PERSPECTIVES relief situations, it was easy to subordinate other policy considerations. However, the rationale that prioritizes security as the leading consideration in US policy since the 1990s is less clear and leaves the observer to find his or her own conclusion that Africa in general is not a high priority except where it intersects with national global security concerns and the “war on terror.” It then takes on a deeper concern and greater commitment of resources. Just a brief review of current Africa-based “terror” concerns paints a pretty frightening picture. Al Shabaab, while losing ground to Kenyan-reinforced AU troops, still operates in many parts of Somalia and has, in the last two years, exported terror attacks to Uganda and Kenya. Boko Haram runs rampant in northern Nigeria, kidnapping, raping, and killing on a daily basis in a rebellion originally prompted by legitimate grievances of neglect and exclusion by the central government but now fueled by regional and international linkages with radical Islamists. Northern Mali, Niger, and the Sahel region are still combating, with French assistance, rebel Islamist groups that include Ansar al-Dine, MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in Africa, and some other Tuareg nationalist movements which also had land and marginalization issues but have now come under outside Islamist influence. Recently, existing tensions around political contestations in the Central African Republic have blossomed into a conflict that has taken on a ChristianIslam split as Islamist influences from Chad and elsewhere forced terrified Central Africans to choose sides. Furthermore, there has been serious talk by Islamists like the Al-Minbar Jihadi Media Network, an Islamist website, of creating a “belt” across the Maghreb from West to East Africa. The US policy response has been predictable. Early efforts have included the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI) of 2002 to 2004 in Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania, a counterterrorism effort; and the Trans-Saharan Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), (2005 to 2008), which replaced PSI and was an interagency plan for 11 countries. In that time frame, there were at least four other security and counterintelligence programs targeting Africa. More recently, there has been the special training of elite anti-terror forces in the Sahel region, the deployment of Special Forces in Uganda and the Central African Republic in support of the battle against the Lord’s Resistance Army, and the use of US drones for surveillance in Niger and in at least two cases, possibly more, for striking an Al Shabaab target in Somalia. While funding for these programs is hidden amongst a myriad of Department of Defense (DoD) and State Department budget lines, making totals almost impossible to ascertain, we know the following: the TSCTI had an original authorization from Congress for US$500 million, and there are plans to fund the Security Partnership Initiative, referred to above, at US$5 billion. Add to that recent creations like the Partnership for Regional East African Counterterrorism (PREACT), which includes 12 countries. While PREACT is run through the State Department’s Africa Bureau since its establishment in 2008, the creation of AFRICOM has resulted 22
H A R V A R D I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W • Spring 2015
in most of these programs being folded under its auspices, including the TSCTI. AFRICOM’s core budget is US$280 million this year, a relatively modest amount, but one must remember the six separate commands that fall under it, some in Europe and some in Africa, like the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa engagement of the Special Operations Forces in Djibouti. Adding up these command budgets, along with expenditures on International Military Education and Training funds and foreign military sales, the total could amount to US$7 billion or more. This estimate does not seem extreme in light of the 2013 study authorized by the Department of Defense for the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), which says that up to US$9 billion may make it into Africa through the various budget lines from which funds are drawn. (The calculation that the ISAB used was that US$25 billion is set aside worldwide for security assistance, of which about US$16 billion goes to Israel, Egypt, other Middle East countries, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the remainder being split up around the rest of the world.) If we follow the money “trail,” as law enforcement tends to do when tracking organized crime, we must conclude that the priority of US strategic interests is in security and not economic or infrastructure development, trade, or investment and that this has been US policy on Africa at least since 1992 and probably long before. Whether this is shortsighted on the US side or not, only time will provide the answer. We cannot know what the future will hold or what trends will continue and which ones will disappear, and whether the focus on security shall remain supreme. There is one directive spelled out by the president at the August 2014 summit that gives hope that policy will match reality. The hope lies in the fact that President Obama, in his closing remarks at the summit, set the stage for continued consultations at the highest level on all these issues and policy considerations. He said: “Given the success that we’ve had this week, we agreed that summits like this can be a critical part of our work together going forward, a forcing mechanism for decisions and action. So we agreed that the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit will be a recurring event to hold ourselves accountable for our commitments and to sustain our momentum. And I’ll strongly encourage my successor to carry on this work, because Africa must know that they will always have a strong and reliable partner in the United States of America.” This ongoing dialogue will allow for a reexamination of strategic priorities, including moving from a focus on security to one on a comprehensive, coordinated economic plan for US involvement in Africa. That would help create jobs and profits for Americans, assist Africa in its own economic progress across the board (essential for stability, peace, and development), and, in the end, might be the only issue around which international partnerships, or at least cooperation, can be formed. Better yet, this area of trade and investment is one of the few around which bipartisan coalitions can be formed in our current polarized political atmosphere.