ramifications.
Although this book focuses on political and military intervention, the enormous problems that afflict Africa today cannot properly be understood without taking into account the impact of foreign intrusion into African economies, externally induced climate change, and environmental destruction and plunder of resources by outside forces. These factors, which have contributed to many African conflicts, are beyond the purview of this book, as is the growing presence of China. However, their significance should not be underestimated, as noted briefly below.
Foreign Intrusion into African Economies
Although outside powers had attempted to control the lucrative African trades in gold, ivory, and slaves for centuries before the Industrial Revolution, it was rapid industrialization in nineteenth-century Europe that sparked the continentwide scramble for African resources, labor, and markets. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 devised rules to legitimate European claims, and imperial powers rushed to establish “effective occupation” that would entitle them to a share of what Belgian King Leopold II termed “this magnificent African cake.”11 The ensuing “scramble for Africa” unleashed a wave of foreign intervention that brought most of the continent under European authority within a few decades. France, the UK, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Italy, and Spain established regimes to extract African wealth—especially rubber, minerals, cotton, and plant oils—and to force African people to provide the labor and taxes necessary to keep the system afloat.
Political independence, beginning in the 1950s, did little to alter the unequal economic relationships established during the colonial era. Former imperial powers sustained governments that perpetuated the status quo. Resource extraction, primarily for the benefit of outsiders and small groups of indigenous elites, continued, along with political repression to guarantee access. The Cold War exacerbated tensions in new African states as rival powers, seeking to protect their own economic and strategic interests, supported repressive regimes.
The colonial legacy of unequal exchange between African commodity producers and industrialized countries has contributed to the deep impoverishment of African populations. When African colonies achieved political independence in the mid- to late twentieth century, the inequality inherent in these economic relationships persisted in a system dubbed neocolonialism. In the words of pan-African leader Kwame Nkrumah, neocolonial states had “all the outward trappings of international sovereignty,” but their economies and political programs were “directed from outside.”12 Deeply rooted economic inequalities were exacerbated by the steep rise in oil prices in the early 1970s and the worldwide collapse in commodity prices at the end of that decade. African political economies, which had been structured to export primary products and import manufactured goods, suffered severe balance of trade deficits. The economic crisis stemming from structural inequalities was aggravated by inflated military budgets, corruption, and economic mismanagement. With their economies crumbling, many African countries turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and Western commercial banks and governments for help.
Foreign assistance came with strings attached. Embracing free market ideologies that promote global capitalism, the Western-dominated international financial institutions required governments to implement draconian stabilization and structural adjustment programs as a condition for foreign loans. Private banks usually required the IMF’s seal of approval before granting commercial loans. Western development agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) refused assistance to projects that did not conform to neoliberal free market norms. The result was the imposition of economic development models in which African populations had no voice. The Washington Consensus, named for the power hub of the IMF, the World Bank, and the US government, limited government involvement in the economy, requiring an end to subsidies, price controls, and protective tariffs. The mandated government cutbacks undermined health and education systems and destroyed social safety nets. Obligatory currency devaluations brought about soaring inflation and import shortages. Enforced privatization resulted in widespread retrenchment, higher unemployment, and an upsurge in crony capitalism as state-owned assets were transferred to government loyalists. These measures were particularly damaging to women, children, the elderly, and the poor. Imposed from above, the structural adjustment programs were inherently undemocratic. In many countries, the new balance of power favored governments with the means to impose unpopular measures. Foreign intervention in African economies thus resulted in widespread economic hardship and increased political repression, constituting a fundamental denial of African sovereignty.
Massive foreign debts incurred by African governments in the 1970s and 1980s continued to take their toll in the decades that followed. In many cases the borrowed money was spent on extravagant showcase projects, or on military rather than economic development; or it was lost to corruption. Successor governments were forced to service the debts with scarce foreign currency, which exhausted export earnings and resulted in further borrowing. Debt service to foreign governments, banks, and international financial institutions consumed a large percentage of government revenues that might otherwise have been allocated to essential services and economic development. Externally imposed economic policies thus laid the foundations for the political crises of the 1980s and 1990s.
When the Cold War ended, Western powers cut ties to repressive regimes they had once cultivated as Cold War allies and regional policemen. Aid pipelines were shut down, and bank loans were no longer forthcoming. Neoliberal reforms, which promoted the privatization of assets previously controlled by the state, failed to strengthen state institutions as intended. Instead, they laid the groundwork for new kinds of patronage networks that enriched loyal political and military officials, who benefited from the privatization schemes, and marginalized others, who were laid off. Some of those who were sidelined, along with others who sought a greater share of the spoils, abandoned established political and economic structures and began to operate as warlords. The warlords mobilized loyalists from the ranks of downsized functionaries and established militias of unpaid former soldiers, unemployed youth, and press-ganged children. The economic crises and externally imposed reforms thus sparked new political turmoil, which in turn stimulated further waves of political and military intervention.
After the Cold War, countries with emerging economies in the Global South joined former colonial and Cold War powers in taking a new interest in Africa. Foreign powers and corporations focused their attention on countries that were rich in crude oil, natural gas, and strategic minerals.13 They also paid attention to those that offered access to arable land, markets for manufactured goods, and lucrative infrastructure contracts. However, economic interests were rarely the primary motives for military intervention, and the relationship between the two was varied and complex. Three points should be borne in mind. First, the interests of foreign governments and corporations were not always in sync, although critics frequently conflate them. Governments sometimes protected private interests with military might; however, they also compromised those interests for broader political gains. Second, external actors made deals with African governments and local strongmen that gave them direct access to desired commodities, and they acquired rule-making powers that tipped the system in their favor. They generally prized stability, and only when political mechanisms failed did they consider military means. Third, although competition for strategic minerals figured in many conflicts, control over those resources was not always the source of the conflict. Rather, disputes with diverse origins sometimes expanded to include struggles for control over resources that in turn fueled the war efforts.
Externally Induced Climate Change
Like foreign intrusion into African economies, climate change, caused primarily by greenhouse gases generated by industrialized countries, has contributed to a growing number of the continent’s conflicts.14 As the gases trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere, glaciers have melted and oceans have warmed, causing sea levels to rise, water to evaporate, and ocean storms to intensify. These factors have resulted in increased rainfall over the oceans and less over adjacent land, provoking both severe flooding and extreme drought in many parts of the African continent. The warming of the Indian Ocean has contributed to the intensification
