Africom Stands Up 2006-2017

[Stan]

Kingjaja,
I think I found your twin at The Sun Times.

“The question really is what should Africans and the African continent realistically expect from the President Barack Obama administration? My answer to that is TOUGH LOVE.

It would appear it is the ‘TOUGH LOVE’ closeted with abhorrent silence that President Obama has chosen to practice. It is beginning to appear that after his eight years in office, his legacy to Africa would amount to zero achievement, compared to his two white predecessors, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Regards, Stan

[Stan]

Kingjaja,
I'd like to have a link to that because I can't find anything even in the French press. There are gobs of news regarding Obama's gay rights during his trip to Senegal, but nothing about President Sall and his so-called tour to DC.

Would be great if you linked those articles concerning predictable outcomes. Otherwise, it's mere innuendo.
.
Regards, Stan

Predictably, Macky Sall, the leader of Senegal (one of Africa's more important nations) got a LOT of flack from Senegalese media for going to the White House as part of a tour group.

[KingJaja]

Sorry, the link was from a popular blog about Africa, not Senegalese media:

http://africasacountry.com/can-afric...f-state-speak/

[Stan]

Kingjaja,
Thanks for the link !

Pardon my interjection, but just as Ganulv suggested, this was not some discourteous act by the USG, rather a logical multi party meeting. These happen all the time when the state actors have a common problem and goal.
A similar multi party meeting took place in July 2011 with the presidents of Benin, Guinea, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

I think you read too far into this, but that's your call.

I tend not to trust hungry journalism especially in my field of expertise.


Edit: Something slightly worth reading without too much journalism

The Significance of Obama’s Meeting with African Leaders at the White House

Regards, Stan

Sorry, the link was from a popular blog about Africa, not Senegalese media:

http://africasacountry.com/can-afric...f-state-speak/

[KingJaja]

Jmm99,

It shows the major ethnicities within (and some split up by) the neo-colonial state borders.

Since the thread has now turned to individual vs group leadership meetings, my thoughts when looking at the map turned to the "what if" questions:

1. What if the neo-colonial borders were scuppered; and new borders aligned on the basis of the ethnicities ?

2. How would these many more, much smaller countries fare in the diplomatic and trade arenas ?

3. Specifically, would the resultant multiplicity of West-Central African coastal countries (the most ethnically divided) then be placed at a competitive disadvantage as their pre-colonial antecedents apparently were - as recently argued in 2009 by two Univ. of Michigan economists, The Impact of the Slave Trade on African Economies.

4. What counter-strategies could that multiplicity of relatively tiny countries employ in order to offset the power of their trade "partners" (whether EU, China or US) ?

This is not an argument for keeping the neo-colonial borders; my dog is not in that fight; my presumption favors self-determination; but how many, many tiny countries would fare in a dog eat dog world seems a legitimate issue.

KJ: I expect you have considered this issue; I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Regards

I'm extremely sorry for responding late to your questions. They require a great deal of thought, and might have to be dealt with in detail by much smarter people than me, but I'll try.

I won't answer your questions directly, but I'll give my perspective on these issues.

African states are ex-colonial administrative units, they are not nations in the same way the United States of America or France are nations. Most are incoherent & lack an internal logic.

So the present order is unsustainable, but what will replace it?

Ideology has no place in African politics, but two factors predominate - religion & ethnicity. Religion is not that much of an issue in Southern & Central Africa, but it is a much bigger issue in West Africa.

So the first point of separation is likely to be religion and we can see that in Nigeria. Only a fool will maintain that Fundamentalist Islam and Sharia can coexist peacefully with Evangelical Christianity. So Nigeria's future will be two nations at the minimum - the Sharia compliant North & people in the South who aren't that crazy about Sharia.

After mutually incompatible religions (example Sudan/South Sudan, Nigeria, appearing in Kenya, Tanzania & Central African republic & possibly Chad in the future), the most important fault lines are ethnic.

Let me add here that not all ethnic groups are mutually antagonistic, some ethnic groups have long history of interaction, speak similar languages, have similar cultures & have mechanisms for conflict resolution.

