On Wednesday, April 9 the Masters in Intelligence Analysis Program hosted “Africa at the Center of Global Issues” as part of their Inside Intelligence series. The event featured Jerry Laurienti, adjunct professor at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Policy, and Michael Ard, the Masters in Intelligence Analysis program director in the Advanced Academic Programs division in a discussion on the future of diplomacy and conflict in the African continent, especially considering the role of foreign aid.
Laurienti began with an overview of recent social, political and economic trends in Africa and highlighted the continent’s recent economic growth.
“When you look at the global economy and fastest growing economies, inevitably, every year, including last year, a good half of the top twenty fastest growing economies are in Africa,” he said. “I think that's surprising to a lot of people, because they hear of the chaos in Africa, but the truth is that a lot of underdeveloped countries have what we call the catch up effect.”
According to Laurienti, Africa is the only region in the world that is so strongly focused on free trade and many African nations developed robust free-trade systems in the past few decades. These efforts include free intra-continental travel through the elimination of visas and the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Laurienti continued by highlighting Africa’s growing population, which already constitutes one-sixth of the world’s population, and argued that nations that are currently unreceptive to African migrants will begin to recognize the potential of the labor force.
“Much of the political debate around the world right now is: what do you do about migration?” he said. “By 2050, that narrative will be instead a competition for labor of all kinds and bidding on who can get the labor from Africa.”
Laurienti then transitioned to a discussion and analysis of the ongoing conflicts on the continent, beginning with the Somali Civil War, in which Islamist militant groups have been active. He then discussed warfighting between the Congolese Revolution Army (also known as M23) and the state military within the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He next highlighted that some interests in Africa are focused on acquiring precious minerals that are in particular abundance on the continent. Recently, Congo has attempted to strike a trade deal with the United States.
“Of late, Congo offered to the United States an exchange of critical mineral access for guarantees of security. We'll see where that goes,” he said. “I don't know how well Congo could ever guarantee access to its minerals without actual security forces on the ground from the country they are guaranteeing them from.”
Laurienti next discussed the ongoing Sudanese Civil War between the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces, which he highlighted has led to a humanitarian crisis with millions displaced or facing famine. He then described the ongoing military violence in the Sahel region in North Africa, with Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger specifically being subject to territory seizures by local Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.
“It's arguable that the Sahel is the most violent terrorist active region in the world,” he said.
Laurienti next described what he perceived as a surge of foreign influence in Africa and underscored the history of other nations exerting influence in Africa. He noted that China specifically is the top trader with Africa at the moment, surpassing even the United States, and that its government is using this strategy to promote the Chinese autocratic and economic system.
He then moved to Russia, stating that the country has been involved on the continent militarily through the Wagner Group: a private military company which was recently absorbed into the Russian military and renamed Africa Corps. According to Laurienti, Africa Corps aims to “exchange security for resources” and specifically, in the Central African Republic, Africa Corps has been successful in providing security to the regime and is embedded within the local government.
Following Laurienti’s remarks, Ard asked about the potential influence of U.S. military presence in Africa. In response, Laurienti stated that the presence of the U.S. military is often appreciated by the nations in which troops are deployed, and highlighted engagements by the military in medical services and civic projects as positively received by the African nations.
Ard then asked about the failure of U.S. counterterrorism operations in helping to stabilize Sahel in the wake of numerous violent coups. Laurienti responded by highlighting the harmful French military approach that did not work well with local forces, and further explained that extremist violence and terrorism in Sahel is a result of broader social and economic phenomenas.
“The draw here for all these fighters by and large is not them feeling a call to be Islamic extremists,” he said. “[There] is a large young population that is unemployed [...] [and] when terrorists are willing to give them a gun and a truck and something to do, they take it up...Part of what went wrong is corruption: a lack of local investment in education, healthcare and economic planning.”
Ard then shifted the conversation to the multiple coups in the Sahel and asked for Laurienti’s perspective. According to Laurienti, in many cases, coups are the result of opposition to the way democracy is functioning in these countries, not to the concept of democracy itself.
“While [these countries] have democracies, they were deeply corrupt and deeply ineffective at providing security and economic opportunity,” he said. “When the government is illegitimate in how they do their work, quite frankly, a lot of people on the ground see their efforts to overthrow them in an unconstitutional way as their form of civic action.”
Laurienti continued by noting that the regimes that do come to exist are often even less democratic and less effective at guaranteeing security than the previous regime, and that coups very rarely improve the system.
In an email to The News-Letter, Ard described his motivations for hosting the event and his hopes for how it will benefit the Hopkins community.
“It was time for us to do an Africa program, because a lot is going on there, and as the guest Jerry Laurienti said, Americans don't pay enough attention to the continent's importance,” he wrote. “In this case, we invited an expert with a deep perspective on the subject and who can explain it in a well-organized, objective, and intelligible way. [We] have a strong interest in understanding the problems in Africa and the potential solutions.”
