African Wagner
Estimates put the population of sub-Saharan Africa at over a billion people. Another 250 to 300 million are estimated to inhabit northern Africa, most of them grouped as Arab Muslims for convenience. Sub-Saharan Africa is grouped together for simplicity’s sake as if it were a uniform entity consisting of non-Arab Black people, ignoring a racial intermixture going back centuries.
This convenient-yet-sloppy perspective that lumps together over a billion people as an undifferentiated mass has its reasons, as we might imagine. While sloppy convenience is the standard view for many things far away from us, in the case of Africa the roles of European colonialism and race-based slavery have certainly left a legacy of conflicted thought for modern Western societies. For the most part, the period after World War Two witnessed a gradual Western retreat from any and all engagement with sub-Saharan Africa. This retreat has continued into the present.
In contrast to the Western pattern, the Soviets expended considerable effort during the Cold War trying to gain access and influence in Africa, and that has continued for the Russian Federation. The People’s Republic of China, too, has been eager to increase its presence as ex-colonial powers from Western Europe have disengaged during the post-Cold-War period. The PRC’s effort has involved infrastructure investments with lots of strings attached. African governments, often poor and prone to corruption, have welcomed the outsiders, their money, and their weapons. Neither China nor Russia have a burdensome colonial legacy on the continent to slow them down as they continue to make a neocolonial play for access to the area’s natural resource wealth.
The South African site BizNews published an editorial examining how it is that Russia, with its own limitations, has managed to increase its influence in the region, often using Wagner Group PMC (private military contractor. Russian anti-Western propaganda efforts date back to the Soviet era, aimed at undermining Western will as much as nurturing hostility. South Africa, as the wealthiest and strongest of sub-Saharan African countries, has remained eager to work with Russia on the international stage. As the editorial points out, much of this has come about due to Western withdrawal, ceding territory to anti-Western revisionist powers.
It is easy to understand what African rulers see in the mercenary group Wagner. Its fighters can be deployed quickly. It brings sophisticated arms with it and can apply force speedily and ruthlessly.
Alternative sources of military muscle have flaws: United Nations missions lack robust mandates; African Union (AU) forces lack the arms and motivation; European Union interveners bear the legacy of colonial repression. The US has little interest in Africa beyond supporting fights against Salafi terrorists.
Indeed. Our foreign policy apparatus has largely failed to promote the benefits of friendship with the West and Europe, almost as if we’d abandoned a billion people. Meanwhile, real neocolonialist powers are making the same play as the former colonial powers once did: disrupting societies, undermining stability, and running off with the natural resource wealth. When retreat becomes popular at home, it gives space for more malign actors to step into the power vacuum. On the international stage, neglect is not necessarily benign. In the long run, it may not prove to be cheap, either.
Placid Sunday, guys!
Placido Domingo, everyone! We had a thunderstorm right after we watered the gardens yesterday evening. Cause ---> Effect?
Here's a very interesting piece from UnHerd:
https://unherd.com/2023/06/is-liberal-society-making-us-ill/