Introduction

Elizabeth Schmidt

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139021371.002

Introduction

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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Summary

For many outsiders, the word Africa conjures up images of a continent in crisis, riddled with war and corruption, imploding from disease and starvation. Africans are regularly blamed for their plight. They are frequently viewed as being intolerant of ethnic and religious differences but accepting of corruption and dictatorship. They are often presumed to be unwilling or unable to govern themselves. This book challenges such popular myths. By examining the historical roots of contemporary problems, the book demonstrates that many of the predicaments that plague the continent today are not solely the result of African decisions but also the consequence of foreign intrusion into African affairs. Focusing on foreign political and military intervention in Africa during the periods of decolonization (1956–75) and the Cold War (1945–91), with reflections on the later periods of state collapse (1991–2001) and the “global war on terror” (2001–10), this book advances four central propositions.

First, as colonial systems faltered, imperial and Cold War powers vied to control the decolonization process. While imperial powers hoped to transfer the reins of government to neocolonial regimes that would continue to serve their political and economic interests, Cold War powers strove to shape a new international order that instead catered to their interests. Although independence struggles and their aftermath were dominated by local issues, Cold War intervention rendered the conflicts more lethal and the consequences longer lasting. Second, as the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, African nations were abandoned by their Cold War allies. They were bequeathed a legacy of enormous debt; collapsed states; and, in many cases, deadly competition for the spoils. While indigenous prodemocracy movements challenged warlords and autocrats, foreign actors both helped and hindered their efforts. Neighboring states and regional, continental, and transcontinental organizations supported opposing sides in the war-making and peace-building processes. Third, the global war on terror, like its Cold War antecedent, increased foreign military presence on the African continent and generated new external support for repressive governments. Fourth, throughout the periods under consideration, foreign intervention tended to exacerbate rather than alleviate African conflicts and to harm rather than help indigenous populations. Even international humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts were marred by conflicting interests that sometimes hurt the people they were intended to assist.

Type: Chapter
Information: Foreign Intervention in Africa
From the Cold War to the War on Terror
, pp. 1 - 17

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139021371.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2013

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References

Works that explore Africans’ interactions with a wider world before colonial conquest include Philip Curtin, Steven Feierman, Thompson, Leonard, and Vansina, Jan, African History: From Earliest Times to Independence, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1995); Bill Freund, The African City: A History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Michael A. Gomez, Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and David Robinson, Muslim Societies in African History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).Google Scholar

For the periods of decolonization and the Cold War, a number of older but still relevant studies are recommended. Prosser Gifford and Wm. Louis's, RogerThe Transfer of Power in Africa: Decolonization, 1940–1960 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982) and Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power, 1960–1980 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988) contain a wealth of articles and bibliographic references on specific colonial powers and regions. For readable overviews covering the entire continent, see Basil Davidson, Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History (Boston: Little, Brown, 1978) and John D. Hargreaves, Decolonization in Africa, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1996). For the Southern African region, see William Minter, King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1986).Google Scholar

For a comprehensive study of the Cold War – albeit with relatively little focus on Africa – see Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, Odd Arne, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 3 vols. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). For a brief overview of the Cold War, see David S. Painter, The Cold War: An International History (New York: Routledge, 1999). Other works explore American and Soviet ideas about anticolonial movements and superpower interventions in Africa. See especially Zaki Laïdi, The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of a Rivalry, 1960–1990 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). For Southern Africa and the Horn, see Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).Google Scholar

For broad assessments of U.S.-Africa policy during the Cold War, see Schraeder, Peter J., United States Foreign Policy toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis, and Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994) and Gerald J. Bender, James S. Coleman, and Richard L. Sklar, eds., African Crisis Areas and U.S. Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). For the impact of race relations and the civil rights movement on U.S. Cold War policies, see Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Penny Von Eschen, Race against Empire: Black Americans and Anti-Colonialism, 1937–1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Brenda Gayle Plummer, Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); and Brenda Gayle Plummer, ed., Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1988 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).CrossRef Google Scholar

