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Industrial College of the Armed Forces
National Defense University
Washington, D.C.
April 1, 2009

The United States and Africa: Issues and Challenges

Remarks by Amb. David H. Shinn
Adjunct Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

This presentation on the United States and Africa looks at several historical policy themes, U.S. interests in Africa, U.S. strategy towards Africa, an evaluation of African policy during the Bush administration and a discussion of issues and challenges facing the Obama administration.

Long-term Themes in United States Policy towards Africa

There are four generalizations one can make about United States-Africa relations. When I discuss Africa, I am referring to all fifty-three countries in North and Sub-Saharan Africa unless I specify otherwise. Let's look at the long-term themes that have characterized United States-Africa relations since the end of the Second World War.

• First, Africa has consistently had the lowest foreign policy priority in the United States when compared to other major regions of the world. I am not suggesting this is right or wrong, it is simply a fact.
• Second, United States policy towards Africa does not change significantly from one administration to another. It makes little difference if the administration changes from Republican control to Democratic control or vice versa.
• Third, from the end of the Second World War until the end of the Cold War, the containment of communism dominated U.S. policy in Africa. Although there were other concerns, none was as dominant or consistent as the effort to minimize communist influence in Africa. This policy came to an end as the Cold War wound down.
• Fourth, the United States has consistently been the first country to provide the most emergency assistance, especially food aid, to African countries in times of need. The United States was, albeit belatedly, even the major supplier of food during the famine in the mid-1980s to a communist regime in Ethiopia headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam.

U.S. Interests in Africa

If you use a hard-headed calculus as to what constitutes a U.S. interest, I would argue that the United States has only five interests in Africa.

• First, it wants to ensure continuing access to oil and a few minerals. In recent years, about 20 percent of all U.S. oil imports have come from Africa.
• Second, the United States seeks political support from as many as possible of Africa's fifty-three countries. This includes African support in regional organizations, the United Nations, World Trade Organization, etc. African countries constitute more than one-quarter of the members of the United Nations.
• Third, it desires to gain the support of African countries in the fight against terrorism, drug smuggling and international crime. This is a negative interest, but an important one in order to minimize the spread of these problems to American shores.
• Fourth, the United States has an interest in maintaining and/or expanding access for its military aircraft to over fly/land in African countries and for its Navy ships to dock in African ports.
• Fifth, it hopes to increase U.S. exports to Africa. U.S. trade with Africa accounts for only about 1 percent of U.S. global trade today, but as Africa becomes wealthier its nearly one billion people will become a more attractive market for U.S. goods.

Dealing with Africa Strategically

The U.S. system of government has many strengths but it is not well configured to develop long-term foreign policy strategies, especially in the case of a low priority region such as Africa. The executive branch rarely thinks beyond a four-year election cycle and usually designs its foreign policy in much briefer spans of time. Funding for most long-term foreign policy strategies requires the agreement of Congress, which may not be willing to go along with executive branch decisions. Private interest groups can have a significant impact, either supportive or in opposition, on long-term foreign policy strategies. There have been numerous occasions when the executive branch has not been successful in bringing these groups sufficiently on board.

Historically, the United States is not well known for developing strategic, long-term foreign policy. There are a few exceptions such as the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America and periods when isolationism, if that can be considered a strategy, resulted in long periods of limited involvement by the United States in the affairs of other counties. One of the more strategic American policies, containment of communism, had a relatively short life span. It remains to be seen how long U.S. support for building democratic regimes and its more recent focus on counterterrorism will remain a major element of U.S. policy towards Africa and the rest of the world.

The Positive Elements of the Bush Administration's Policy towards Africa

The Bush Administration has much about which it can be proud concerning its eight years of interaction with Africa:

• The Bush administration tripled the level of aid to Africa over that of the Clinton administration.
• It made a signature program of increasing significantly support for combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB in Africa.
• It initiated the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which has resulted so far in about $5 billion in development grants for some seventeen African countries.
• It expanded the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which began during the Clinton administration. AGOA and the generalized system of preferences now permit duty free entry into the United States for about 6,000 products from forty eligible African countries.
• The Bush administration played an instrumental role in helping to end the north-south civil war in Sudan and helped to broker the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the government in Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
• The United States was the principal financial contributor to UN peacekeeping operations in Africa and contributed significantly to the training of African peacekeepers.

