Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Africa Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Council on Foreign Relations

1. Enhancing U.S. Support for Peace Operations in Africa

Author:
Paul D. Williams
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The number of UN peacekeepers is at a record high, with nearly 110,000 uniformed deployed "blue helmets" worldwide, most of them in Africa. But the status quo is "untenable," warns Paul D. Williams, author and associate professor of international affairs at George Washington University, in a new Council Special Report, Enhancing U.S. Support for Peace Operations in Africa. Unrealistic mandates, unsustainable supplies of personnel, hostile host governments, and mission creep have undermined peace operations, Williams writes. "Given the growing interest in fostering a stable and prosperous Africa, the United States should wield its political influence to address these challenges."
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Humanitarian Aid, War, Fragile/Failed State, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa

2. Somalia: A New Approach

Author:
Bronwyn E. Bruton
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Somalia has been a failed state for the better part of two decades; bereft of central government, cantonized into clan fiefdoms, and wracked by deadly spasms of violence. Repeated efforts to create a viable national government have failed.1 For the United States, the principal concern, especially since 9/11, has been the fear that Somalia might become a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch attacks in the region and even conceivably against the U.S. homeland. U.S. efforts to prevent that from happening, however, have been counterproductive, alienating large parts of the Somali population and polarizing Somalia's diverse Muslim community into “moderate” and “extremist” camps. Several indigenous militant Islamist groups have emerged and grown stronger in recent years. One coalition, headed by a radical youth militia known as the Shabaab, now controls most of southern Somalia and threatens the survival of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG)—the latest UN-brokered effort to establish a functioning authority in the capital city of Mogadishu.
Topic:
Humanitarian Aid, Fragile/Failed State, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa

3. Renewed Conflict in Sudan

Author:
Katherine J. Almquist
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Sudan faces the prospect of renewed violence between north and south over the next twelve to eighteen months. Under the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan's bloody civil war, which claimed two million lives and displaced four million more, a referendum in southern Sudan must be held by January 2011 to determine whether it remains united with the north or secedes from it. Given that popular sentiment in the south overwhelmingly favors secession, two basic scenarios are conceivable: the south secedes peacefully through a credible referendum process, or the CPA collapses and the south fights for independence. There is no scenario in which the south remains peacefully united with the north beyond 2011. Further complicating prospects for averting renewed violence are the ongoing conflict in Darfur and potential conflicts in other marginalized areas of the north. The violent secession of the south would hinder efforts to resolve these conflicts, as well as increase the prospect for greater internecine fighting among historic rivals in the south. The resulting significant loss of life and widespread political unrest would threaten regional stability and challenge U.S. interests in Africa.
Topic:
Ethnic Conflict, Islam, Armed Struggle, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Sudan

4. Electoral Violence in Nigeria: CPA Contingency Planning

Author:
John Campbell
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Nigeria is a country of overlapping regional, religious, and ethnic divisions. Rifts between the North and the South of the country, ethnic groups, and Islam and Christianity often coincide and have sometimes resulted in sectarian violence. This has been the case particularly in its geographical center and in the Niger Delta region. In the Middle Belt, as the former is called, bouts of retributive bloodshed between Christian farmers and Muslim pastoralists erupt with some frequency. In the Niger Delta, an insurrection against the Abuja government has been raging for more than a decade over regional, ethnic, and environmental grievances. In all, credible observers ascribe over twelve thousand deaths since 1999 to ethnic, religious, and regional conflict in Nigeria.
Topic:
Political Violence, Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, and Sectarian violence
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

5. Understanding the Armed Groups of the Niger Delta

Author:
Judith Burdin Asuni
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
When a group of Western oil workers was kidnapped in the Niger Delta in January 2006, the immediate hike in prices at gas stations around the world served as a timely reminder of the importance of this unstable region to international oil supplies. A previously unknown group announced it was holding the workers. It called itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and quickly sparked panic within the oil industry with a second set of kidnappings and a series of attacks on oil facilities. Anxiety reached new heights when, in an email sent to journalists, MEND claimed responsibility for an attack on an offshore facility, Bonga, in mid-2008. The installation, located a full seventy-five miles from the mainland, had previously been considered too ambitious a target for the militants. By the summer of 2008, oil was trading at $147 a barrel and oil production in the Delta was down by a quarter. Who was this mysterious group, whose members—armed with little more than a few AK-47s and speedboats—were able to massively disrupt oil supplies and wreak havoc on world commodity prices? Where did it come from, and what does it want? Is it a coherent group with clearly defined aims and political ambitions? Or is it merely a disparate ragtag of disillusioned youths, with powerful backers, intent on little more than petty criminality?
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Arms Control and Proliferation, Corruption, Crime, and Oil
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Planning for Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe

Author:
Michelle D. Gavin
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Over the past decade, the refusal of President Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) ruling party to tolerate challenges to their power has led them to systematically dismantle the most effective workings of Zimbabwe's economic and political systems, replacing these with structures of corruption, patronage, and repression. The resulting 80 percent unemployment rate, hyperinflation, and severe food, fuel, and power shortages have created a national climate of desperation and instability. Meanwhile, often-violent repression has left the opposition divided and eroded public confidence in mechanisms to effect peaceful political change.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Civil War, and Development
Political Geography:
Africa and Zimbabwe

7. Toward an Angola Strategy

Author:
Vincent A. Mai, Frank G. Wisner, William L. Nash, and ArthurMark Rubin
Publication Date:
05-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Outside the continent's crisis areas, few African countries are more important to U.S. interests than Angola. The second-largest oil producer in Africa, Angola's success or failure in transitioning from nearly thirty years of war toward peace and democracy has implications for the stability of the U.S. oil supply as well as the stability of central and southern Africa. Consequently, the United States has an interest in helping Angola address its numerous and significant national challenges.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Angola

8. Nigeria: Elections and Continuing Challenges

Author:
Robert I. Rotberg
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Nigeria's vital importance for Africa's political development, for U.S. and European interests, and for world order cannot be exaggerated. Nigeria's sheer aggregate numbers—possibly as many as 150 million of the full continent's 800 million—and its proportionate weight in sub-Saharan Africa' s troubled affairs, make the country's continuing evolution from military dictatorship to stable, sustained democracy critical.
Topic:
Democratization and Economics
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Nigeria

9. Somalia's Future

Author:
Jennifer Cooke and David Henek
Publication Date:
02-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
On January 17, 2007, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center, hosted a major conference in Washington, D.C., entitled "Somalia's Future: Options for Diplomacy, Assistance, and Peace Operations." The conference brought together expert observers from Mogadishu, senior U.S. policymakers, representatives from humanitarian assistance organizations, and regional analysts to convey to a U.S. audience the current situation in Somalia and to lay out the challenges facing the United States and the broader international community.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and Somalia

10. Darfur and Beyond: What is Needed to Prevent Mass Atrocities

Author:
Lee Feinstein
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
The killing and destruction of national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups is a historical reality. So, too, is the dependable failure of the rest of the world to do much about it. Slow-motion ethnic cleansing in western Sudan is the most recent case of a state supporting mass atrocity and the rest of the world avoiding efforts to end the killing. Preventing and stopping such mass atrocities faces four reinforcing problems.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan