Abstract: On January 18, 2023, the military regime in Burkina Faso demanded that France withdraw its troops from the country within a month, stoking fears that another African country is set to hire the Kremlin’s favorite mercenaries, the Wagner Group, to help contain Burkina Faso’s worsening jihadi insurgency. There seems …
Read More »Egypt just seized part of Libya’s maritime zone. What’s the story behind the Egyptian decree no one is talking about?
On December 13, 2022, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a presidential decree demarcating the country’s maritime borders with Libya. The presidential decree is believed to cut off thousands of square kilometers of Libya’s maritime zone. Egypt’s unilateral move was taken without prior consultation or negotiation with the Libyans, raising …
Read More »To counter the Wagner Group’s presence in Africa, the US will need to prioritize stabilizing Libya
The war in Ukraine has brought Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group to the forefront, with the United States now focusing on countering their presence beyond Ukraine, particularly in Africa. One theatre Washington is now prioritizing as part of this burgeoning effort is Libya, where Russia’s influence is mainly projected …
Read More »To counter the Wagner Group’s presence in Africa, the US will need to prioritize stabilizing Libya
The war in Ukraine has brought Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group to the forefront, with the United States now focusing on countering their presence beyond Ukraine, particularly in Africa. One theatre Washington is now prioritizing as part of this burgeoning effort is Libya, where Russia’s influence is mainly projected …
Read More »Good Governance Can Make U.S. Engagement With Africa More Effective
Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield both visited Africa as part of a larger effort to expand high-level diplomatic engagement on the continent after the recently held U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Notably missing from the agenda of both of these trips, …
Read More »After a Feelgood Summit, Biden Has to Make Good on U.S.-Africa Ties
U.S. President Joe Biden hosted 49 African heads of state and government, as well as senior leaders from the African Union, African entertainers, members of the continent’s diaspora and business, civil society and youth leaders during this week’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. Senior Biden administration officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, …
Read More »To Compete With China, the U.S. Must Take Africans Seriously
Last month, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang embarked on his first overseas trip since his appointment late last year with a five-nation tour of Africa. Qin’s visit to Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt continued a decades-long tradition of Chinese foreign ministers starting the year with a trip to Africa. …
Read More »Morocco’s Mocro Maffia threatens Europe and North Africa
Morocco, Belgium and the Netherlands have become pivotal in the growing Latin America-Europe cocaine chain. Belgium and the Netherlands have overtaken Spain as Europe’s main entry points for cocaine coming from Latin America. The 65.6 tonnes of the drug intercepted at Antwerp port in 2020 nearly doubled in 2022. And …
Read More »NATO’s destruction of Libya
Robert Gates, the former US Secretary of Defense, wrote in his memoirs that when the decision was made to launch a military attack against Afghanistan in 2001, that nobody in Washington had a real idea of how complex a nation it is. This included Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups and the …
Read More »Why South Africa is drifting into the Sino-Russian orbit
South africa’s navy, like much of the country, is dilapidated. Its fleet spends less than half the time on the seas than it did a decade ago. It has few working ships, a result of budget cuts by the ruling African National Congress (anc). So it makes sense that the …
Read More »