5 questions every presidential candidate should answer on Africa

For decades, US policy largely ignored Africa. Even as a Cold War battleground, it remained peripheral to US policy. While Theodore Roosevelt famously traveled to Africa on a 1909 hunting safari, the first US president to visit sub-Saharan Africa was his cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt who stopped in Liberia briefly for an informal meeting, and used both Senegal and Gambia as transit stops for trips to and from the Middle East or Arab North Africa. While Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon visited North Africa, Jimmy Carter was the first US leader to make a state visit to sub-Saharan Africa when he visited Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s military leader, in 1978.

George H.W. Bush visited Somalia against the backdrop of US military action there, but it was not until Bill Clinton won the presidency, that US presidents began traveling more widely to Africa. When Clinton visited Senegal and Ghana in 1998, Africans across the region heard him declare that “the United States is ready to help you,” and the New York Times opined that Clinton’s “journey is a fine opportunity … to show that America’s support for democracy and development in Africa needs to be taken seriously.”

In total, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama each made two presidential trips to Africa, visiting 11 different countries between them. However, July 24 marks Obama’s third presidential trip to Africa, making him the first sitting US president to visit both Ethiopia and Kenya. Africa may not be the priority for whoever becomes president on January 20, 2017, but he or she will nevertheless face more policy decisions regarding Africa than any of his or her predecessors, for which these questions might guide thinking:

 Do you assess Africa to be a success story? If so, why?

Throughout the latter half of the 20^th century, pundits and policymakers largely wrote Africa off as a continent of chaos, corruption, and cholera. Historians and Africans might debate the responsibility for the dire situation—was it the legacy of colonialism or qualities more intrinsic to local culture and societies?—but few disputed African countries’ seeming endless failure. In reality, Africa may not have been as much of a basket case as was often portrayed. True, it was a war-torn continent, but more people died in European wars during the 20^th century than in African ones. And while dictatorships were rife in the decades after independence, a wave of democratization swept through the continent in the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.

The greatest transformation in Africa, though, has been economic. Between 2001 and 2011, more than 700 million people escaped deep poverty; most of these were in Africa. Indeed, nine of the world’s 20 fastest growing economies are in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason for this success was the embrace of capitalism and encouragement of direct investment. Ironically, US protectionism and agricultural subsidies undercut further market development in Africa. Despite the continent’s overall success, in recent years, some democracies have teetered (South Africa) or collapsed (Uganda and Mali), while others have fallen off the precipice (Central African Republic). Still, some states have returned from the abyss to become regional stars (Rwanda and Côte d’Ivoire). Given the often contradictory trends emerging in recent years, how do you see Africa’s trajectory? Which trends give you the most hope? How would you encourage them? Conversely, which trends worry you most? How would you reverse them?

 How will you address the problem of failed states?

While many African states have emerged from decades of dictatorship and conflict, other African states are failing or have failed. Loose Libyan weaponry poured fuel onto the fire in the Sahel, the region stretching from Mauritania to Sudan, which is already characterized by poor states with loose government control. Just four years ago, the world celebrated the independence of South Sudan as part of a deal to end decades of civil war in Sudan. Today, South Sudan has spiraled into civil war. The rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria not only risks undercutting the stability of Africa’s most populous state, but also threatens to spill conflict over into Chad and Cameroon.

Failed states pose a security challenge to the United States because they provide space for terrorists to plan and organize. Planning and training for the attempted 2009 underwear bombing of flight of Northwest Flight 253, the attempted 2010 Times Square bombing, and the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi all occurred in ungoverned spaces. Indeed, the latter was planned from Somalia, long the poster child for state failure.

This is ironic, of course, because Somalia increasingly seems to have put its anarchic past behind it. The Somali government has increasingly exerted its control in Mogadishu, and piracy has plummeted off its coast. Indeed, in laying out his strategy against the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) in September 2010, President Barack Obama cited Somalia (and Yemen) as an example of a successful counterterrorism strategy. The question then becomes why Somalia is stabilizing or has stabilized? The answer to this may lie in intervention: First, Ethiopian intervention propped up the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government against the Islamic Courts Union, a Taliban-like group which admittedly also brought some order to Somalia’s chaos, although perhaps the wrong kind. And since 2007, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has imposed order with more than 20,000 troops drawn from Uganda, Kenya, and Burundi, among others. Similarly, French intervention may have saved both Mali and the Central African Republic from failure, but their withdrawal could very well plunge both states back into chaos. Given this pattern, do you support foreign intervention in Africa?

