U.S policy in Africa



U.S Policy in Africa

Introduction

U.S. foreign policy toward Africa intensified with the post-World War II era. Prior to that, meaningful contact would date back to its dealings with the Barbary pirates between 1800 and 1815. Piracy was commonplace along Africa's north coast, and the United States followed the European practice of paying tribute to the pirates in return for free passage. American policy changed after an 1800 incident in which a higher tribute was demanded from the United States than had been agreed to. Fighting continued intermittently until 1805, when an agreement was reached that was to end hostilities. However, fighting continued through the War of 1812, and it was not until 1815 that the conflict was truly terminated.

Discussion

America's initial cold war foreign policy toward Africa centered on the Islamic states of the Sahara. In large measure this was because much of the rest of Africa was still colonial territory. But it also reflected the central position that containing communism played in American foreign-policy thinking. The proximity of Saharan Africa to southern Europe made it an area of concern. It had been the danger of communism spreading to Greece and Turkey that had prompted the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The emergence of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser as a leader of the Arab world also drew American attention to Saharan Africa. For the United States at this time, Arab nationalism was seen as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and a force to be exploited by the Soviet Union. Nasser was the leading spokesperson for Arab nationalism, and American foreign policy sought to contain and isolate him (Schraeder, 1994).

In the late 1950s and early 1960s American foreign policy was redirected to sub-Saharan Africa. The challenges presented by Arab nationalism continued, but by now the problem was clearly defined as a Middle Eastern issue and not an African one. For the United States the African foreign-policy problem was one of responding to and directing the pro-independence demands emerging from the states of the old colonial empires of its European allies. Fearful that rapid decolonialization would be destabilizing and desirous of solidifying European support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) American foreign policy tended to follow the lead of its European allies on African matters. Generally, this meant that it opposed independence movements and favored a go-slow policy. France and Portugal, who, along with Belgium, strongly resisted ...