Global Development: Views from the Center

Poverty, ignorance and perceived human induced inequality, rather than religious fundamentalism, are the major driving forces of terrorism. When Alwaheed, that Saudi born American businessman, was taken round the ruins of the World Trade Centre in 2001, he was devastated by the carnage but he cautioned that the causes of terrorism should be addressed. In reaction to the latter remark, the mayor of New York promptly returned the 10 million dollars Alwaheed had donated to re-build the destroyed centre.

To ensure global peace and development, a marriage between the 3Ds of development, diplomacy and defense should be effected in the ratio of 5:2:1. In other words, developmental efforts should far outweigh (almost double diplomacy and defense) the other two. Prosperity is certainly a better defense than militarization in any form. USA should lay less emphasis on military force and what USAID or donor programs can do for developing nations. It should rather use its clout to put pressure on leaders of the said countries to engage in genuine poverty alleviating programs. Despite the efforts of the Breton Woods institutions, USAID and other donor agencies, Nigeria, where I live, is worse off today, than it was 20 years ago. Ipso facto, a change of tactics to ensure a more prosperous, peaceful and terrorism free world is needed.

This is a thoughtful piece, but the newspeg is wrong. AFRICOM does not mean the US military will be "in the driver's seat" of US policy on Africa. The reason AFRICOM was created was to optimize DOD's contribution to the USG effort in Africa and achieve synergies among the 3 D's. USAID and DOS efforts will not change because of AFRICOM. But AFRICOM does create a regional platform for USG players to coordinate with each other on common goals--something that didn't exist before. AFRICOM will always defer to the developmental experts, offering up those unique military capabilities--logistics, construction, transport, etc--that can speed success.

There are no countries in Africa that provide even a potential threat to the security of the US and highly improbable that, even under the worst circumstances, any can provide a base for anti-American terrorists. The terrorists that threaten us have resided in Europe, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

We now have a base in Djibouti and our CIA has been actively involved in countering the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia, a coalition of militias that actually created some stability in the country. We talked Ethiopia into sending troops to Somalia to oust the ICU and we supported them with C130 gunships that killed hundreds ICU members fleeing to Kenya. Ostensibly, we did this because we believed that the ICU was hosting the terrorists that bombed our embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. An incredible mistake on our part. Now we have the Somali's blood enemies occupying the place and a humanitarian disaster in the Ogaden which, for decades, has been the venue of a low-level war between the countries.

Small scale military intervention by the British ended the brutality of the RUF in Sierra Leone and US marines helped restore order in Liberia. They withdrew after brief incursions.

I have worked for most of my professional life in Africa and am familiar with the impact of the US on Africa during the Cold War.
The establishment of an Africcom should be nightmarish to all Americans with any sense of Africa's problems.

Actually, the role of the military to promote local economic development has deep roots in the post-WWII period. Some of the readers may recall the efforts of "civic action" to carry out minor local civil works and provide basic medical services by local armed forces in the rural areas of some of the Latin American countries in the 1960s. Perhaps this was a response to just another manifestation of the inability of civilian administrations to provide basic local services.

In any case, the mobilization of DOD resources to assist in improving living conditions in rural areas should be encouraged rather than berated. But then again, what does most of the Washington elite know about living in poverty?

Also, I would not be so absolute as Dr. Ogah in condemning poverty, ignorance and inequality as "the major driving forces" of terrorism. Incidents in London, Spain, Indonesia, etc., do not seem to have been instigated by the poor or ignorant (e.g., many of them middle-class MDs in the U.K.). And it would appear that relatively well-off countries are among the major sources of financing for many terrorist activities.

For an interesting perspective on civilian DOD efforts to encourage local development, one might learn more about Paul Brinkley's BTA team's work in Iraq or the efforts of the PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq.