Africa the overlooked. . .

The NY Times is running a series of articles on Africa, kicking off with the sorry state of the Congo to wit:

"This is Africa’s resource curse: The wealth is unearthed by the poor, controlled by the strong, then sold to a world largely oblivious of its origins."

The article goes on to describe the situation as Darwinian. . .however, I think Thomas Hobbes is closer to the mark. The problem for the U.S. is since we have largely ignored this continent other rising powers (i.e. China) have been moving in. The current administration's response has been to set up a new military command to cover Africa, rather than a coordinated approach which might have included its "faith based" foreign aid (however misguided), as well as the contacts that were established through the Africa AIDS initiatives during its early years.

So what will the new Obama Administration do?, A lot depends on who is running the State Department, as well as the White House foreign policy apparatus. . .So far, there has been speculation of the dynamic foreign policy duo of Hilary Clinton (Foreign Policy?), and keeping Robert Gates at Defense.(his focus is certainly not going to be on the new Africa command).

If current speculation turns into reality, I am not hopeful, simply because the foreign policy framework would remain (dare I say it?) unchanged. So, I guess it is a step in the right direction at least the partisan direction of foreign policy would not change from one to the other. . .so that is progress of a sort.

Sarcasm aside, we need to look at Africa as an important component of America's strategic and economic interest. Not only because it has sources of oil (Sao Tome, and Angola) that lie outside of OPEC, but also because its population needs a large infusion of manufactured goods and services the U.S. can provide. We are behind the Chinese, and the Europeans in this area of policy, and the failure of the last round of global trade talks are setting off a mad scramble to secure preferential access to regional markets. So will the Obama Administration get serious about Africa?

Stay tuned.