"“Why Are We in Africa?”: The Dilemmas of Making American" Topic

Strategy towards the African Continent

""Why are we in Africa?," former President Donald Trump reportedly privately noted to then-National Security Advisor John Bolton in 2018. "I want out of Africa."

After a tumultuous post-election period, what questions should most inform the Biden administration's approach to the African continent within the U.S. National Security Strategy?

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. While often unseen in the day-to-day tumult of crises and diplomacy, the answers to these first-order questions provide the logic that animates American foriegn policy in Africa…"
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Armand

Africa was messed up by France, Britain, Spain, Belgium, Germany…
Let them sort it out, if it's possible.
America has absolutely no need for an "African Strategy". We aren't the ones who broke it.

Leave Africa to the Africans.

Messed Up? Generally we left functioning, countries when we gave them independence.

As one who has spent time working in Africa I quite agree with arealdrone, however currently it should read "leave Africa to the Africans and the Chinese"

Tally Ho!

To counter Chinese and Russian influence.China has a huge legup,w/all their infratstructure building,so they can haul it home quicker.The modern Colonialism.

"TIA!" – from the movie "Blood Diamonds" …

It'd be nice if we could leave it to them, but I suspect we're worried any major issues may spill over to other regions, and/or our home country too.

China and Russia have an advantage here, since they're not worried about the niceties of human rights, or being PC.

Leave Africa to the Africans.

You may want to tell that to China, which is emerging as the worst colonial power in the last 100 years.

Glup!.

Armand

You may want to tell that to China, which is emerging as the worst colonial power in the last 100 years.

Let them have it. No colonial power ever made a profit out of African colonies!

As for worst colonial power in last 100 years that would be Indonesia which is really just a euphemism for Javanese expansion into other islands as the expense of the locals (and which means there's several insurgencies bubbling away and occasional outbursts of intra-ethnic violence).

Yeah, I'm a fan of leaving it to the Africans and Chinese.

That is probably going to happen anyway … The PRC has pretty foothold there already.

The western strategy in Africa is doomed to fail anyhow:

1. Mainly military deployments with no clear objectives eg Mali or Somalia or Niger or Central African Republic or whatever.

2. Aid programs based mainly on consulting and patronising African leaders.

Then the French whose goals are to maintain delusion of empire. French soldiers get to die in Mali so Paris can pretend it's the year 1900.

Chinese do it better – they want something (eg minerals or a port) and do a deal. All based on appealing to the African leaders' inherent corruption and maximising Return On Investment for the Chinese Communist Party.

Thus even the Chinese have made major inroads across the continent and even in more stable African countries like Botswana.

And once us mentors leave, they revert back to rent a mob,

Tally Ho!

That seems to be the most likely outcome …