In East Africa, everyone knows the Nilotics are a bit different from the Bantus. Obviously, these geniuses (i.e the French & British - America's closest allies), weren't interested about such distinctions and drew lines wherever they pleased.

In some states (such as Ghana & Tanzania), the national identities are strong enough to weather these storms, but I don't see how states like Nigeria, Congo DRC or Central African Republic will persist as united, cohesive entities for much longer this century.

In Nigeria, the ethno/religious fault-lines are already expressed in the political arrangements. The coastal peoples of the Niger Delta have formed an alliance with the inland Igbos & the many ethnic groups of Nigeria's "Middle Belt" - cultures are somewhat similar and predominantly Christian. This could be the nucleus of one nation.

There are 12 states the implement Sharia law, once again, with some modification, this could be another nation. Then there are the Yoruba people, who could form another nation.

Another trigger for the modification of Sub-Saharan African boundaries are its massive coastal cities. I expect Lagos to expand into Cotonou & swallow it up - colonial boundaries are increasingly meaningless as Lagos will soon expand into Cotonou.

Finally, when the French finally withdraw from Africa, Francophone Africa will fall apart.

All this will result in a redrawing of Africa's maps. I don't think the resulting nations will be as small as a single tribe, but they will be more logical, more cohesive and hopefully more economically viable than what obtains today.

[jmm99]

to what are difficult, futuristic questions. Two of your points stood out to me.

The first deals with co-operating ethnic groups:

Let me add here that not all ethnic groups are mutually antagonistic, some ethnic groups have long history of interaction, speak similar languages, have similar cultures & have mechanisms for conflict resolution.

This is also the point made by some (e.g., John Thornton) in the long ongoing American discussion of the African-American part of the African Diaspora. The "lumpers" (such as Thornton) recognize that, in 1400-1800 (and presumably today), one cannot speak of "Africans" as any sort of unity. The West-Central African coast (Gambia to Angola) in 1400-1800 had a large number of ethnicities. However, some of those ethnicities could (more easily than others) "lump" together for common purposes (such as, providing better survival chances under the adverse conditions of chattel slavery).

I also see your second point:

Another trigger for the modification of Sub-Saharan African boundaries are its massive coastal cities. I expect Lagos to expand into Cotonou & swallow it up - colonial boundaries are increasingly meaningless as Lagos will soon expand into Cotonou.

particularly, after reading this Atlantic article, How Africa's New Urban Centers Are Shifting Its Old Colonial Boundaries:

The continent's booming new economic zones are outstripping the ability of weak central governments to retain their hold on them.

Twice as populous today as the next biggest African country, Nigeria, which was cobbled together as a colony 100 years ago, has always stood out on its continent as the most ambitious and in many ways fanciful creation of British imperialism.
...
Lagos, which sits in the southwestern corner of Nigeria, sprawled over a collection of islands and swampy coastlands, occupies the leading edge of this phenomenon. Today, its extraordinary growth is driving sweeping changes in a five-country region that stretches 500 miles westward along a band of palm-shaded seaboard all the way to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, a mushrooming city of perhaps six million people that has long been this region's other major economic and cultural pole.

In between them, in one of the busiest staging areas of the historic Atlantic slave trade, West Africa is laying the foundations of one of the world's biggest megalopolises, and in Lagos itself, the start of a potentially powerful new city-state.
...
And this is where Africa's new political geography comes in. A simple tally of the projections for the three principal cities in this corridor, Lagos, Abidjan, and Accra, adds up to a mid-century population of 54 million.

To this, however, one must add places like Ibadan, Nigeria (presently 2 million people), only 80 miles from Lagos, Takoradi, Ghana (500,000 people), and the capitals of what are today sovereign countries, Lome, Togo (1.5 million) and Cotonou, Benin (1.2 million). Throw in the countless other towns and cities along the way that will be swelling or springing to life, and the foreseeable result is a dense and nearly unbroken urban zone from end to end.

One futuristic possibility for this urban zone would be something akin to the Hanseatic League, giving it leverage in trade without outright secession from the countries within which those cities are located today.

