U.S. Engagement of Africa in the National Interest
Earlier this year, citing an array of new initiatives including the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), and the President's Emergency Plan for...
The Wilson Quarterly
Rising Sun and Dark Continent: Japan’s Courtship of Africa
On May 28, forty African heads of state and government trooped into the Pacifico Conference Centre in the Japanese port city of Yokohama to join their host, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukada, in kickin...
Op-eds
Criminal Networks in West Africa: An Emerging Security Challenge
On April 30, Sidi Ould Sidna, a.k.a. Abou Jendel, an al-Qaeda-linked militant who was escaped earlier in the month from the courthouse in Nouakchott, Mauritania, where he was being tried for the...
Op-eds
Around the Troubled Horn
Even by the much-reduced expectations of the subregion, the news emanating from the geopolitically-sensitive, but ever-volatile Horn of Africa has not been at all good these last few weeks....
Op-eds
Zimbabwe’s Runoff Rip-off
Three months ago, Zimbabweans went to the polls and by a clear majority repudiated the nearly three-decade misrule of the Zimbabwe Africa National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in general and t...
Op-eds
Beyond Mugabe’s Madness
Even by the ridiculously low procedural standards of Africa's club of presidents-for-life, last Friday's poll in Zimbabwe was a truly pathetic exercise. As Barry Bearak, the Pulitzer Pr...
Op-eds
Sudan: Looming Crises, Strategic Opportunities
While international attention remains riveted on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region – it has been less than two weeks since an Antonov transport belonging to the S...
Op-eds
Winds of War Blow Along Ethiopia-Eritrea Border
Two months ago in this column space, I warned that "a little-known border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is rapidly escalating and threatens to not only the peace of the neighborhood,...
Op-eds
The War on Terrorism in Africa: Assessment and Prospects
The end of one year and the beginning of another is a good time both to take stock of where we have been and to look ahead at the paths we are likely to take and the battles which we will have to...
Op-eds
Thinking about Terrorism and Other Security Challenges in Africa
In last week's column, surveying developments in the former Somalia, Sudan, the Maghreb and Sahel, Nigeria and West Africa, and the rest of the continent, I concluded that "Through the c...
Op-eds
Enabling Mugabe to Cling On
Last Friday was the twenty-eighth anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence, although the country's long-suffering people of the country might be forgiven for not exactly marking the occas...
Op-eds
The Kenyan Tragedy and the Future of Democracy in Africa
If, outside the atypical case of South Africa, any country in Africa was viewed as an island of stability with a real shot at breaking free of the "development traps" which have ensnared the most...
Op-eds
What’s at Stake in Sudan’s Abyei
In this column space three months ago, I warned that the tensions were so heightened that the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the decades of civil war between the Arab-domin...
Op-eds
Botswana’s Success Sparkles amid African Gloom
While the world has been watching the pathetic spectacle being played out in Harare, Zimbabwe, as Robert Mugabe clings desperately to the levers of power he has held for nearly three decades (see...
Op-eds
Khartoum’s Partners in Beijing
Last week, some 200 baton-wielding policemen prevented Mia Farrow and members "Dream for Darfur" group from holding a rally near the site of Cambodia's "killing fields" to urge the People�...
Op-eds
Mr. Bush Goes to Africa
Next week, President Bush, accompanied by his wife, Laura, will embark on a five-country tour across the African continent, with stops planned in Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. Whil...
Op-eds
Zimbabwe Zigzags Onto Another Rough Patch
The ongoing stand-off in Zimbabwe between incumbent President Robert Mugabe and the main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, shows how much the political landscape can shift back and forth in t...
Op-eds
Troubled Paradise: The Mixed Success of the African Union’s Intervention in the Comoros
Located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel off the east coast of the Africa, the Comoros Islands – Ngazidja (Grande Comore), Mwali (Mohéli), Nzwani (Anjouan), and Mahor&ea...
Op-eds
West Africa and the Coming Naval Battle in al-Qaeda’s Economic War Against America
Despite the unfortunate tendency among many talking heads to oppose "soft power" to "hard power" – usually these days to the detriment of the latter – the truth is that the two aspect...
Op-eds
Dangerous Fiction: A Tale of Two Cities, Part I
Like Cassandra after Agamemnon's Greeks emerged from the Trojan Horse, I have had little time to derive any satisfaction from being justified in my longstanding warnings about the risks to i...