DRAFT
GEOPOLITICS, GEOSTRATEGY, AND THE CHALLENGE OF ENSURING PEACE IN EASTERN AFRICA
By
Macharia Munene
United States International University,
PRESENTATION AT
INTERCULTURAL SEMINAR
INTERNATIONAL MASTER IN PEACE, CONFLICT AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES,
UNIVERSITAT JAUME I, CASTELLON, MAY 2, 2012.
DRAFT
GEOPOLITICS, GEOSTRATEGY, AND THE CHALLENGE OF ENSURING PEACE IN EASTERN AFRICA
By
Macharia Munene
United States International University, Nairobi
States struggle to survive as viable entities in the midst of many challenges. They have, over time, acquired a self-justification that makes them appear, and are then assumed, to be natural. To survive, they pay attention to two critical concepts which complement each other, “interests” and “security”.
Every political unit juggles between “security” which refers to survival and “interests” which refers to the values that distinguish that unit from any other. Of the two, it is “interest” that takes precedence in the sense that the purpose of “security” is to secure “interests” of the given unit. Since each state would like to secure interests, there is intense competition for all types. Some, mainly the powerful claim what amounts to a prerogative of the mighty to violate purported international law if it is perceived to be in conflict with their interests. And they get away with it.
The ability of a state to compete or exercise the prerogative of the mighty depends on its capacity for interplay and application of concepts that constantly drive human history. These are politics, resources, space or geography, and strategy. Out of them, the terms geopolitics and geo-strategy are derived. For successful interplay and application, those running a state should be conceptually tuned to three types of knowledge that help to safeguard the interests of a state, and should be clear to all, irrespective of who is in power. These are knowledge of the national philosophy and ideals, knowledge of the national ideals and philosophies in other countries that a state interacts with, and knowledge of the points of convergence and divergence that a state has with those other states. Ignorance of the three types of knowledge by officials is a liability to the state.
These three types of knowledge affect geopolitics and geostrategy which, using space as the mental centre, are closely related. Space refers to the three elements that are necessary for sustaining life on earth. These are territory, air, and water or sea. There are, however, nuanced differences between the two concepts. The stress in geopolitics is the why while the emphasis on geo-strategy is the how. Geopolitics is policy oriented, mostly an intellectual exercise; geo-strategy is implementation, mainly a functionary occupation.
Politics is the ability to exercise and project power over other people, institutions, and countries at local or international levels. Geo-politics, therefore, is the exercise of power over space that may not necessarily be one’s own. The key thing in geopolitics is the ability to manipulate space to achieve political ends.
At the international level, this implies one country politically manipulating others to achieve its purported desires. Sometimes this is called diplomacy in its various forms which can be subtle or brutal. This brings up the effort by some states to homogenize the world in a unidirectional way, currently called globalization. This is imperialism which wantonly uses the prerogative of the mighty to force its will on others and even to shift blame.
Strategy is a calculated method of how to get something, a how-to-rationale as opposed to a why. Geo-strategy is thus the rationale behind techniques and tactics used to achieve certain geopolitical objectives; it is an instrument for serving the interests of geopolitics. Taking “time” into account, it is futuristic and anticipatory.
The geo-strategy of any place takes into account several concerns. It starts with itself as the primary focus, or the “centre”, of everything and around which everything else should rotate. The survival and well being of that “centre” becomes the determining factor in assessing the geo-strategic value of other places. To safeguard that centre, there is need for state officials to have a proper conceptual framework of the state’s geopolitical standing as it relates to other states and global forces.
Within Africa, this would require focus on the idea of concentric circles with each country being at the centre of those circles. First is The First Circle which refers to the immediate neighbours, whether the land or the sea. The Second Circle can refer to other countries within the continent but are not immediate neighbours. The Third Circle would include Extra-Continental centres of power as well as how their regional groupings and movements relate to immediate neighbours.