Regards

Mike

[KingJaja]

Jmm99,

I think US is focusing on the wrong things in Africa - counter terrorism & piracy - & its understanding of the term "state failure" is extremely problematic.

Terrorism and piracy are symptoms of state failure, but state failure is a product of the shoddy job of state creation done (in a hurry) by the European colonial powers.

For US engagement in Africa to be productive, it needs to think outside the box and consider African history, the mistakes made and what remedial actions might be necessary.

However, from the little I know about America, Americans neither have the patience, the resources nor the interest in getting involved in the "politics of tribes or pre/post-colonial history".

So, AFRICOM will fire its drones, but its drones will not solve underlying issues like a long standing Tuareg rebellion in Mali. The French and British will insist on preserving the established post-colonial order. So things will remain in an unstable equilibrium until:

The French withdraw from Sub-Saharan Africa and instability results.

This instability will cascade down to the rest of West Africa and is likely to have wide ranging implications.

Will Americans want AFRICOM to replace the French as a source of stability in Sub-Saharan Africa? I doubt it, they just don't have that interest.

I expect these events to shape up by mid-century. It might be bloody & messy, but Africa's maps will change.

[jmm99]

KJ,

Let's start on what seems to be a point of agreement - the effects of the "Scramble for Africa" by the European Powers, brought to fruition by the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Pursuant to that agreement by that time's EU, the borders of present Sub-Saharan African states were pretty much carved out before WWI - and not changed that much since (British colonial map from 1897; French colonial map from 1911).

What is the on-going effect of these colonial borders - has it been as you say "...state failure is a product of the shoddy job of state creation done (in a hurry) by the European colonial powers" ? This monograph thinks so, The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa (by Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou; January 2011):

Abstract

We examine the economic consequences of the partitioning of Africa among European powers in the late 19th century; a process historically known as the scramble for Africa. First, using information on the spatial distribution of African ethnicities before colonization we establish that border drawing was largely arbitrary. Apart from the land mass and water area of an ethnicity’s historical homeland, no other geographic, ecological, historical, and ethnic-specific trait predicts which ethnic groups have been partitioned by the national borders. Second, employing data on the location of civil conflicts after independence we show that compared to ethnicities that have not been impacted by the border design, partitioned ethnic groups have suffered significantly more, longer, and more devastating civil wars. Third, we find that economic development —as reflected by satellite data on light density at night- is systematically lower in the historical homeland of partitioned ethnicities. These results are robust to a rich set of controls at a fine level and the inclusion of country and ethnic-family fixed-effects. Our regressions thus identify a sizable causal negative effect of the scramble for Africa on comparative regional development.

I'd agree (it's difficult to dispute hard evidence); provided that one includes (as another material factor) the prior five centuries of slave trading (links in prior posts).

---------------------------------------------
Turning now to another point. What is missing in this picture ?

new_pa1.jpg

The United States, of course.

That absence was not because the US never engaged in colonialism and imperialism; obviously it used conquest and/or purchase, followed by settlement, to fulfill Manifest Destiny (e.g., west of the original 13 colonies; Alaska and Hawaii). But, with respect to Africa, the US role was limited - naval patrols against pirates and slavers, and the colony of Liberia founded in 1822 by the American Colonization Society. The latter project made some money for the Firestone Rubber & Tire Company, but was (like the naval patrols) of limited American scope and interest - even among African-Americans.

So, we have a rather famous speech by Frederick Douglass, African Civilization Society (February 1859), saying (in part):

