Today, while the US government and political think-tanks are looking for ways to solve the trilemma posed by its African policy, namely, which of its three goals (the development of democracy, the fight against terrorism and its competition with other world powers, primarily China) to prioritize, terrorism is spreading like a cancer to the coastal countries on the Gulf of Guinea.
In view of the current situation, The Wall Street Journal reports, Washington has begun negotiating with the governments of Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Benin, in the hope of gaining access to their airfields to host its UAV bases. In late April General Michael Langley, head of US Africa Command traveled to Côte d’Ivoire, where he met with President Alassane Ouattara. According to the French magazine Jeune Afrique, a tentative agreement was reached.
However, the relocation of its bases to coastal countries, notes The Arab Weekly, a London-based publication, could create further challenges for counter-terrorism operations in certain other regions. For example, moving its base to Côte d’Ivoire would prevent the US from conducting reconnaissance and airstrikes in Algeria and Libya, because of the increased distance.
Today, given the growing importance of the African continent not only as a source of important strategic raw materials, but also as a major geopolitical player with one third of the votes in the UN, Africa has become a new arena for geopolitical rivalries, and Washington, it appears, views its development of a new approach to relations with the continent as a matter of paramount importance. According to many experts, the geopolitical and geo-economic stakes in Africa have never been as high as they are today.
TRT AFRICA, a Turkish publication, explains the failure of US African strategy primarily as the result of the Biden administration’s failure to take into account the rapidly changing geopolitical dynamics on the continent. African countries today, for the most part, care very little about what........