With those conceptions of geopolitics and geo-strategy in mind, the question is how each country pushes its interests while avoiding possible conflicts. Each has to take into account domestic as well as external challenges, if it is to ensure peace. Among the external challenges is the emergence of a new political doctrine, promoted by the Euro-powers, to justify violence if a specific candidate does not win or lose. In the process, the rule of law and procedures are disregarded and discarded in order to force new political realities that are acceptable to extra-continental forces. Violence is then justified by ignoring law institutions with claims that they are unreliable. The consequence is the promotion of un-peace.
Ensuring peace in Africa is thus made difficult by this new political doctrine that appears to be part of big power geopolitical manipulations to erode African sovereignty, as advised by Africanists. Prominent Africanists advocate redrawing the African map and portray sovereignty as farce, ‘phantom’ or ‘mirage’. Some want the United Nations to decertify or deregister selected countries from the roster of sovereign states. The existence of some states, they assert, is itself a threat to security. Subsequently, the sovereignty of African states should be shared with external entities. Others claim that military “coups” in Africa are “progressive”. Such coups are to be externally engineered by global trustees, in the name of the “people”.
LOCATING DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
The concern here is the countries of Eastern Africa whose geopolitics has gone through adjustments that pose serious challenge to peace. Each country faces obstacles from internal or external sources. There is also new thinking on the sanctity of inherited states, whether or not existing states can contract.
The region is hemmed in a triangle of three large bodies of water that are considered crucial to the survival or well being of other regions. These are the long River Nile in the west, the Red Sea in the north, and the Indian Ocean in the east. The region is mostly arid and semi arid with an expanding condition of aridity partly due to climatic changes and deforestation. There is constant friction between pastoralists who recognize no borders and farmers seeking to protect their crops. The region also attracts extra-continental forces who consider it geostrategic to their geopolitical interests because it is rich with minerals and other forms of natural wealth.
The countries owe their existence to the competition by Euro-powers to create new empires in Africa. Imposing territorial colonialism through terror, the English, the Germans, the Italians, and the French created identity what later became Eritrea, Sudan, Uganda, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and Tanganyika. These entities, surrounding Ethiopia that whipped the Italians at Adowa, split peoples into different compacts, created identity confusion, and planted seeds of post-colonial instability. To enforce the new reality, they recruited African administrators, called “chiefs”, to be subordinate to Europeans.
Chiefs became part of a new legal system that advanced two destructive concepts, “natives” and “tribes.” First, all Africans were lumped together as “natives” when serving colonial interests. Second, “tribal” distinctions were stressed amongst the “natives” when it came to political issues that challenged the colonial state. On the eve of independence, emphasis was on “tribes”, not on “natives” as colonial officials groomed pliant “leaders”, who mostly admired colonial thinking, to inherit the state. Many such leaders remained attached to colonial powers economically, socio-politically, and even in matters of defense and foreign policy.
The newly independent states faced multiple challenges to their survival, internal and external. In the early 1960s, Africans debated whether the new states could change colonial boundaries either by contracting or by expanding. The decision was to reject both contractibility and elasticity. Three countries, Ethiopia and Sudan and Somalia, were caught in the debate and have helped to change the geopolitical dynamics of the region. Developments in Ethiopia and Sudan led to the independence of Eritrea and South Sudan and have given credibility to the doctrine of contractibility, as opposed to in-contractibility, of states. Events in Somalia discredited the doctrine of elasticity of state. Acceptance of state contractibility increases the possibility of other countries coming up, among them being Western Sahara, and may be Eastern Congo.
Ethiopia:
The conception of peace for Ethiopia has gone through changes but it constantly has to deal with the internal and external dimensions. Externally, it continues to have problems with Somalia, mainly over the latter’s instability and being a haven for terrorist activities. Ethiopia is active in the IGAD programmes and has sent troops to support the Transitional Federal Government and help keep the peace. IGAD is the regional umbrella body for promoting peace and defraying conflicts.
In its recent history, it avoided Euro-colonialism despite the brief Italian occupation between 1935 and 1941 followed by British supervision up to 1944, Ethiopia experienced internal disturbances that had external ramifications. It considered Eritrea part of Ethiopia in the same way that Somalia claimed neighbouring territories. It found itself caught between resisting Somalia’s irredentism and its own desire to absorb Eritrea. For them, peace was territorial expansion and silencing opponents, but they differed on the direction of that expansion.