The African Civilization Society says to us, go to Africa, raise cotton, civilize the natives, become planters, merchants, compete with the slave States in the Liverpool cotton market, and thus break down American slavery. To which we simply reply, “we prefer to remain in America;” and we do insist upon it, in very face of our respected friend, that that is both a direct and candid answer. There is no dodging, no equivocation, but so far as we are concerned, the whole matter is ended. You go there, we stay here, is just the difference between us and the African Civilization Society, and the true issue upon [which] co-operation with it or opposition to it must turn.
...
4. One of our chief considerations upon with the African Civilization Society is recommended to our favorable regard, is its tendency to break up the slave trade. We have looked at this recommendation, and find no reason to believe that any one man in Africa can do more for the abolition of that trade, while living in Africa, than while living in America. If we cannot make Virginia, with all her enlightenment and christianity, believe that there are better uses for her energies than employing them in breeding slaves for the market, we see not how we can expect to make Guinea, with its ignorance and savage selfishness, adopt our notions of political economy. Depend upon it, the savage chiefs on the western coast of Africa, who for ages have been accustomed to selling their captives into bondage, and pocketing the ready cash for them, will not more readily see and accept our moral and economical ideas, than the slave-traders of Maryland and Virginia. We are, therefore, less inclined to go to Africa to work against the slave-traders, than to stay here to work against it. Especially as the means for accomplishing our objects are quite as promising here as there, and more especially since we are here already, with constitutions and habits suited to the country and its climate, and to its better institutions.

For America's role in suppressing the 19th century slave trade, see W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870 (1896).

----------------------------------------------
Subsidiary points about the United States that often cloud analysis of its role in Africa and elsewhere are these:

1. The US is not always in lockstep with Britain and France. In fact, outside of Europe, US policies have often collided with those of either or both allies (e.g., Asia, from the Open Door Policy through Vietnam; Suez and other MENA events).

2. The US has typically been anti-colonialist and pro-nationalist since WWII. In Indochina-Vietnam, the issue among most American was which nationalists to support in the long-run (left, center or right - though Giap managed to kill most of the centrists).

3. The US does have two self-defeating tendencies when it "engages" (in Africa and elsewhere) because of its larger, global "interests" (Cold War, War on Terror, Genocide and Humanitarian Interventions): (1) it gets too much involved in local politics; and (2) talks more than it should. All of that naturally engenders beliefs that the US is going to be there for the long haul; that just ain't so.

4. The US will get very self-protective (and interested) if its Atlantic or Pacific littoral is threatened. For example, if the Lagos-Accra mega-city develops, and if the Chinese presence appears to becoming military (especially, naval installations), the US interest in that particular area will rise.

----------------------------------------
Finally, why do you conclude that France's role in West Africa will implode ? My dog is not in that fight, but I'm interested in your analysis and evidence.

Regards

Mike

[KingJaja]

Jmm99,

Need to respond to a few of your points:

1. The US is not always in lockstep with Britain and France. In fact, outside of Europe, US policies have often collided with those of either or both allies (e.g., Asia, from the Open Door Policy through Vietnam; Suez and other MENA events).

Since the beginning of the Cold War, there has been very little difference between US & French policies (or the policies of other Colonial powers) in Sub-Saharan Africa. South East Asia, the Middle East etc might be different, but in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is absolutely no daylight between the US, France, Britain or Belgium.

I'll prove it - US supported the Apartheid regime just like other European Colonial powers. Generally supported European powers in anti-Colonial wars of liberation in Sub-Saharan Africa and supported exactly the same set of dictators (like Mobutu) as European colonial powers.

When the Cold War ended, US abandoned the same clients as other European powers. Adopted exactly the same position on Zimbabwe as UK (although Zimbabwe is a bit more nuanced than the simple cliches thrown out by Western media).

Now there are occasional points of disagreement with the French (like in Rwanda), but US attitude is that France is too big and too important an ally to be held to account for any wrong doings in Africa.

So as far as Sub-Saharan Africa is concerned, very little distinguishes US policy from the policies of ex-Colonial powers. In fact, US policies build on the policies of these former colonial powers, it is neither original nor revolutionary.

You cannot objectively claim the same applies to China.

2. The US has typically been anti-colonialist and pro-nationalist since WWII. In Indochina-Vietnam, the issue among most American was which nationalists to support in the long-run (left, center or right - though Giap managed to kill most of the centrists).

Once again, there's very little evidence to support that in Sub-Saharan Africa. What side did the US support in Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) Africa's wars of independence? How come the Soviet Union, Cuba and Gaddafi's Libya supported the anti-Apartheid struggle way before the United States?

