Nigeria is in big trouble. If a state’s first obligation to those it governs is to provide for their security and maintain a monopoly on the use of violence, then Nigeria has failed, even if some other aspects of the state still function. Criminals, separatists, and Islamist insurgents increasingly threaten the government’s grip on power, […]
Chinese companies first went to Africa in 1979 in search of profits and are now the dominant force. Look at the most interesting architecture in the skyline of Dar es Salaam and you’re probably looking at a building designed by a Chinese architect and built by a Chinese firm, academic says. Read Here | South […]
The Ethiopian government’s victory over the Tigray People’s Liberation Front came at a high cost, and the humanitarian situation in northern Tigray remains grave. But only an Ethiopia at peace, with a government bound by humane norms of conduct, can play a constructive role across the region and beyond. Read Here | Project Syndicate
Washington doesn’t need to compete dollar-for-dollar, or troop-for-troop, with Beijing in order to reassert itself in the Horn of Africa. The mere act of standing for basic tenets of U.S. foreign policy, like promoting human rights and democracy, can reverse the destabilizing authoritarian backsliding in the region’s largest, and arguably most important, country: Ethiopia. Read […]
The strategy of “infrastructure-led growth” (growth, not economic and social development) seems to be showing its limits in Africa, where China has largely been instrumental in promoting it. This strategy is based on the Keynesian multiplier theory whereby any increase in aggregate demand would result in a more than proportional increase in GDP. Read Here […]
The daring capture of Félicien Kabuga, the hunted Rwandan fugitive, has been in the news for three weeks now. But the untold backstory—of how an American squad of operatives nearly snared him 17 years ago—has remained a secret. Until now… Kabuga’s dramatic seizure summoned memories of another era; one in which accountability mattered, and people paid […]
How Africa’s population evolves, and how the continent’s economies develop, will affect nearly everything people near and far assume about their lives today. Read Here – World Politics Review
Authoritarianism – from Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, who died last week, to the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos – always goes wrong. The list of failures is long, including China’s Mao Zedong, Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. George Orwell’s prescient warnings in Animal Farm are confirmed again and again. The intriguing question is why so many both inside and […]
The Ogaden War (1977–1978) between Somalia and Ethiopia upended the Cold War geostrategic balance in the Horn of Africa, and bore tragic consequences for the region that linger today. While many observers associate the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Eve of 1979 with the end of détente, historians now recognize that it was the Soviet […]
For decades, the United States was better than any other nation in putting forth value propositions that made other countries want to broaden and deepen their ties and associations with it. These were so effective that even when other governments wished to keep America at arm’s length, their people continued to feel an irresistible attraction. […]
