The coup epidemic in Africa reveals Washington’s weakness

As soldiers fell Gabon President Ali Bongo said two weeks ago that it was the eighth coup in three years in West and Central Africa.

For African observers of a certain age, it probably felt like the 1960s and 1980s all over again – when conflicts and coups were almost the norm across the continent.

But over the past 30 years, a semblance of political stability has become the norm, ushering in a period of unprecedented economic growth – along with optimistic talk of “Africa rising.”

Despite the rosy headlines, the situation in Africa remained precarious.

The global pandemic devastated local economies and set the stage for the political upheavals now unfolding – even in countries with strong democratic traditions such as Senegal and Kenya.

What happens in Africa matters to the rest of the world. But it is of particular importance for Western countries, particularly the United States.

From security and terrorism to economic development and migration, what happens in Africa rarely stays in Africa – especially as the continent comes under the influence of China and, more recently, Russia.

The U.S. has invested heavily in military training and security partnerships across Africa as terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State expand in the Sahel.

The aim was both to defeat the militias and to prevent imitators from rising on their side.

The continued aid has helped Washington maintain a semblance of respect across much of Africa, in contrast to France, whose former colonies are currently in chaos.

In fact, each of the recent coup nations – Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger and Gabon – were once under French control.

And their new military leaders have made it clear that decades of interference from Paris led to the current unrest.

The American stance against coups is firm.

They are anti-democratic and we don’t like them.

In fact, there is an act of Congress – Section 7008 – that says the US will not support any country where a democratically elected government has been overthrown by the military.

Counties like all over West Africa.

But so far, President Biden’s State Department has refused to describe it the July 26 coup in Niger as a coup.

Instead, Washington is trying to work with the military junta through diplomatic envoys and a new ambassador. Niger is important to the USA – especially because of its strategic location on the front line of Islamist terror.

“The United States does not want to abandon the Nigerians with whom we have partnered and trained with for many years,” a Pentagon official said last month.

But Washington’s low-volume approach in Africa is creating success something like a divide between the USA and its oldest ally France.

And it’s not just Paris that is dissatisfied, some on Capitol Hill also believe that Biden’s policies lack strength.

“We’ve talked a lot about our role as a partner with Africa, but when it comes to policy implementation, it’s a whole different ball game,” a Republican Hill staffer told me, frustrated by the Biden team’s reluctance to describe Niger’s situation as to call it a coup.

Many people in Washington fear that Biden’s hesitation will only encourage more African military leaders to forge their own paths toward regime change.

If their colleagues in Niger can do this without Western consequences, the thinking goes, why can’t we?

The threats here—both short and long term—are not just to American security.

It’s also about global demographics.

By 2050, one in four people on earth will be African, and around a third of the world’s working-age population will also live there.

The United States cannot afford to watch rivals like China and Russia expand their influence while we are excluded.

Russia has been particularly successful in sowing discord across Africa.

Led by the infamous Wagner Group, they use social media to spread anti-Western messages, particularly against France, as recently described in The New York Times.

Its core claims are particularly controversial: that elected African governments obey the orders of Western powers while millions of frustrated young Africans look for jobs that don’t exist.

But the Russians also have no jobs to offer the Africans.

Instead, Wagner did little more than mine African minerals and kill African civilians.

Many of them.

In Mali, for example, Wagner mercenaries were deployed to defend citizens against terrorists; her instead More than 500 civilians were slaughtered in just one brutal attack in May.

There were similar reports from the Central African Republic.

Despite ongoing uncertainty, now is the time for Washington to engage with the continent beyond basic military or development assistance.

China is already there – having already displaced the US as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009 and invested more than $300 billion in the following years.

True, much of this funding comes with serious strings attached that undermine environmental and democratic standards.

But what else can Africa do?

The US didn’t offer much better.

As Africa adjusts to its “new normal,” more coups may be on the way. After all, Gabon is hardly the only country where one family, in this case the Bongos, ruled for decades and treated the treasury like their personal bank accounts.

Although none were as ostentatious as the Bongos – who famously flew in celebrities like Michael Jackson to entertain their elite – many African rulers also overstayed their welcome.

We hope that the Oval Office will finally respond with the same force when they are shown the door.

Yinka Adegoke is the editor of Semafor Africa.