How come Ronald Reagan spoke of the Bothas in glowing terms as late as the mid 1980s?

The usual excused is that the global struggle against Communism/Socialism forced the US to take sides. Accepted, but whatever its motivations were, US cannot claim to be anti-colonialist and pro-nationalist in Sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence doesn't support that claim.

The US simply sided with its friends, the European Colonial powers - in Francophone Africa, they did what the French told them to do. In Anglophone Africa, they followed the lead of the British and in Lusophone Africa, they followed the Portuguese - and Lusophone Africa was where the legacy was most damaging.

3. The US does have two self-defeating tendencies when it "engages" (in Africa and elsewhere) because of its larger, global "interests" (Cold War, War on Terror, Genocide and Humanitarian Interventions): (1) it gets too much involved in local politics; and (2) talks more than it should. All of that naturally engenders beliefs that the US is going to be there for the long haul; that just ain't so.

I agree with that.

4. The US will get very self-protective (and interested) if its Atlantic or Pacific littoral is threatened. For example, if the Lagos-Accra mega-city develops, and if the Chinese presence appears to becoming military (especially, naval installations), the US interest in that particular area will rise.

Pray, tell, what will the US do? Okay assuming the Chinese financed "Lekki Free Trade Zone" in Lagos (with a deep seaport and an industrial layout) thrives - and a Chinese request to locate a naval facility is honored, what is the US going to do? Go to war to prevent China from having naval bases on the African continent.

It's not a matter of if, but when the Chinese start locating military facilities on Africa's coast - so what is America's response to Chinese military presence in Africa supposed to be? I can assure you that quite a few of the training missions, drone operations and counter terrorism operations the US feels it has a monopoly on will be handled by the Chinese in future.

And with the Chinese you aren't likely to get a lot of long winded talk about humanitarianism etc.

[jmm99]

As to both points 1 & 2, neither of us can have it both ways - that is, to argue on one hand that the US has been indifferent to Africa; and then on the other hand to argue that it has been actively engaged in Africa - in lockstep with the colonial powers, as I read your arguments.

I've made no claim that the US has played or attempted to play a revolutionary, nationalist role in Africa. I also don't dispute that the US often opposed leftist revolutionaries who were supported by one or more of the Communist countries. So, those who are leftists have no reason to love the US.

My arguments have been that Africa has played a minor role in US policy-making and military affairs since the time of the "Shores of Tripoli". I've also argued that larger, global interests have driven those US actions (usually via proxy actors) that occurred in Africa during the Cold War and GWOT.

Of course, one can set up a dozen African problems, with a dozen perceived solutions (let's assume all of the solutions are correct); and then say to the US (which hasn't done anything to advance any of the solutions), you're not part of the solution - hence, you're part of the problem. That to me is just another way of saying, if you're not for us, you're against us. I'd say that clouds analysis, which was my point in saying this:

Subsidiary points about the United States that often cloud analysis of its role in Africa and elsewhere are these: ...

but to each his own perceptions of the US.

As to the Chinese, my own inclination is generally a hands off policy toward them. However, I don't make US foreign policy; administrations make US foreign policy; and administrations change. We saw that with respect to apartheid. During both the Cold War and GWOT, I've disagreed with many USG actions - less so, with its inactions.

Finally, if a Chinese naval presence becomes an imminent threat to the US, then I expect the US to react as it did in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

Once again, there's very little evidence to support that in Sub-Saharan Africa. What side did the US support in Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) Africa's wars of independence?

Well, the US did support UNITA. As enemy-of-my-enemy stuff goes, that one isn’t quite as bad as the recognition of the Khmer Rouge at the UN, but still…

[KingJaja]

Jmm99,

US initial attitude to a problem as serious as Apartheid isn't considered by any intelligent African as sitting on the fence, but as active collusion.

Remember we were arguing about whether the US had always moved in lockstep with France and UK - I explained that in Africa (at least since 1945) it had.

Whether US sees Africa as marginal or as a strategic backwater isn't the question. The question is what message do it actions send?

