Africa in the world to come | Dominic Lawson

A recent meeting of the world’s major powers in Rome demonstrates both the rising concern in the West about the fate of Africa, and our governments’ failures to create a cohesive policy towards the continent. 

The Rome conference was held with the intention of organising a united front against the growing influence of ISIS and other Salafist groups throughout Africa.

Since the defeat of the caliphate in the Middle East, the remnants of the Islamic State have scattered across the globe and many of the former fighters and commanders have migrated to Africa, finding opportunity in the peripheral areas of weak states who have been unable to dislodge them.   

Islamist franchises are now present across several of the continent’s most important countries. The largest concentrations can be found throughout the Swahili Coast, in Kenya and Mozambique, and the vital Western Sahel region, where the governments of Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria are fighting against a determined Islamist campaign which threatens to severely weaken their already meagre state capacities.

The influence of these groups has already begun to factor into British military calculations. London has already deployed military assets in Mali (designated the most dangerous UN mission currently underway) to assist local and international forces against Jihadist militants in Mali.

The Sahel region, in which this international task force is based, is the heart of one of history’s most important trade and caravan networks, the Trans-Saharan trade routes. Since the development of complex civilisation, this area has linked the bountiful resources of West Africa, everything from salt to slaves, with the continent’s Mediterranean economy, and facilitated the spread of Islam and military conquests.

Now, the Trans-Saharan trade routes are re-emerging in the modern world, and the pioneering groups who are forging them are international criminal syndicates. The new trade routes which run throughout the region link a vast informal economy of drugs and weaponry. After the toppling of Qaddafi and the transformation of Libya from relatively well functioning to “Somalia on the Mediterranean,” replete with terrorism, slavery and disorder, the region is also a major transit route of illegal mass migration into the European continent. 

  This is why Africa’s Jihadists have their eye on the region and why it is paramount that they be prevented from forging a permanent base of operations. If ISIS or another Jihadi group are able to establish permanent territory in the Sahel, we could see a repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis in which they were able to take advantage of the mass movements to sneak operatives into Europe.

This threat is increasingly tenable considering the numerous interlocking crises that beset the region and the booming population of people who could join refugee and migrant waves in the coming years. 

For one, the already arid region is increasingly water stressed, prompting conflict between competing groups of nomads and settled populations, and ripping at the area’s delicate religious balance. The area also has one of the globe’s highest rates of population growth, coupled with a low median age of 21 (compared to Europe’s 42), creating a “youth bulge” and a surplus of young men.

Researchers have demonstrated such “youth bulges” when coupled with poverty and weak governance are a recipe for instability as young people, particularly males, are the ones who are more likely to seek out new homes abroad or join violent groups.

Population growth also means that megacities (cities of 10 million or more inhabitants) will start to dominate the country’s political infrastructure. The Ministry of Defence predicts that these vast urban centres could become the headquarters of any number of technically adept terrorist groups who could use the city cover to plan attacks and operations against the West and allied African governments.

Many of these, Cairo or Khartoum for instance, already represent fertile recruiting grounds for Salafists to recruit urban youth to their causes. When demographic growth in these environments is coupled with poor governance frameworks, British policy makers will be forced to contend with a vast continent just to our south, filled with a discontented and highly mobile population.

21st Century Scramble

This mix of demographics and the rising tide of political Islam is not the only phenomenon which should concern British policy makers. The last decade has seen a renewed campaign by outsider powers to forge links throughout the continent in an effort to outflank the West and secure the vast mineral and human wealth that it hosts.

At the root of this are two trends which are defining the global system. The first, according to Pentagon researchers, is the disintegration of the US led world order and the forging of a new age of multi-polarity. The second is an ongoing technological change which has the potential to revolutionise the global economy and society for the 21st century.
  “The Fourth industrial revolution,” as it is often called, is the name given to an impending upgrade of our global technological base and economies to be more efficient, advanced and capable of navigating the digital age.

This will depend upon a new infrastructure of satellites, artificial intelligence and vast data centres with advanced computing power at its core. To build this new system will require an uninterrupted supply of a diverse range of industrial metals and other precious material.

