By Eric Vandenbroeck
and co-workers
How Their Relationships To The United
States Will Be Defined
The United States
historically has devoted only sparing attention to African affairs, and
that is not likely to change much under the Obama administration. Popular hopes
abound in Africa that U.S. President Barack Obama — whose paternal ancestry is
Kenyan — will prioritize Africa in his foreign policy. However, whatever
Obama’s personal interest in the continent might be, his government will have
little time to devote to Africa because it must focus on a number of more
pressing concerns — including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Russia and the global
economic crisis — that impinge more directly on core U.S. interests.
African countries,
rather, will be determining how their relationships to the United States will
be defined under the Obama administration. Three Sub-Saharan African countries
in particular — Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa — were regional anchors for
Washington’s Africa policy under the Bush administration, but must now
re-evaluate Washington’s intentions. Meanwhile, a fourth country, Angola —
while not an ally of the United States by any stretch of the imagination — is
aiming to become a power broker in Africa on par with Nigeria and South Africa.
Each of these four will play a key role in shaping the Obama administration’s
options in the region.
South Africa
South Africa has two
advantages not shared by most other states on the continent. First, it is at
the tip of a peninsula and so only has security concerns to its north; this
frees up resources to address other needs. Second, it boasts a climate largely
free of the risk of tropical maladies, and a topography that allows for easy
agricultural and industrial development, which combine to support long-term
economic calculations. These two advantages make South Africa the Sub-Saharan
state with the best chances of successfully pursuing development. The country’s
robust reserves of various precious metals and diamonds only improve its
economic outlook.
South Africa wants to
return to its “natural” position as the dominant influence in the southern
African region, and it sees an opportunity to do so with the new U.S.
administration. The Obama government is looking to South Africa to resolve the
power-sharing crisis in neighboring Zimbabwe. While South Africa was also
supported by the Bush administration in this role, Obama’s approach differs
from that of his predecessor in that the new administration is not calling for
regime change in Harare — an approach that failed in 2008. South Africa now has
the opportunity to secure its political and commercial interests in Zimbabwe by
directly shaping the country’s transition to a post-Mugabe regime. South Africa
will then use its gains in Zimbabwe as a springboard not only to secure
Washington’s support but also to reassert its influence throughout southern
Africa.
Nigeria
Nigeria is a country
with artificial boundaries, drawn by British colonial authorities; its
territory comprises everything from desert in the North to tropical swamp in
the South. In such an unnatural political entity, maintaining central control
over 140 million people and 250 tribes has required Nigerian governments to rule
with a heavy hand.
Moreover, Nigerian
rulers have shown little hesitation to use deadly force or coercion in order to
safeguard control over Nigeria’s one critical resource: oil. Nigeria’s key
natural asset — found in swampy, difficult-to-occupy terrain in the southern
reaches of the country — finances not only the country’s regional influence but
also its very survival. Abuja is trying to manage tensions in the volatile and
oil-rich Niger Delta region, balancing the country’s interests with those of the
region’s dominant Ijaw tribe in order to protect production facilities from
militant attacks.
Abuja is also seeking
to maintain its influence as a dominant power in West Africa. Its deployment of
troops for peacekeeping forces, its banking and commercial interests and its
ability to provide oil to neighboring countries are tools Nigeria uses to
maintain its sphere of influence.
U.S. and Nigerian
interests in the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa largely overlap. Above all,
Washington wants two things from Nigeria: oil and a partner in guaranteeing
regional security.
Nigeria is the
fifth-largest foreign supplier of crude to the United States, and both
countries want a stake in nascent energy-producing states Equatorial Guinea and
Sao Tome & Principe. Both also want to prevent a return to regionalized
conflict in West African states including Sierra Leone and Liberia. Abuja does
not, however, want Washington poking its head too far into internal Nigerian
politics, calling for improved governance or pushing to reduce corruption.
