From the Cold War to the War on Terror, 1991–2010

Elizabeth Schmidt

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021371.010

8 - From the Cold War to the War on Terror, 1991–2010

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013

Elizabeth Schmidt

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Elizabeth Schmidt: Affiliation:
Loyola University Maryland

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When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 and the Cold War ended, African client states were economically devastated, fraught with political divisions, and awash in weapons. No longer propped up by outside powers, dictators were driven from power and fragile states collapsed. In many instances, nascent prodemocracy movements were trampled as warlords, criminal gangs, and paramilitary groups devoid of political ideology or program moved into the power vacuums. The pervasive violence of the first post–Cold War decade was rooted in the political and economic crises of the Cold War era. As states and economies fragmented, opportunists mobilized the alienated, impoverished, and unemployed to claim their share of power and resources on the basis of their race, ethnicity, clan, or religion. Those who did not share these identities were excluded as unworthy and their claims as illegitimate. Marginalized out-groups were easy scapegoats for the countries’ enormous political and economic problems. Thus, the politics of exclusion laid the groundwork for intergroup violence, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Foreshadowed by the Cold War era wars of destabilization in Angola and Mozambique, in which antigovernment forces controlled indigenous populations through terror, the wars of the 1990s were characterized by widespread violence and atrocities against civilians.

Foreign intervention after the Cold War also assumed new characteristics. The state and its foreign backers no longer monopolized the means of coercion. The new wars were both privatized and globalized. Contests for control over power and resources were waged by private factions – warlords, criminal gangs, rebel groups, renegade soldiers, and old-fashioned foreign mercenaries and their new transformations as private military companies. Foreign intervention during this period involved neighboring states as well as non-African powers. Intervention was sometimes bilateral, just as it was when former colonial powers or Cold War superpowers policed their privileged domains. In other instances, it was multinational, characterized by the involvement of UN, African Union, regionally based peacekeeping forces, or international humanitarian organizations.

Type: Chapter
Information: Foreign Intervention in Africa
From the Cold War to the War on Terror
, pp. 193 - 226

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021371.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2013

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References

Several works establish a framework for better understanding the events that transpired in post–Cold War Africa. Clough's, MichaelFree at Last? U.S. Policy toward Africa and the End of the Cold War (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992) lays the groundwork with an overview of U.S.-Africa policy during the Cold War and its effects, examining the “dismal balance sheet” in six countries where the United States spent the most resources. Nicolas van de Walle's African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) examines the African economic crisis that began in the 1970s, which is critical to understanding post–Cold War political events. For a fascinating case study, see Isaac A. Kamola's “The Global Coffee Economy and the Production of Genocide in Rwanda,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 3 (2007): 571–92, which analyzes the 1994 Rwandan genocide in the context of the international coffee economy, economic crisis, and structural adjustment.Google Scholar

A number of books explore state collapse, warlordism, and political violence in the 1990s. Especially recommended is Reno's, WilliamWarlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), which offers important insight into the failure of the bureaucratic state in post–Cold War Africa and its replacement by warlords whose goal was to control economic resources rather than to mobilize citizens. See also the chapter “Warlord Rebels” in his book Warfare in Independent Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Mary Kaldor's New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999) explores the causes of increased ethnic violence in the 1990s and the reasons the international community failed to stop it. Continuing the focus on the international community, Adekeye Adebajo's UN Peacekeeping in Africa: From the Suez Crisis to the Sudan Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2011) examines UN peacekeeping missions in Africa since the end of the Cold War, exploring the reasons for their success or failure. Elizabeth Schmidt's From State Collapse to the War on Terror: Foreign Intervention in Africa after the Cold War (Athens: Ohio University Press, in progress) examines intra- and extracontinental intervention in African political and economic affairs during the two decades following the Cold War.Google Scholar

The following sections offer suggestions for the cases studies of Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, and Zaire. For Liberia, besides Reno's Warlord Politics and African States (mentioned above), Ellis's, StephenThe Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War, 2nd ed. (New York: New York University Press, 2006) is especially recommended. Ellis's book explains the origins and process of the Liberian civil war, focusing on corruption, the collapse of the state bureaucracy and patrimonial political system, the manipulation of ethnicity by politicians and warlords, and the role of indigenous religious belief systems. Bill Berkeley's The Graves are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Books, 2001), a clearly written journalistic account, also explores the ways in which Doe and Taylor manipulated ethnicity to gain access to power and resources and pays special attention to the role of the United States in the Liberian catastrophe. Mark Huband's The Liberian Civil War (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1998) is a riveting personal memoir of the early years of the Liberian civil war by a journalist who was captured by Taylor's forces. The related war in Sierra Leone is examined in David Keen's Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (Oxford, UK: James Currey; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), which investigates the crisis of the patronage-based political and economic system and the response of the dispossessed. Lansana Gberie's A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), an insider account by a Sierra Leonean journalist-historian, offers insights into the disintegration of the state, the nature of the RUF, the role of Liberia, and the impact of British and UN intervention.Google Scholar