China views this revolution as a manner in which it can “leapfrog” the US and has devoted considerable funds and brainpower to ensure it can stake its claim, and imperium over Africa is one of the ways it intends to do so. Geological surveys say that Africa may be the Earth’s largest source of unexploited industrial material.

To achieve this goal, China is investing titanic sums of money throughout the continent. In 2013 Beijing overtook the US as the highest source for Foreign Direct Investment across Africa, pouring in over two trillion dollars since 2005. This money finances factories, mines, ports and the highways which link them together across the continent and out into the wider Eurasian sphere of China's flagship BRI project.

This control of the entire manufacturing and production process for these resources allows the Chinese economy the continuous supply it craves and the ability to deny access to her competitors. The World Bank expects a vast increase in the demand for industrial materials once the Western world begins our transition to a future economy. This outmanoeuvring appears to have worked, a 2017 EU report tells us that China already has a controlling share over the raw materials that the future economy will depend upon.

This investment comes in tandem with loans which often cannot be paid off. A strategy named “debt trap diplomacy,” this is apparently done to entrap poor countries in debt and then enact state capture as a means of forging a new Chinese empire.

While there is some debate about the accuracy of this concept, there is no denying that China has used the strategic use of debt as a way of extending her military footprint. In Sri Lanka, China used this tactic to forcibly take control of the Hambantota Port on the island’s south, managing to secure a military outpost from which they could project their reach throughout the Indian Ocean and protect their oil imports in the event of disruption.

The same tactic is being used in Africa, particularly in the tiny but strategically vital country of Djibouti. One of the smallest and poorest nations on the continent, it may also be the most strategically important, nestled on the coast of the Red Sea, anyone who wishes to use the Suez Canal must transit via the country’s coastal borders. This has made the small country one of the most militarised spots on Earth, it boasts bases from the US, the Japanese, and a number of European countries, with plans for Russian, Indian and Saudi personnel in motion as well.

And, of course, China is only one opposition power extending their influence into Africa. Russian foreign policy is based on finding potential customers and clients across much of the Global South, and Moscow has been able to find willing African countries to form close bonds with. Mostly, this is being done to gain access to the continent’s mineral riches, sell weaponry and to project the image of a confident world power.

Non-state actors, especially the Wagner Group, feature heavily in Russia’s Africa strategy, highlighting the often shadowy way that modern warfare is being fought. The group gained fame for their deployment to the Central African Republic, where they displaced the previously dominant French as the regime's international backer. Since then, we’ve seen the spread of the Wagner Group across the entire continent. In return for lending their fighters and expertise to local governments and armies, the Wagner Group gains access to lucrative resources extraction contracts.

Waning Influence

Within this all, recent British policy towards Africa has been shallow and seems to lack any sense of grand strategy. Unlike the French, who have sought to maintain Francophone Africa as their economic dominion, Britain seems to have shrugged her shoulders and mimicked the United States in her disinterest for the continent, preferring to focus on the oil rich Middle East or the rising economies of the Orient.

This apparent lack of interest is strange considering Britain’s history with the continent. Many of the countries there are English speaking, and base much of their governmental structure on the Anglo model, and there are some one million British citizens who originate there.

This could have netted a very significant dividend in soft power for London, yet while we’ve been distracted  China and Russia (and Islamists) have played the long game and succeeded in wooing allies across the continent. 

But, now British policy makers will need to find renewed vigour to forge more links with African states. As stated, the United States is in decline, whether this will be permanent or merely transitional is debatable but what is likely is that we will need to assert our own strategic goals in regards to different parts of the world. 

We are constantly told by our government that Britain is seeking our new trade relations. Just as relations with Asia will be more important as the young Far East outshines the greying Europe, so will Africa eventually occupy higher areas within charts of the global population and economy. UN projections demonstrate this, Somalia will grow by 7 times its current population, Kenya will more than double and Nigeria will be 800 million by the end of the century.

That is a lot of potential customers for a country which is seeking allies and trading relations, and has its eye on a long term vision of the future. And if all our adversaries understand this, then Britain must as well. Or we risk being locked out of what could be the 21st century’s most vital prize. 

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