The Negative Elements of the Bush Administration's Policy towards Africa

At the same time, Bush administration policy in Africa contains some blemishes that are also part of its legacy:

• The Bush administration conducted a counterterrorism policy that focused too much on a military response and not sufficiently on ameliorating conditions in Africa that permit an environment that encourages terrorism.
• It made a series of missteps in Somalia, including financial support for discredited war lords who eventually lost power to the Islamic Courts. It also conducted five aerial attacks on suspected terrorists that accomplished relatively little but generated an enormous amount of anti-Americanism among Somalis. The administration finally got policy about right in Somalia in its eighth year.
• It contributed very few personnel (about forty at any one time in recent months) to Africa's seven UN peacekeeping operations. American forces were preoccupied in other parts of the world, but even a modest increase would have sent a strong message of support for peacekeeping in Africa.
• It devoted an enormous amount of money and effort to the crisis in Darfur, but achieved a very modest result.
• The administration made an inadequate effort to end the even more serious crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

African Policy of the Obama Administration

It is too early to describe with any certainty the Africa policy of the new administration. Since the inauguration of President Obama just over two months ago, I have seen only one major policy speech on Sub-Saharan Africa. In those remarks on February 9, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Phil Carter, a career Foreign Service Officer, made four key points:

• First, The United States should provide security assistance programs that are critical to securing the objective of a peaceful African continent, including the elimination of the ability of terrorists to operate in Africa.
• Second, the United States should promote democratic systems and practices and support the rise of freedom.
• Third, the United States should encourage sustainable and broad-based, market-led economic growth.
• Fourth, the United States should support health and social development, especially the reduction of HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria.

Returning to one of my opening generalizations about the nature of U.S. policy towards Africa, these four points could just as well have been made by a spokesperson for the Bush administration.

Issues and Challenges for the Obama Administration

The following analysis is based on statements by the Obama team during the presidential campaign, statements on the campaign web site and a few comments made since January 20 by members of the Obama administration.

