Cohen (2003) states, after the Cold War ‘the United States reverted to its original low profile by relying on the World Bank and the IMF to bear the major responsibility for leading the Africans towards market economies and private-sector-led growth’.

But in the immediate post-Cold War era, US policy lost the rudder provided by its geopolitical chess match with the Soviets. In general, Washington – at least until 11 September 2001 – struggled with the strategic lacuna created by the Soviet collapse. In the contemporary period the question regarding what drives American foreign policy in sub-Saharan Africa has re-emerged with a vengeance.

The currents driving and directing America’s Africa policy have obvious domestic constituencies in the US. The Hamiltonian current is driven by the material interests of US transnational business, and to some extent the IFIs. The realpolitik school is situated in the bureaucracies of the American foreign policy machine: the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, etc. The Meliorist approach draws its strength from NGOs concerned with Africa and with grass-root groups looking out for Africa’s ‘interests’. Such groups are most likely to have strong transnational ties and are often linked to the African-American community.

Obviously, as in all analytical categories, the borders between and among the three are not so clear in the real world. Not all government bureaucracies operate from the same page. For instance, the Department of Commerce arguably belongs to the Hamiltonian tradition. Its mission is to promote US commerce and it has traditionally battled with the Department of Defense over policy. Certainly, the IFIs have often been the handmaiden of US geopolitical interest, for instance in Zaire. But in the case of the World Bank’s claim to promote development and poverty reduction, that institution might be considered part of the Meliorist tradition. Nonetheless, these three different and often opposing currents pull the US in different directions: each has a distinct political undercurrent and each treats Africa differently.

With the end of the Cold War, which of these currents would direct US foreign policy for sub-Saharan Africa was an open question. From one perspective, the lack of a ‘grand strategy’ after the Cold War, at least up until 11 September, opened the gates for more particularistic interests to influence US foreign policy and for non-state actors like the media to shape those interests. That is, for interests outside the formal policy-making apparatus of the government to have a strong influence, whether it be an undertow for Hamiltonianism or for Meliorism. In fact, foreign policy experts in the US warned that in lieu of an overarching guiding principle, special interests would drive overall global American foreign policy, and that there was a risk that some of the most powerful of these would be ‘hyphenated Americans’: i.e. ethnic groups with close ties to their homelands.

The strongest proponent for the Meliorist approach should logically be the African Diaspora, but it does not appear to have leveraged its political power to influence US policy towards the continent. This is not to say it has been silent: the Congressional Black Caucus has played an important role in foreign policy towards Africa, for instance in the sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. But, with some exceptions, other actors – corporations, NGOs and academics – have played much more important roles. For instance, the Ford Foundation was probably more instrumental in the sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. Thus it might be said that no group within the US has really gained purchase of American foreign policy for Africa in the same way other groups have for their ancestral homelands.

It seems clear that the African Diaspora in America will not drive American policy. In a speech to the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs commemorating African-American History Month, the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Howard F. Jeter, told his audience that the Diaspora stands as a ‘political and economic resource that can benefit us all if properly understood and utilized’ (US Department of State 2003). He noted that the African-American community is expected to reach 45 million by 2020, and today (2003) has a collective purchasing power of about US$450 billion per annum. But the speech reflected the paralysis of the Africa Diaspora as Jeter (ibid.) remarked that he did not ‘want to talk about the Diaspora as a historical reality. There is little of historic value I could say that you do not already know. I’d rather discuss the Diaspora in the future tense – as a dynamic community.’ He was forced to use the future tense because the African Diaspora has not been a force in influencing American policy towards Africa. As Jeter put it,

Is Africa using the African-American community as a primary political constituency in the United States? The answer is a resounding ‘NO’. Are African-Americans really encouraged to do business with Africa – I don’t think so. These are just a few of the questions that must be asked and answered in mapping out this strategy.

(ibid.)

The lack of a strong – and effective – interest by the African Diaspora does not mean Africa does not have an American constituency; Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Herman Cohen (under George H. Bush), for instance, noted the importance of the Americo-Liberian lobby (Cohen 2000: 131). But it does mean that it is more difficult to escape the relatively lowly status accorded it in American policy.

Instead of an ethnic constituency, America’s Africa policy is largely driven by the bureaucrats. Keller and Rothchild noted that in the mid-1990s the influence of bureaucrats in US foreign policy for Africa was on the rise (1996: 195). Peter Schraeder noted a similar pattern, labelling it ‘bureaucratic instrumentalism’ (1994: 196). There is a Catch-22, with a caveat, here. If the bureaucracy is largely driven by geopolitical concerns – of which there are few for the US in sub-Saharan Africa – one would expect disengagement to be the norm. In fact, for much of the post-Cold War this is what happened. The caveat is the so-called ‘CNN effect’, defined by Piers Robinson as ‘instances when media coverage come to play a significant role in persuading policy makers to pursue a particular policy’ (2002: 37). The CNN effect is strongest in periods when the policy-making elite lack certainty or direction. Finally, Howe argues that humanitarian NGOs in close relationship with the media helped influence states such as the US to intervene in humanitarian crises (2001: 105).

The Cold War era

The Cold War era emerged alongside and was influenced by the colonial era.
After all, the decade of Africa – the 1960s – was also one of the most dangerous of the Cold War. In the waning days of colonial rule, the European powers sought – to varying degrees – to sow the seeds of democracy in the soon-to-be-independent states, but it did not take hold. Instead of democratic Weberian states, sub-Saharan Africa became populated by what Jackson labelled ‘quasi states’ (1990). In Cooper’s words, the modern manifestation of this is ‘the weakness of bonds between the state and the people within its territory and the reliance of state rulers on the very idea of the state, on resources deriving solely from its position within a global structure of sovereignties’ (2001: 43).

The geopolitical machinations of the US, the Soviet Union and, to some extent, China at once promoted these quasi states and perpetuated this status. Super-power support made it possible for these states to use scarce foreign exchange for weapons purposes (Howe 2001: 77). There wa...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The contending currents in United States involvement in sub-Saharan Africa
• 2 Britain and Africa after the Cold War
• 3 France’s policy towards Africa
• 4 The ‘all-weather friend’?
• 5 Russia and Africa
• 6 Japan–Africa relations
• 7 Canada and Africa
• 8 The European Union’s external relations with Africa after the Cold War
• 9 The international financial institutions’ relations with Africa
• 10 From Congo to Congo