Africa: Toward a Rapid-Reaction Force

During his trip to Africa in October 1996, former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher traversed the continent as a traveling salesman in a bid to promote the idea of a 10,000-strong African Crisis Response Force (ACRF). This Clinton-Christopher proposal was largely motivated by the recognition that domestic politics in the United States, together with other demands on US military forces in places ranging from Korea and Iraq to the Persian Gulf and Europe, will continue to make it difficult to send American combat troops to address future humanitarian crises in Africa.

The proposed rapid-reaction force would have the primary task of helping civilians trapped in local conflicts—whether through creation of safe havens, provision of security for relief operations, or efforts to directly check wanton acts of violence against non-combatants. It would be comprised of units from various African armies. Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, and Uganda have so far indicated interest in contributing troops. The United States and any other interested European allies would train, equip, and when necessary, deploy the force to theaters of conflict. The costs of any deployments, quite modest in the scheme of things anyway, would be shared by all countries through UN peacekeeping dues.

Despite resistance from France and South Africa, as well as some members of the US Congress, the idea is politically and militarily sound. It could do much to alleviate humanitarian suffering during tragedies like the recurring outbreaks of violence in central Africa’s Great Lakes region. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, whose earlier advocacy of using military force to alleviate human suffering helped shape US policy on Bosnia, should be every bit as enthusiastic about an African rapid-reaction force as her predecessor was.

Assuring the Afro-skeptics

The need for an African rapid-reaction force is beyond dispute. Since 1960, at least seven million Africans have died in twenty civil wars, and five million have been rendered vagrant refugees. ¹ Since the end of the Cold War, five of the world’s seven most lethal conflicts have taken place in Africa. In the first half of 1996, killings in Liberia and Burundi alone accounted for more than half of all war-related deaths in the world. ² These tragedies and trends do not directly threaten major US allies or economic interests. But they do violate America’s principles and denigrate its efforts to promote basic human rights and democracy around the world.

The worst of these excesses have generally been preventable. In African civil wars, most violent deaths are caused by factional fighters who have been able to perpetrate their horrors mainly because of the absence of a reasonably competent countervailing force. Well-trained and reasonably well-equipped units could, at a minimum, often stop the worst abuses against unarmed civilians. If deployed primarily to defend civilians in places like major cities or specially-created safe havens, as proposed under the Clinton-Christopher initiative, they could offer a practical alternative between peacekeeping operations and invasion to seize full control of a country.

Why then are politicians in Paris, Pretoria, and Peoria opposed to this idea? Some French officials apparently feel that the United States is assuming too large a role in a continent that France has historically regarded as its sphere of influence. Like the lord of an old medieval manor, France has landed gendarmes in its African chasse gardée (private hunting ground) over twenty times in the last three decades, often propping up local despots or replacing errant serfs with compliant ones. As a former French Foreign Minister, Louis de Guiringaud, arrogantly noted, “Africa... is the only continent...where it [France] can still, with 500 men, change the course of history.” ³ But this interventionist role also has its costs: past French transgressions in Rwanda led to even its closest allies withholding support for a discredited France to lead the recent proposed humanitarian effort in Zaire. Paris now needs to understand that its special rights ended with the demise of colonialism. As Warren Christopher so succinctly put it, “The time is past...