• There will be a greater tendency to work with others in the formulation and implementation of policy in Africa. This will include not only traditional U.S. allies such as members of the European Union, Canada, Australia and Japan, but new partners such as China, India, Brazil, some of the Arab countries, and perhaps Turkey and Russia.
• There will be greater willingness to listen to the positions of the Africans themselves and to factor their views more seriously into U.S. policy.
• I believe there will be a reassessment of counterterrorism policy in Africa, one that relies more on working to decrease root causes of the problem and less on just chasing bad guys. In my view, this should include an independent assessment of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa in Djibouti, the only US military base in Africa. It is time to determine if this installation is providing good value for the cost.
• Somalia will offer an early test of the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy. So far, it has accepted the new Somali government led by an Islamist and seems willing to permit the Somalis to sort out on their own the way they manage relationships with dissident Somali elements. This is a good beginning.
• Sudan poses a huge challenge. The United States has four goals in Sudan: to ensure implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement or at least avoid a return to civil war between the north and the south; to end the crisis in Darfur; to improve the overall human rights situation; and to continue to receive the cooperation of Sudan on counterterrorism.
• During the presidential campaign, senior members of the Obama administration called for a no-fly zone in Darfur. What is the purpose? Who will do it? In my view it is neither required, desirable nor is any other country or organization prepared to implement it. It may have sounded like a good idea during the campaign, but why pursue a policy that serves no apparent purpose when no one, including the United States, is prepared to implement it?
• Two elements of U.S. Sudan policy need updating. Whatever may have been the case between 2003 and 2005, there is no genocide taking place in Darfur today. Terrible things have occurred in Darfur, including the death since 2003 of upwards of 300,000 people, for which the government in Khartoum bears the primary responsibility. But it is important to understand what is happening in Sudan today before designing a wrong-headed policy. In 2008, UNAMID reported there were about 1550 violent deaths in Darfur. Less than 500 were civilians, more than 400 were combatants and about 640 died in inter-tribal fighting.
• For the record, Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group." The situation in Darfur in 2008 and today, as bad as it is, does not meet this definition. Continuing to call the situation genocide brings an emotional element into the policy debate that skews the decision-making process. It is not unlike making a decision to invade Iraq largely in the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It is time to acknowledge that the situation has changed in Darfur. Today, it is a case of low intensity conflict involving government and rebel forces with too many innocent Darfurians still paying the ultimate price.
• The ability to interact more constructively with Sudan would also benefit by removing Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, where it was placed for good reason in 1993. The last two annual State Department Country Reports on Terrorism emphasized that Sudan had become a "strong partner" of the United States in the effort to defeat terrorism.
• Human rights and democratization will become a more important component of U.S. policy in Africa. At the same time, this goal will bump up against competing interests such as cooperation on counterterrorism and maintaining cordial relations with African countries that export significant amounts of oil to the United States.
• The United States needs to devote more attention to the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Some five to six million people have died or been killed since 1998 compared to 300,000 plus in Darfur since 2003. The United States called Darfur genocide and accorded it enormous attention while the continuing crisis in the DRC has received much less attention.
• The global financial crisis poses a challenge for Africa as well as the rest of the world. African commodity prices have been hit hard. African trade could fall by 25 percent in 2009 and 2010. Foreign aid to Africa may also decrease. How will the United States and other donor countries respond? The Bush administration leaves a strong pipeline of aid through 2010. Well before the pipeline runs dry, however, the Obama administration will have to decide if it is able to sustain and possibly increase these aid levels by 2011.
• Private direct investment is critical to the development of Africa. The Obama administration needs to work on ways to mobilize more effectively U.S. private investment in Africa. This has always been a problem, but it is time to take a new, serious look at ways to accomplish this goal. Success will require a concerted, long-term collaboration between the private sector and government.
• An area of growing interest to African leaders is climate change because tropical regions of the world stand to be the biggest losers. The Obama administration has signaled that it will face climate change head on. This is an issue where the new administration could have a productive dialogue with the Africans that may benefit the entire planet.
• During the campaign, the Obama team spoke of promoting research to create a green revolution in Africa. African agriculture has deteriorated due in part to an excessive reliance in some countries on oil and mineral exports. The agricultural sector needs a real boost. Food insecurity has become an increasing problem in Africa. This is another area for dialogue with the Africans in collaboration with other interested donors.
• A subject that has been lost sight of in recent years is family planning due in part to significantly lower birth rates in many industrialized countries. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest population growth rate of any region in the world at almost 2.5 percent even after taking account of the continent's serious health challenges. This makes it increasingly difficult for African countries to grow enough food to feed their own people. Although birth rates in Africa are slowly falling, the food situation will remain unsustainable.
• The time may also have arrived when the enormous financial resources devoted to HIV/AIDS should be shifted increasingly to malaria, tuberculosis, tropical diseases and help in improving the very weak health care infrastructure in many African countries. This will be difficult as there is so much support for countering HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, malaria kills as many Africans now as HIV/AIDS and no amount of money can be used effectively if the health care infrastructure is dysfunctional.
• The Obama team expressed an interest during the campaign in debt cancellation. Although much has already been done in this area, African leaders want to see the elimination of additional debt. Fortunately, most western donors, including the United States, rely on grant assistance programs in Africa that do not add to the debt.
• The new Africa Command (AFRICOM) received a lot of criticism from Africans when it was first announced. African suspicion about AFRICOM has subsequently diminished, but not disappeared. The new administration provides an opportunity to clarify AFRICOM's mission and to decide on a permanent headquarters location, which should not be in Africa. The most cost effective location would be at an existing military base on the east coast of the United States. AFRICOM's comparative advantage is military training and serving as the primary point of contact with African military personnel.

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