Any new administration that fails to pay sufficient attention to Africa risks the possibility
of some unpleasant surprises, because Africa is of strategic and economic importance to
the United States.
There are more than fifty independent states in sub-Saharan Africa; each one of those states
has a vote of equal weight to that of the United States in the UN General Assembly or
in the World Trade Organization.
The sub-Saharan African states are an extremely important bloc.
In addition, Africa has been a major zone of conflict.
That conflict has important humanitarian consequence, which very much engages the American people.
That zone of conflict has also meant that Africa is the venue for more peacekeeping
missions than any other part of the world and while the peacekeepers are in most cases
supplied by other African states or by states from other parts of the world, the bills are
paid by the principal donors of the U.S. system of which the United States is one.
And then there is always the question of disease.
Diseases that emerge in Africa can spread very quickly to the United States.
Public Health in Africa is very much in the American national interest.
Management of our bilateral relationship with fifty different states is complicated by the
fact that two of the states, Nigeria and South Africa, are much bigger than the rest of them
and much more important strategically to the Untied States.
Nigeria of course is a major source of oil and has a population greater than that of
the Russian federation.
South Africa has the largest economy on the African continent and that economy is characterized
by high-tech and modernity.
And yet Nigeria and South Africa are very often rivals.
For example, they both seek a permanent African seat on the U.N. Security council; hence,
any new administration will have to manage its relationship with those two states in
a way that does not turn into a zero-sum game.
It's going to be important for a new administration to make room for African issues on the bilateral
agendas it has with other countries.
China immediately comes to mind, but there is also Brazil, there is also India, and there
is also Russia.
As part of the international effort against terrorism, any new administration will also
need to weigh carefully whatever role international terrorism may or may more often not be playing
in terms of African development.