The Biden administration still lacks a coherent and robust strategy for promoting democracy, countering violent extremism, and competing with China and Russia in Africa. In August 2022, the Biden administration published the “U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa.” It identified four objectives of U.S. strategy in the region: foster openness and open societies, deliver democratic and security dividends, advance pandemic recovery and economic opportunity, and support conservation, climate adaptation, and energy transition. Rhetorically, the strategy calls “continuity” in Africa policy as insufficient. It claims to “reframe the region’s importance to U.S. national security interests.” One reason for Africa’s heightened importance is China and Russia’s use of the region “to challenge the rules-based international order.” In addition, the strategy notes growing economic interests, with the African Continental Free Trade Area set to make Africa one of the largest free trade areas in the world (and make Africa the fifth largest economy in the world). We agree with much of the strategy’s rhetoric. The question, of course, is how to translate such lofty principles into actionable policy. In a September 2023 speech at the U.N. General Assembly, Biden spoke about the need to defend democracy around the world, especially in west Africa. The United States, Biden said, stands “with the African Union and ECOWAS [the Economic Community of West African States] and other regional bodies to support constitutional rule. We will not retreat from the values that make us strong. We will defend democracy.” This echoed the 2022 National Security Strategy’s emphasis on “democratic competition,” or efforts to defend democracy and help democracies demonstrate the superiority of the democratic way of life over autocratic alternatives. In practice, the Biden administration’s expressed commitment to democratic values in Africa has been in tension with interests-based foreign policy goals, including countering violent extremism. For example, in September 2023, Washington struck a short-lived deal with Niger’s new military junta - which, last July, toppled Mohamed Bazoum’s democratically elected government - to resume operations from the U.S. drone base at Agadez. Though failure to quickly declare and oppose anti-democratic coups undermines U.S. credentials as a reliable patron of democracy, the United States hesitated triggering cuts in military aid and training critical to countering terror in the Sahel, so Washington did not acknowledge a coup had taken place in Niger until October 2023. The gap between Biden’s rhetoric and initial U.S. reaction to Niger’s coup reflects an enduring perceived trade-off that the United States faces in confronting democratic backsliding in the region. The developments in Niger also indicate that Washington’s current approach is not working. In March 2024, Niamey revoked the status of forces agreement with the United States and ordered American troops to leave, potentially creating a vacuum Russia and China want to fill. Beyond Niger, U.S. Africa policy now faces a trilemma of promoting democracy and combatting terrorism while simultaneously competing with authoritarian rivals for geopolitical influence. Washington aspires to do all three efforts well but can effectively only do two things at any given time. As geopolitical competition intensifies, the United States faces resistance that it last encountered during the Cold War, when it also had an uneven track record of defending democracy. We now see a reinvigorated Cold War-era debate over whether Washington should practice double standards for illiberal regimes in Africa that may share security or geopolitical interests with the United States. During the Cold War, this meant tolerating right-wing dictatorships whose collapse might empower communists. At present, the concern is similar, as not tolerating friendly dictatorships might undermine U.S. security interests or empower anti-American forces. Biden’s 2022 Africa strategy says relatively little about how to promote democracy or deter and reverse coups in the region. On the one hand, it says that the United States will condemn coups (historically, it has not) and incorporate human rights abuses by security forces into bilateral talks. The strategy also says the United States will use both positive inducements and punitive measures such as sanctions. But without a roadmap or clear set of principles, U.S. policymakers are reacting ad hoc to each coup. The result is hesitation, paralysis, and inconsistency - the United States has only “called a coup a coup” half of the time since 2009. For example, although coup leaders from Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea were denied invitations to attend the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022, Mahamat Déby, who seized power in Chad in April 2021, was invited.
Think about this, Africa raised out of poverty, consuming raw natural resources at the same rate as the West and where the East will soon be. Think of the geopolitics involved. The only way Africa will have a strong economy at scale will be as a unified block, a la the EU. Unified they will not be aligned to China or to the US but rather casting a vote independent, similar to India but a much bigger natural resource endowment. The key will be finding what are the inherent advantage of each member nation.