[KingJaja]

ganulv,

Well, the US did support UNITA. As enemy-of-my-enemy stuff goes, that one isn’t quite as bad as the recognition of the Khmer Rouge at the UN, but still…

True, not as bad as the Khmer Rouge, but the US was solidly behind Suharto when he embarked on a massive killing spree.

Once again, Suharto wasn't as bad as the Khmer Rouge, but he was no angel.

In Africa, US supported Mobutu for like 30 years. Now Mobutu wasn't as bloody as either the Khmer Rouge or Suharto, but he was a special kind of useless.

[ganulv]

The UNITA/US/China/DPRK/Israel/RSA nexus is one of the strangest out there. And there was Gulf/Chevron operating in Cabinda in partnership with the MPLA government during the Angolan civil war.

In Africa, US supported Mobutu for like 30 years. Now Mobutu wasn't as bloody as either the Khmer Rouge or Suharto, but he was a special kind of useless.

He had his uses, at least to the Belgian and US intelligence communities.

[KingJaja]

ganulv,

Nothing distinguished US conduct during the Cold War in Africa from Soviet conduct - absolutely nothing.

For every Siad Barre the US supported, the Soviets had a Haile Mengistu Mariam. So intelligent Africans see right through the United States - says the right things, but behind that facade is a history of telling self-serving lies.

ANC is reflexively anti-American and anti-Israeli. You can't blame them, given the negative role the US government (and the CIA) in the anti-Apartheid struggle - until public opinion forced the US government to (very reluctantly) change its mind.

You talked about Chinese support for the Khmer Rouge. But the US knew its closest ally, the United Kingdom was supporting a Nigerian government that systematically and deliberately starved anywhere between 1 to 3 million people during the Nigerian Civil War.

In addition, nobody has asked America's close allies, the French to fully account for what exactly they did during the Rwandan massacres.

US might have saved Western Europe and North East Asia, but the US record on Africa is very mixed - and no intelligent African believes the Chinese record is worse (or will be worse, given the history of slave trade).

[davidbfpo]

KingJaja asked in Post 322:

What side did the US support in Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) Africa's wars of independence?

I looked at this issue sometime ago, possibly for a SWC post - which I cannot now locate readily.

The USA did not support Portugal's campaigning in Africa. At one point Portugal argued defending their colonies came within NATO's ambit, the USA and IIRC others disagreed. The USA was careful to ensure any military aid under NATO auspices was not diverted to the colonies. For a long part of those wars the USA paid little attention politically and strategically to Africa, the big exception being the Congo in the 1960's.

Yes, the USA did not readily support the anti-colonial cause and it is easy to expect the cause was seen through Cold War lenses.

In Angola UNITA received external support after 1974 and the announcement that Portugal was leaving. In Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau there was only one liberation movement, closely aligned to enemies of the USA, so there was no-one to support (I exclude RENAMO which had local sponsors).

[KingJaja]

davidbfpo,

Okay, I must have gotten Lusophone Africa wrong, but the US government supported the Apartheid Regime in South Africa for a very long time - until public opinion forced it to reluctantly change its mind.

No one can dispute that.

The same applied applied to Apartheid South Africa's defacto colony: Namibia.

So US policy in Africa has never been distinguish by altruism or an anti-colonial stance.

[ganulv]

davidbfpo,

Okay, I must have gotten Lusophone Africa wrong, but the US government supported the Apartheid Regime in South Africa for a very long time - until public opinion forced it to reluctantly change its mind.

There was little or no overt material aid to UNITA, so far as I am aware. Savimbi was fêted in DC, however.

[jmm99]

KJ:

US initial attitude to a problem as serious as Apartheid isn't considered by any intelligent African as sitting on the fence, but as active collusion.

It's the same as the Bush-Cheney message: If you're not for us, you're against us. It also is the same message which underlies the Beltway Blame Game.

All of these have a number of things in common. The "hands off" neutral player can't win because anything the "bad guy" does has been "supported" by the neutral - as you say, sitting on the fence = active collusion. Of course, both "good guys" (or, are they both "bad guys" or simply mixed) can do the same to the neutral. If the "hands off" neutral player does take action, it can be readily criticized as too little and/or too late.

