or through the intergovernmental Arab League. Most significant for this study, the Gulf states and Turkey provided important political, economic, and military support to established governments and their opponents during the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath.3
African states also implicated themselves in their neighbors’ affairs through the UN, the AU, and subregional organizations, as well as unilaterally. Like other outside powers, they often had mixed motives: they sought to engender peace and stability but also to further their own aims and interests. In some cases, they backed the governments in power. In others, they supported warlords or rebel movements.4 Somalia (chapter 4) was the subject of interference from Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, and Uganda, while the conflict in Sudan (chapter 5) sparked intervention by Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, and Uganda. Uganda and Zaire implicated themselves in Rwandan affairs before and after the 1994 genocide (chapter 6), while wars in Zaire’s successor state, the Democratic Republic of Congo (chapter 7), engaged Angola, Burundi, Chad, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In West Africa’s Mano River region (chapters 8 and 9), the civil war in Liberia involved intervention by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Libya; the related civil war in Sierra Leone implicated Liberia and Libya; and the ensuing civil war in Côte d’Ivoire involved Liberia and Burkina Faso. The Egyptian military intervened in Libya after the Arab Spring revolt (chapter 10). In Mali, the French-led intervention to counter a secessionist movement and jihadist insurgency was joined by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger, while the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria was challenged by armies from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger (chapter 11).
Some individual states played outsized roles in their own subregions and, in a few cases, wielded considerable influence continentwide. In particular, Nigeria in West Africa and South Africa in Southern Africa were notable for both their subregional and continental influence. In North, East, and Central Africa, no single nation could claim subregional dominance. However, Algeria and Egypt possessed considerable clout in North Africa. Kenya and Ethiopia carried significant weight in East African affairs, while Egypt also aspired to wider influence in the Greater Horn.5 In Central Africa, the DRC was large in size and rich in minerals, but internal conflicts prevented it from assuming a leadership role.
Several intergovernmental organizations and nonstate actors played key roles in shaping the post–Cold War order in Africa. The most consequential included one global organization, the United Nations; four regional bodies, the Organization of African Unity, the African Union, the European Union, and the Arab League; and five subregional organizations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The most significant nonstate actors were the international jihadist networks, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, along with their African branches and affiliates. The composition, purpose, and interests of these organizations are described below.
Global Organization: The United Nations
Established in 1945 to promote international peace, security, and social progress, the United Nations is dominated by the nations that won World War II. The UN General Assembly includes representatives of all member states. However, its resolutions are not legally binding, and it possesses no enforcement powers. The UN Security Council comprises five veto-bearing permanent members (the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) and ten rotating members that serve two-year terms and have no veto power. The Security Council can impose sanctions and authorize military intervention. The United States, which pays the largest share of the organization’s operating expenses, dominated UN structures throughout the Cold War, when the US agenda generally prevailed. Since the end of the Cold War, the Security Council has continued to promote a Western agenda, although its powers have been limited by Russia and China, which historically have opposed UN intervention in the internal affairs of member nations.
Two chapters of the UN Charter spell out the organization’s role in the peaceful settlement of disputes and in peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Chapter VI permits the Security Council to investigate disputes that threaten international peace and security, to issue recommendations, and to monitor peace accords. The main parties to the dispute must consent to UN involvement. Under a Chapter VI mandate, a neutral UN force composed of troops from member states is stationed between warring parties that have endorsed a peace accord and empowered the UN to monitor it and maintain the peace. UN troops may use their weapons only if attacked or threatened with attack. They are not authorized to use force to protect civilians or to disarm parties to the dispute. They may not impose peace in the context of war. If war resumes, peacekeeping forces authorized under Chapter VI are generally withdrawn or their mandate is transformed into a Chapter VII peace enforcement mandate. Chapter VII of the UN Charter provides for UN intervention to maintain or restore peace, even in cases in which the main parties to the conflict have not acceded to UN involvement. Under this more robust mandate, UN troops are permitted to use force to counter threats to international peace and security even when peacekeepers are not directly threatened. They also may be authorized to protect civilians, humanitarian aid workers, and relief convoys, and to disarm and demobilize warring parties.
Because the UN Security Council determines which peacekeeping operations will be authorized and funded, the five permanent members wield enormous power. They generally choose to fund only those operations that support their interests and to end operations that oppose or no longer serve their interests. The three Western members fund nearly half the peacekeeping budget.6 Therefore they exercise disproportionate control over the operations, using their financial clout to determine where UN missions are sent and for how long.
Because East and West often failed to agree, there were few UN peacekeeping missions during the Cold War. In its immediate aftermath, Western powers were more concerned about maintaining the peace in Europe—specifically in the Balkans—than in Africa, where Cold War dictators were left to fail and rival forces jockeyed for position in the resulting power vacuums. During the 1990s, the Security Council withdrew UN peacekeepers from Somalia in the face of a deepening crisis and from Rwanda in the midst of a genocide, while the growing conflict in Liberia was ignored. By the decade’s end, however, the Security Council had begun to work with African regional and subregional organizations to secure peace in Sudan, the DRC, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire—all countries of considerable interest to the West, and in the case of Sudan, also to China. The UN provided significant funds for these operations, which in turn enabled it to influence the substance of the peace agreements and, to a lesser extent, their implementation.
A third chapter of the UN Charter provides for subregional and regional involvement in dispute settlement. Chapter VIII stipulates that if strife within or between countries threatens international peace and security, subregional and regional bodies are the most appropriate first responders. If one or more states cannot resolve a conflict or are not deemed neutral arbiters, the appropriate subregional organization is expected to respond. If those efforts fail, the continentwide regional organization is called upon.
