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A Realistic Policy for Sub-Saharan Africa
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20490 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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5 / 1992 |
2,076 Words |
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Thomas H. Henriksen and L.H. Gann
Thomas H. Henriksen and L.H. Gann are senior fellows and
Henriksen is also associate director at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University. |
The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War demand a reassessment of U.S. policy toward sub-Saharan Africa: It need no longer be defined from the imperative of anticommunism and anti-Sovietism. Many American scholars of Africa complained that during the standoff with Moscow, Washington policymakers tended to subordinate U.S. interests in Africa to Cold War imperatives. As elsewhere in the world, so also in Africa, the United States is now free to act without taking account of the Soviet Union.
Africa in the post-Cold War era will likely receive even less attention from Washington policymakers than when security concerns and superpower politics dictated a response to Moscow's moves. During the Congo crisis of the early 1960s or the Soviet-Cuban intervention into Angola in the mid-1970s, for example, the United States had to thwart Moscow's efforts to secure control of precious raw materials, new bases, or political gain. Without the competition, U.S. relations with the countries of sub-Saharan Africa can now be built on simpler concepts of national interests.
The disappearance of communism in Central Europe and of the former Soviet Union strengthens American prestige and renews Africa's interest in American institutions of free markets and democracy. By its example, the United States has a historic opportunity to advance economic development by individual entrepreneurs and political pluralism by parties rather than through coups.
Background
Thirty years ago, the European empires in Africa had either collapsed or were in the process of dissolution. It was hoped that freed from colonial oppression, independent Africa would create a new prosperity and a new freedom for the continent. Hence, U.S. policymakers were enjoined by activists of every kind to speed decolonization by diplomatic pressure on the colonial rulers and by providing massive foreign aid to the newly independent states. U.S. Africanists overwhelmingly sided with the independence movements, and many scholars spilled a great deal of ink in defending the cause of African dictators such as Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure. The future, self-styled progressives believed, lay with newly developing forms of African socialism. Tanzania, in particular, earned a great deal of praise in academia. Those who criticized the new governments were widely dismissed in academia as ignoramuses or racists.
This mood of euphoria soon passed. Independent Africa at first did
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