What Kind of Pivot Are We Doing to Africa?
“A Squirrel Dying in Front of Your House May Be More Relevant Than People Dying in Africa”- M. Zuckerberg
While two presidents have been promising a pivot from the Middle East and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Asia for about a decade now that pivot is still unfulfilled. Moreover, the pivot to Asia seems less and less likely while an unexpected pivot to Africa is looking almost certain. The pivot to Africa is based in part on the instability caused by the Arab Spring, the rise of numerous AQ-inspired terror groups throughout the Maghreb and Sahel, and the resurgence of al Shabaab in East Africa.
While the use of the term pivot by both presidents Bush and Obama was, undoubtedly, meant in the traditional definition (“to turn as if on a pivot”), I think the newer technology-related definition of pivot may be more appropriate. The newer definition essentially means an entity turns away from a failed endeavor, taking with it its accumulated knowledge, and begins a new endeavor attempting to recoup lost capital by finding success elsewhere. So using this definition to view the pivot to Africa, what is the key knowledge we should have captured from our last endeavors and how can it help ensure the US’s efforts in Africa are more successful than those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
1) All wars end with a political solution. While both Iraq and Afghanistan began as a way to extract some measure of retribution for the acts of 9/11, how and even when they end are a lot less obvious or clearly defined. War is simply a mechanism for bringing about a more desirable political reality but military action is never the right way to define when that reality has been achieved. Modern nations have not waged complete and total war for centuries and now wars end when politicians say they do not when military commanders are done fighting or have completely vanquished the opponent.
That means in the future a clear vision of what success looks like needs to be defined before any engagement is undertaken. It is understandable the finish line can be adjusted slightly based on unforeseen circumstances but the desired political reality we are attempting to create should always be clear from the highest commander to the soldier in the field to the public watching from afar.
Iraq and Afghanistan were complex places but no more so than Somalia or Libya. We need to define our goals in any areas we are operating (military or non-military action) openly and loudly for everyone to hear.
2) We need to understand the environment we are operating. As stated above, a focus on Africa is a continuation of our post-doctoral level studies in dysfunctional governance and historical conflicts. Additionally, on top of all the usual tribal and national conflicts, and unlike Iraq and Afghanistan that were essentially monolithic in terms of religion, Africa is now a continent split about 50-50, Christian and Muslim
Spending time to fully appreciate the complexities we are stepping into and making sure to understand what a winning coalition looks like for achieving our goals is paramount to any strategy for addressing US national security issues throughout Africa.
And speaking of the environment, it may seem trivial but Americans need to understand the sheer geographic size of the problem we are looking at. Take a look below at the true size of Africa since World maps don’t do it justice.
3) Fight a 10-year war not a 1-year war 10 times. I’m not advocating a war but simply long-term policies to fix long-term problems. National security threats emanating from Africa are not going away any time soon and neither will the US’s desire to counter them. We should accept Africa is a long-term proposal.
Long-term, yes but we do not need to, nor should we, accept the role of making African countries into a beacons of democracy. Our interest in Africa is to better protect the United State’s interest at home and abroad…that’s it. Building long-term relationships with countries and leaders who have a common interest in countering violent extremists in their country is enough. Keeping a laser-like focus on that goal over the long-term will be a challenge for the US in particular with changes in political administrations. However, staying focused on our narrow long-term security-focused strategy will help ensure the mission creep into nation building and the yearly “new” strategies that came around in Iraq and Afghanistan are avoided.
The pivot to Africa is already in motion. I am in hopes that we can define that pivot in the hopeful way of taking the knowledge from our recent failures to build successful security engagement strategies and ensure the blood and treasure spent over the past decade is not a sunk cost.