Conversely, throughout Somalia’s darkest years, one region—Somaliland—was stable, secure, and self-governing. Somaliland had its own cultural background, and a separate colonial legacy. The position of the United States, however, has been not to recognize it so as to honor existing boundaries. That said, while an independent Somaliland maintains the institutions to grow and thrive, secession may not be the answer: After all, South Sudan today is a largely failed state and Eritrea, which broke away from Ethiopia in 1991, continues its dark slide into totalitarian ruin; indeed, it scores lower in press freedom than even North Korea. Conversely, Morocco’s suzerainty over the Western Sahara, rather than Sahrawi independence, bolsters security and stability throughout the region, and prevents the establishment of a potentially radical or terrorist-dominated entity on the Atlantic. These examples raise a broader point: should borders be sacrosanct, or can the United States be flexible in recognizing independence for breakaway regions?

 Does the United States have a military role in Africa?

If military force remains crucial to constrain terrorism and sectarian violence or to provide the security to allow failed states to regroup, then what role should the United States military have? Perhaps the US military should not be the force of first resort, but should the United States intervene in Africa if other powers to not step up? For what types of missions would you employ the United States military? Over the past quarter century, for example, the US military has engaged in humanitarian intervention (Somalia, 1992-1993), deployed Special Forces to Uganda to help track down Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony (2011-present), and sent US army units into Liberia to help combat Ebola (2014-2015). As of 2014, the United States military operated in 13 sub-Saharan countries. The growing military footprint raises several questions: What should be the role of the US military in Africa? Do US military deployments in Africa bolster security or fuel instability? Do they succeed or descend into mission creep? Against the backdrop of budget cuts, are they worth it?

If the United States is going to engage militarily, what should its command structure and posture be? Created in 2007, US Africa Command is the newest of the six geographical US unified combatant commands (prior to its creation, US European Command, US Central Command, and US Pacific Command shared responsibility for Africa). Headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, it coordinates US military operations in 53 African countries (Egypt remains the responsibility of Central Command). This raises an obvious question: While some African countries are reluctant to host a formal base or command, what portion of the leadership should be based in Africa? Beyond the headquarters, however, what permanent basing is necessary to fulfill the expanding US profile in Africa? Is Camp Lemonier in Djibouti enough? If not, where else might US forces be based?

 How should the United States combat criminality, migrations and piracy?

Over previous decades, the United States focused on country-specific threats on the continent, but increasingly, transnational threats pose the greatest risks. Whereas an international coalition consisting of naval deployments from the United States and major world powers helped combat piracy off Somalia, increasingly the Gulf of Guinea is the epicenter of piracy. What role if any should the United States Navy play to combat piracy in this oil-rich region of the Atlantic Ocean? Should US workers in the region be kidnapped, would you consider ransoming or a military response? Likewise, would you take any action to counter the increase of drug smuggling through Western Africa and into Europe? In a worst case scenario, how would you respond to a West African state essentially becoming deferential if not subservient to a drug cartel in a manner similar to Panama before US military intervention in 1989?

Finally, should the United States have any role in stemming the humanitarian disaster arising from increasing illegal African migration into Europe? Not only are African migrants victimized by criminal gangs, but increasingly they also catalyze the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Many perish along the route or while trying to cross the Mediterranean. Should the US Navy seek to rescue migrants at sea? Among African countries, only Morocco has adopted a progressive law to ensure illegal immigrants have basic rights and protections. What can the United States do diplomatically to encourage other states to adopt the Moroccan method, if such protections do not simply encourage more migration?

 Is aid the answer?

Americans are incredibly generous. Images of starving Africans motivated generations of Americans to “adopt” financially impoverished children, to donate food to combat famine and starvation in Ethiopia, and ultimately led to US military intervention in Somalia. Seldom, however, are the famines environmental; often, they are the result of political dysfunction. In such cases, aid might not even treat the symptoms. Somali warlords, for example, used distribution of aid as a means to profit, reward friends and, by its denial, to punish enemies.

Corruption also undercuts the utility of aid. Between 1960 and 1999, successive Nigerian political leaders may have embezzled up to $400 billion, six times the US aid used to rebuild Europe after World War II. Indeed, by some accounts, the total amount of money stolen by corrupt rulers equals or even exceeds the more than $1 trillion in aid given by rich nations to Africa since independence. What is your strategy for aid to Africa? Would the Millennium Challenge Corporation model be more effective? Should aid focus on mitigating humanitarian suffering or furthering the expansion of African economies? How would you combat the extreme corruption which once blighted and perhaps still blights the continent?