Several recent books investigate Soviet involvement in Africa. Andrew, Christopher and Mitrokhin's, VasiliThe World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005) discusses KGB clandestine operations in Africa. Vladimir G. Shubin's The Hot “Cold War”: The USSR in Southern Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2008) provides a thorough examination of a major Soviet area of involvement, focusing on Angola, Mozambique, Rhodesia, Namibia, and South Africa. Sergey Mazov explores Soviet activities in the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, and Mali in A Distant Front in the Cold War: The USSR in West Africa and the Congo, 1956–1964 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010). Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali examine Soviet involvement in Egypt and the Congo in Khrushchev's Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006).Google Scholar

For China's political and economic relations with African states and liberation movements, see Larkin, Bruce D., China and Africa, 1949–1970: The Foreign Policy of the People's Republic of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971) and Alaba Ogunsanwo, China's Policy in Africa, 1958–1971 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974). For an engrossing case study of Chinese aid and its political and economic implications, see Jamie Monson, Africa's Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009).Google Scholar

For a superb examination of Cuba's involvement in Africa, see Gleijeses's, PieroConflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959–1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).Google Scholar

A number of sources focus on foreign intervention in Africa during the post–Cold War period. Taylor's, IanThe International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa (New York: Continuum, 2010) investigates the interactions of sub-Saharan African countries with the United States, Britain, France, China, India, the European Union, and international financial institutions. Contributing much-needed internal perspectives, Adebayo Oyebade and Abiodun Alao examine the continent's quest for security in their edited collection, Africa after the Cold War: The Changing Perspectives on Security (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998), as does Adekeye Adebajo in The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War (London: Hurst & Co., 2010). A number of accounts offer interpretations of recent conflicts and crises. Among the most significant academic studies in this category are Morten Bøås and Kevin C. Dunn, eds., African Guerrillas: Raging against the Machine (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007); William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998); and William Reno, Warfare in Independent Africa (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Well-researched and accessible journalistic accounts include Bill Berkeley, The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (New York: Basic Books, 2001); Howard W. French, A Continent for the Taking: The Tragedy and Hope of Africa (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004); and Mark Huband, The Skull beneath the Skin: Africa after the Cold War (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001).Google Scholar

Most investigations into international terrorism and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies have paid little attention to Africa. Although lacking an African focus, a good overview of the interactions of local insurgencies, international movements, and the global war on terror is Kilcullen's, DavidThe Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). Malinda S. Smith's edited collection, Securing Africa: Post--9/11 Discourses on Terrorism (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), offers a much-needed African focal point that includes diverse regional and national perspectives. The implications of the U.S. Africa Command for African and global security are analyzed in Daniel Volman and William Minter, “Making Peace or Fueling War in Africa,” Foreign Policy in Focus (March 13, 2009; ), and Robert G. Berschinski, 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; ).Google Scholar

Online sources that have not been vetted by experts must be regarded with caution. Online sites that offer high-quality analysis and documentation include the following: Africa Focus Bulletin () features analysis of current African issues and includes excerpts from African publications, reports by nongovernmental organizations, and so on; AllAfrica () distributes news from Africa, posting more than 1,000 stories in English and French each day and offering more than 900,000 articles in its digital archive; “Southern Africa Liberation History” () provides links to important digital archives around the world that focus on Southern African liberation struggles; the National Security Archive () provides access to declassified U.S. government documents, presidential papers, congressional records, and court testimony that focus on U.S. national security, foreign policy, intelligence, and economic issues.

The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War (2013)

Hochschild, Adam, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998), 58Google Scholar

Myers, Frank, “Harold Macmillan's ‘Winds of Change’ Speech: A Case Study in the Rhetoric of Policy Change,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 3, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 565CrossRef Google Scholar

Nkrumah, Kwame, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (New York: International Publishers, 1966), ixGoogle Scholar

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