For Somalia, several works examine the failed U.S.-UN intervention in the early 1990s. Sahnoun's, MohamedSomalia: The Missed Opportunities (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1994), written by the senior UN representative in Somalia in 1992, provides a critical account of the failed UN operation. For the perspective of Robert B. Oakley, the U.S special envoy for Somalia in 1992–94, who led the humanitarian phase of the operation, see John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 1995). For a critical account of the operation's misunderstandings, missteps, and failures by a humanitarian relief worker, see Kenneth R. Rutherford, Humanitarianism under Fire: The US and UN Intervention in Somalia (Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press, 2008). Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999), based on interviews and primary documents, offers a gripping account of the failed October 1993 U.S. Army Ranger Task Force operation.Google Scholar

For Sudan, besides Berkeley (mentioned above), several books are especially recommended. Johnson's, Douglas H.The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007) provides a historical overview of north-south conflicts; differential distribution of power and resources; manipulation of ethnicity and religion; and the role foreign governments, institutions, and aid organizations. Peter Woodward's US Foreign Policy and the Horn of Africa (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006) examines the evolution of U.S. policy toward the Horn of Africa, with special emphasis on Somalia, Sudan, and Islamist movements. Donald Petterson's Inside Sudan: Political Islam, Conflict and Catastrophe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), an insider account by the American ambassador to Sudan from 1992 to 1995, covers such topics as U.S. relations with Sudan, civil war, terrorism, and Islamic fundamentalism. Two recommended books focus on Darfur. Gérard Prunier's Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide, 3rd ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008) is a highly accessible comprehensive account of the Darfur conflict, its historical underpinnings, and the key players. Julie Flint and Alex de Waal's Darfur: A New History of a Long War, revised and updated (New York: Zed Books, 2008) introduces the history of the conflict, the main participants, and the response of the African Union and the broader international community.Google Scholar

Three recommended books focus on the Congo/Zaire/DRC. Crawford Young and Turner's, ThomasThe Rise and Decline of the Zairian State (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985) provides an overview of Zairian politics from the Belgian colonial state through the Mobutu regime. It examines the transformation of the colonial bureaucracy into a corrupt, personalized, patrimonial state and explores the consequences of economic decline and the role of Western countries and corporations. Michael G. Schatzberg's highly accessible Mobutu or Chaos: The United States and Zaire, 1960–1990 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991) focuses on U.S. policy toward Zaire from independence to the end of the Cold War. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja's The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History (New York: Zed Books, 2002), written by a Congolese scholar and activist, offers a valuable historical overview that includes a detailed history of the Congolese prodemocracy movement.Google Scholar

Four recent books explore late-twentieth-century political violence and wars in Central Africa and the Great Lakes region, with particular emphasis on the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi. They focus on the causes, internal dynamics, and effects of the conflicts, as well as the role of outside powers and corporations. See Lemarchand, René, The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008); Gérard Prunier, Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); Filip Reyntjens, The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996–2006 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); and Jason K. Stearns, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (New York: Public Affairs, 2012).Google Scholar

Several works focus on the militarization of U.S.-Africa policy in the early twenty-first century. Berschinski's, Robert G.AFRICOM’S Dilemma: The “Global War on Terrorism,” “Capacity Building,” Humanitarianism, and the Future of U.S. Security Policy in Africa (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2007), , critiques the United States’ post-9/11 model of military engagement in Africa, military involvement in humanitarian and development operations, and Washington's misunderstanding of many antigovernment movements. Malinda S. Smith's edited collection, Securing Africa: Post--9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), which includes contributors from several continents, focuses on the impact of the war on terror on African societies across the continent. John Davis's edited collection, Africa and the War on Terrorism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), explores the evolution of the war on terror in Africa, with special attention paid to the role of the African Union and U.S. Special Forces. Daniel Volman and William Minter's “Making Peace or Fueling War in Africa,” Foreign Policy in Focus, March 13, 2009, critiques Washington's emphasis on the strengthening of bilateral military ties and its reduction of resources for the UN and other multilateral institutions, as well as its focus on counterterrorism and access to natural resources, rather than humanitarian concerns.Google Scholar

Four recommended books focus on militant Islam and U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa, which is considered the African front line in the American war on terror. Besides Woodward (mentioned above), Waal's, Alex de edited collection, Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), examines the emergence of new forms of radical Islam and their relation to American political and economic power, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and U.S. intervention in the Horn. Robert I. Rotberg's edited collection, Battling Terrorism in the Horn of Africa (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and the World Peace Foundation, 2005), focuses on the Horn as a front line in the American war on terror and Washington's use of regional powers to promote U.S. interests. Gregory A. Pirio's African Jihad: Bin Laden's Quest for the Horn of Africa (Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, 2007) offers a narrative account of al-Qaeda's presence in East Africa and the Horn, focusing especially on Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania.Google Scholar

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8 - From the Cold War to the War on Terror, 1991–2010

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