Ending Africa's Wars

John J. Stremlau

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2000

Article preview: first 500 of 5,121 words total.

Summary:  Despite conflict resolution elsewhere, war still rages unchecked in Africa. But the continent is too important to ignore, so new solutions are needed. The best approach would be to prevent wars before they begin -- and the way to do that is for the West to work closely with democratic partners in the region. South Africa is the key to any long-term peacekeeping plan for Africa. Working closely with the United States, Africa's leading democracy can help distribute aid and spread the liberal values that will give the continent a real chance for peace.

John J. Stremlau is a professor and the head of the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. From 1989 to 1994 he served as Deputy Director of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff.

COLD WAR, HOT WARS

Following last year's military interventions in defense of human rights in Kosovo and East Timor, Western leaders proclaimed a new determination to stand up to similar abuses whenever they occur. On one continent, however, warfare still rages unchecked, and far too little is being done about it. Renewed clashes in Sierra Leone and on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border are two recent examples of deadly African conflicts that have killed and displaced millions of people. Yet despite occasional bursts of aid and attention, the United States and Europe have remained largely disengaged. The reasons for their lack of involvement in conflict prevention and peacekeeping there are fairly obvious. War in Africa seems to pose no clear and present danger to U.S. interests. Furthermore, most African conflicts are fought within, not between, states. The international norms, institutions, and political will to intervene in such hard-to-solve conflicts remain inadequate. So do Washington's defense doctrine, bureaucracy, and budgets, all of which are still dedicated to preventing or settling traditional conflicts between states.

Yet those who argue that Washington and its allies should become more involved in solving Africa's problems make a powerful case. Africa is a vast continent of 700 million people with abundant natural resources and deep historical and cultural ties to the United States. It is simply too big and too important to be neglected. The question should be not whether, but rather how, to intervene there.

Of course, preventing conflict in Africa is primarily a task for Africans. But the 1990s showed that outside help is needed. The nice-sounding nostrum of "African solutions for African problems" became an excuse for neglect, until the images of human suffering in Africa became impossible for the West to ignore -- leaving humanitarian relief as the only real option.

There are alternatives, however. Preventing wars, rather than fighting them, has always appealed to American strategists, so long as no vital national interests are compromised. Washington's greatest foreign policy success -- winning the Cold War peacefully through military deterrence and the building of a strong coalition of democracies -- vindicated the strategy of containing conflicts before they erupt. That strategy should now be adapted for and applied to Africa, where most wars result from bad governance. Weak, authoritarian African governments lack the institutional capacity to manage factional struggles. They exclude majority or minority groups from power and suffer from poverty and gross income inequality. All of these tensions throw off sparks that can start a war.

Any strategy for preventing conflict in Africa must therefore address these fundamental flaws. In deciding how to do that, and how to do it affordably, Washington should remember the Cold War lesson that working closely with democratic partners spreads the burden and gives policies greater legitimacy. Although Africa has few ready candidates for such a partnership, the region's most politically capable and economically advanced state -- South Africa -- does share key interests and values with the United States. Developing a strategic partnership with Pretoria ...

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