US interests in Africa

This week Secretary Clinton headed to Africa to improve relations with the struggling region (Reuters). The US has done much to address problems there in recent years, including extensive provision of development financing through multilateral lending institutions and the reasonably successful PEPFAR program initiated by Dubya. Clinton’s trip is welcome as the US must actively compete with China for influence in the region.

The United States’ primary interest in Africa is trade growth. Africa can and should be the next low-cost labor region of the world, so trade with African states is in the interests of both firms and consumers in the US—and the struggling economies of the region. The continent is plagued by barriers to trade–in addition to damning geopolitical legacies from colonization and the Cold War, economic growth-restricting population movement restrictions and capital controls, disease, resource curses, corruption, and conflict. Islamic Africa and the Horn of Africa present other geopolitical questions, but trade should be Washington’s primary concern for the region as a whole.

The tragic and destructive conflict that continues to ravage the continent is difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, the US has learned by sad experience that a policy of unilateral humanitarian intervention is inherently costly, non-neutral, and inconsistent, not to mention typically unsuccessful and rife with unintended consequences. Conflict reduction would hasten trade development, but intervention efforts should only be undertaken by multilateral organizations which can share the financial, military, and political costs of involvement. The US should willingly support UN and other efforts in the region, but the days of unilateral interventions and their inevitable costs to US credibility are over. The international community must bear the costs of failing to end conflicts, not the United States alone. US foreign policy must protect US interests.

All efforts in Africa should be focused on reducing trade barriers, and the PR coming out of the administration seems to adhere to that principle.

See also:

• Economist Lant Pritchett’s book on the economic costs of population movement restriction (you can read it free online)
• Dueling books by economists Jeff Sachs and Bill Easterly on aid and development
• Economist Jagdish Bhagwati’s book on “globalization” in the developing world
• Chollett and Goldgeier’s fabulous book on 1990s US foreign policy, including a nuanced discussion of the Somalia and Rwanda debacles (everyone should read this book)

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Iran and Clinton’s “defense umbrella” comment

From this morning’s Times:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the United States would consider extending a “defense umbrella” over the states in the Persian Gulf region if Iran does not bow to international demands to halt its nuclear program.

This could mean one or both of two things:

1. I have argued before that one of the main consequences of nuclear Iran is an arms race in the Middle East as Sunni nations—and Israel—scramble to build up deterrence capabilities while demanding guarantees from the United States. Clinton’s comment may be an attempt to prevent the arms race by ensuring US allies that they will be protected—a serious concern which they have been voicing since the Iraq invasion gave Iran regional dominance.

2. Or, this could also be a weak attempt to change the cost-benefit calculus for the Iranian regime. Clinton is arguing that, when Iran goes nuclear, the payoff to the regime is not as high as Tehran is expecting since the US will simply balance Iran’s regional power.

Neither objective is likely to address the serious geopolitical consequences of Iranian proliferation.

The commitment of US defense required by allies will likely include some form of missile defense in addition to conventional forces—certainly more than Clinton is willing to offer right now. At the extreme, it may even be like the demands of the European leadership in the Cold War: that the US place considerable military assets in the region—Iraq does not count—to guarantee US involvement in a possible conflict and thereby deter Iran with assured US mobilization. At any rate, the comment may actually undermine this strategy by showing that Obama lacks the will to prevent proliferation altogether.

The second notion—that this may change Tehran’s calculus—has certainly already been considered by the regime, which still sees proliferation as a key interest. While a US umbrella dilutes some of proliferation’s threat credibility, it does not lower the cost of proliferating and may not even be relevant to the purposes for which Iran is arming. Said Kissinger, “A statesman can always escape his dilemmas by making the most favorable assumptions about the future” (818). Hopefully Obama has a realistic view of the consequences of proliferation.

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