U.S.-Africa Policy as Conflict Management

Most discussions about U.S. policy toward Africa these days begin with a debate about U.S. interests in that troubled continent. Most Americans tend to agree that the United States has no "vital" interests in Africa. There is nothing so important to the United States in Africa that might require the deployment of U.S. military forces to prevent an unconstitutional change of government, for example, or to protect one or more countries from external aggression. At the same time, the end of the Cold War in 1989 has caused the number of continents and countries in which the United States has vital interests to diminish considerably. Africa is not alone in this respect.

My view is that as the only remaining superpower, the United States has only one really vital global interest: to prevent any other country from challenging its superpower status. After that, the United States has interests in virtually every country of the world that are worth protecting short of utilizing military intervention. For Africa as a whole, it is in the interest of the United States that the countries of the continent become productive, self-sufficient, and viable partners in the world economic system. It is not in the interest of the United States for the countries of Africa to remain in a state of deep dependency, marked by growing poverty and internal instability. If nothing else, there is a growing cost to the U.S. taxpayer for the provision of humanitarian relief in Africa. In this context, the Clinton administration expressed a rhetorical desire to help reverse the trends toward instability, conflict, and economic degradation in Africa, but missed a number of opportunities to foster real change. I have found this deficiency to be particularly true in the area of conflict prevention, management, and resolution.

During the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the United States pursued a policy of active engagement in Africa for the purpose of managing and resolving conflicts. Using vigorous diplomacy, either directly or through the United Nations, the United States helped bring about the independence of Namibia in 1990, as well as the withdrawal of Cuban and South African military forces from Angola during the Reagan administration. During the Bush administration, active U.S. diplomacy helped end the Ethiopian and Mozambican civil wars and contributed to conflict management in Angola, Liberia, Somalia, and Rwanda. By contrast, the Clinton administration was reluctant to take a leadership role in Africa, preferring to allow the various African regional and sub-regional entities to take charge of preventing and ending conflict on the continent. While it is normal for Africans to take responsibility for finding solutions to Africa's problems, it is unfortunate that the Clinton administration was either unable or reluctant to provide the necessary support to help them succeed. Looking toward the post-Clinton era, therefore, this essay offers a number of recommendations for the new administration with respect to U.S. policy toward conflicts in Africa.

Revise Presidential Decision Directive-25

Presidential Decision Directive-25 (PDD-25), a national security directive, was issued by the Clinton administration shortly after an incident in which U.S. military personnel were killed in a clash with Somali militias in October 1993. The original purpose of the directive was to frame a policy for U.S. participation in international peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations. The original policy orientation was in line with Madeleine Albright's declaration of support for "aggressive multilateralism," made when she assumed her duties as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations in early 1993. The first draft of PDD-25 also followed the guidelines President Bush set forth in his last speech at the United Nations in September 1992, in which he called for a "new world international order" and simultaneously revealed that he had ordered the U.S. Department of Defense to augment and intensify the training provided to military forces for international peacekeeping operations. ¹

After the...