The end result is to drive the "hands off" neutral player out of the market. We've seen that in the US Congress, where the Blame Game has effectively eliminated most of the middle of the road members.

The premise that sitting on the fence = active collusion is quite common. Thus, anything done by the active participants can be attributed to the passive onlooker; and, with financial responsibility to the passive onlooker, if one adds to it:

1. The "sins" (where omissions are the same as commissions) of prior generations should be visited upon the present generation.

2. The present generation should apologize and make financial reparations for the "sins" of its prior generations.

I don't buy the foregoing argument, but many (besides you) do.

If the gal says she doesn't like you, but says she likes the other guy, you go your separate ways. Only a fool would keep butting his head against the wall in that situation.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

The three-paragraph quote below is from materials re: Portugal and its colonies.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XIII, Western Europe and Canada - Portugal

re: George Ball Lisbon Meetings in 1963

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963
Volume XIII, Western Europe and Canada, Document 356

356. Telegram From the Embassy in Portugal to the Department of State Source: Department of State, Central Files, Pol 19 Port. Confidential; Priority.
Lisbon, August 29, 1963, 10 p.m.

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963
Volume XIII, Western Europe and Canada, Document 357

357. Telegram From the Embassy in France to the Department of State Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 66 D110, CF 2301. Secret; Priority. Repeated to Lisbon. For another account of this meeting, see George W. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, pp. 276–279.
Paris, August 31, 1963, 3 p.m.

This quote is from the second cable:

If it was agreeable to the Prime Minister, he would endeavor to sketch for him the basis for the position adopted by the US regarding African problems. Ball realized that the two governments have different views and he wished to make it clear that the policy of the US must be considered within the framework of our overall responsibilities and the East/West conflict. After the Second World War, the US felt obliged to move into certain power vacuums created by the retirement of certain European countries from areas in which they had previously been vitally interested, e.g., Viet Nam, Laos, etc. In addition, the US had given billions of dollars to India and Pakistan to protect the sub-continent from communism and to meet what had previously been a British responsibility. We had considered it essential to move into these situations to prevent the communists from doing so.

The Under Secretary emphasized that the continent of Africa was only of marginal interest to the US as far as American national interests are concerned. We feel that commercial possibilities in Africa are limited and we have no large economic ambitions there. We have, however, taken an active interest in African affairs for fear that the continent might be subjected to communist penetration. He said he would like to emphasize again that of all the areas in the world Africa was the least important from the point of view of American national interests, but our role there must be viewed in the light of the East/West struggle. The Under Secretary recognized that the Portuguese Government adopts a different approach and has a long-standing vital interest in Africa after 500 years of occupation and a sense of mission in the area. We felt it is very useful to define clearly our separate points of departure, emphasizing that everything we do in Africa is in the fundamental interest of the protection of the free world.

The Under Secretary said that world political evolution since the Second World War has been greater than that of the previous three centuries. With the dismantling of colonial arrangements that existed for many years, a marked change occurred in the relations between the metropolitan powers and those colonial areas. He cited developments in north and central Africa affecting France, and developments in various areas which affect Great Britain. This movement of political evolution has achieved considerable momentum and must be regarded as a political fact of life. The speed of the movement has been fantastic and the change of relationships between the metropolitan powers and the indigenous peoples has been profound. Admittedly there has been considerable “breakage” in connection with these developments, but the amount of bloodshed involved has been very limited. In the development of our own foreign policy this nationalism has had to be recognized and an attempt made to exercise a certain control in order to channel the movement into useful directions. For this reason, the US could not permit itself to take rigid positions. There is no doubt that the communist powers are eager to exploit the situation for their own purposes. We do not say that we have been wise in everything we have done and we have probably made mistakes, but we have made a serious effort to employ such resources and influence as we possess in an effort to give direction to this evolution.

In 1963, the exception to the US "hands off" ("sitting on the fence") policy was engagement in Africa by the "communist powers". In 2013, the exception is engagement in Africa by AQ and associated groups.

Regards

Mike