Given the confluence
of interests, the Obama administration will likely support Abuja’s backroom
moves to maintain a sphere of influence through West Africa, as well as an
initiative to, in effect, buy the temporary loyalty of the Niger Delta region’s
Ijaw tribe with a power-sharing agreement.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia is highly
mountainous in the center, giving way to stretches of savannah or inhospitable
desert in the northern, southern and eastern regions. The seat of government,
Addis Ababa, is surrounded by these mountains. While this creates a substantial
defensive barrier against foreign (or domestic) attackers, it also makes it
difficult for the government to deploy troops to defend against threats on the
periphery. As a result, successive Ethiopian governments — including the
minority ethnic Tigray regime of current Prime Minister Meles Zenawi — have
maintained large standing armies and have tended to rule with strong-arm
tactics, in order to occupy peripheral regions and prevent internal and foreign
threats from mobilizing and threatening the center. The deployment of large
masses of troops to peripheral border regions has also led countries
neighboring Ethiopia to feel threatened, in case Addis Ababa should decide
extraterritorial intervention is needed to defend the center. Such fears have
led countries, including Eritrea and Somalia, to mobilize their own fighters to
disrupt Ethiopia’s forward deployments.
For internal security
reasons, Ethiopia needs to maintain a forward military posture. This includes
positioning troops along and across the border with Somalia to defend against
threats that could mobilize from that country. By the same logic, Ethiopia’s
threshold for invading a neighboring country is low. Ethiopian and U.S. interests
aligned closely during the Bush administration, with Washington giving Addis
Ababa a blank check to intervene in Somalia to battle an Islamist insurgency.
Continued Ethiopian operations in Somalia could, however, disrupt an ongoing
political process aimed at isolating and containing radical Somalian Islamists.
The worry from Addis
Ababa is getting caught on the wrong side of the Obama administration in
Somalia. While Ethiopia will be measuring closely its relationship with
Washington as well as the Obama government’s support of diplomacy in Somalia,
Addis Ababa has pulled its troops in Somalia back from frontline positions to
garrison towns along the border. The pullback allows Addis Ababa to maintain
what are essentially rapid-reaction forces inside Somalia. At the same time, it
supports the Somalian political process by blunting the Islamists’ argument
that the presence of Ethiopian troops inside Somalia was the motivation for
their insurgency.
Angola
Angola is Africa’s
seventh-largest country, located in the southwestern part of the continent. It
is a lightly populated country, with about 12 million people living in almost
500,000 square miles; this has meant that the reach of the central government,
based in the northwestern coastal region, has been limited. Resources — oil and
diamonds — found in parts of the country distant from the center have attracted
foreign mining interests; sparse central government control in those areas has
enabled local leaders to act according to their own interests, which frequently
have been in opposition to those of Luanda.
This combination — an
expansive geography, lacking in natural barriers against foreign invaders, but
holding resources that inspire opposition to central control — has forced
Angolan governments to rely heavily on an extensive security apparatus to
safeguard their control. When its own capabilities have been threatened by an
overwhelming combination of domestic and foreign forces, Luanda has turned to
foreign interests (such as Cuba and Russia) to augment its security. Relations
between Angola and the United States have never developed particularly
strongly, however.
During the Cold War,
Washington (as well as South Africa) provided military and economic support to
the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) rebel group,
which was fighting for control of the country against the ruling Soviet-allied
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) regime. After the end of
the Cold War, however, U.S. support for UNITA waned, and the group collapsed as
a fighting force in 2002 after its leader, Jonas Savimbi,
was killed on the battlefield.
Since then, the MPLA
has been able to consolidate its grip over the country, and has acted as a free
agent selling its mineral wealth on the global market to the highest bidder.
Angola has become a (relatively) rich state, certainly by African standards,
and has only recently dropped its pariah status. Now, Luanda wants to assume a
leadership position in Africa commensurate with its wealth and its recent
internal consolidation of power.
Although the United
States does have interests in developing Angola’s natural resources, Luanda is
unlikely to have a significant direct relationship with Washington. Rather, it
will be watching very closely the Obama administration’s developing
relationship with South Africa. This cooperation — beginning with resolving the
crisis in Zimbabwe — could lead to a resurgence in South Africa’s power
throughout the region. Luanda’s fear is that this could lead Pretoria to resume
the support it provided UNITA (in return for diamond concessions) during the
Cold War — and that UNITA could reacquire an insurgent capability and threaten
the MPLA regime again.
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