Internal political pressures brought together like minded Ethiopian and Eritrean activists who eventually eliminated the Ethiopian contradiction. Since no peace had come from holding on to Eritrea, the activists who took power made adjustment to the concept of in-contractibility of state. Accepting that states can contract, Ethiopia let Eritrea go and thereby ended similarities between itself and Somalia on the issue of elasticity of state.
Letting Eritrea go was a way of ensuring semblance of peace but the anticipated peace did not materialize because of some factors. First, Ethiopia still had internal contradictions that were not settled by the separation of Eritrea. Although it had a new constitutional dispensation that in theory allows any part to separate from the main state, feelings of repression did not end. The Oromo, for instance, are dissatisfied and constantly cause friction not only in Ethiopia but also in the neighbouring Kenya.
Second, Ethiopia’s internal problems with the Oromo are compounded by new external ones with independent Eritrea. Although the leaders of the two countries are reportedly cousins and of Tigrean lineage, had fought on the same side against Mengistu Haile Merriam, they became so occupied with perceived national interests that they quickly turned enemies. Simmering differences on ideology and statecraft took the centre stage and friendship and reputed family ties deteriorated into state rivalry. This led to a two year war in 1998. Border tensions remain.
Third, at the continental level, the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia undermined the concept of states as being in-contractible. This made secessionism increasingly acceptable as a conflict managing technique. In a way, Eritrea opened the way for the independence of Southern Sudan. In addition, that acceptability is increasingly pushed by extra-continental forces particularly in the fragmented Somalia where there are calls for recognition of Puntland and Somaliland as independent states.
Eritrea:
The quarrel between Eritrea and Ethiopia is really one of identity. While Ethiopian identity hinges on resistance to Italian occupation, modern Eritrean islargely shaped by the Italians. Subsequently, some Eritrean elite tend to think of their capital city, Asmara, as a small Rome. It appears to accept mainly the Italian while rejecting the Ethiopian colonial past. The fact that many peoples in both Eritrea and Ethiopia are of Tigrean background is subsumed in the reality of different colonial experiences. Italy had disliked Ethiopia and Eritrea dislikes Ethiopia.
At the same time Eritrea struggles to create its own Eritrean identity internally and externally. Internally, it suppresses ethnic differences within the state. Externally, it struggles to find relevance in the region and has attracted attention as the regional renegade. As such, it instinctively takes an opposite position to whatever Ethiopia does. Since Ethiopia is active in chaotic Somalia, and seems like a Euro-proxy and receives of a lot of Euro-aid, Eritrea has been active in Somalia reportedly in support of Islamist al-Shabaab, making it appear like an al-Qaeda proxy. The al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda connection rubs the others the wrong way.
Somalia:
The feud between Eritrea and Ethiopia plays itself openly in Somalia where internal and external challenges are hard to distinguish. Somalia is an example of a state collapsing because of ideological failure within the country and among its neighbours. A union of two colonies, one British and the other Italian, the Somali elite tried to divert attention from domestic challenges by promoting a concept of one expanding Somali state. For them, peace was the annexing of Djibouti and parts of Kenya and Ethiopia. For a while, the concept of peace as an expanded Somali state appeared to hold but when it ultimately failed, the elite lost legitimacy in the eyes of the ruled.
Successive Somali governments tried to apply the Greater Somalia notion, in particular Mohammed Siad Barre, and failed. Barre grabbed power in 1969, mounted a failed effort to “liberate” the Ogaden in 1977, and destroyed the dream of grandeur and the sense of Somali unity. This gave rise to various militants opposing his regime who forgot talks of Somali unity. The country disintegrated after 1991 when President Barre was ousted by forces of the United Somali Congress. The idea of Somali homogeneity disappeared as Somalia fragmented into warring entities, each demanding autonomy or independence.
Divided Somali has geo-strategic value to international players since fragmentation gives them peace to operate. Tuna pirates from other continents are free to take all the fish they can along the Somali coast, without being questioned. Next are the toxic waste mongers who need dumping places, where no respectable authority can raise questions, for such things as nuclear waste. Close to them are criminal syndicates laundering money and drugs without being checked. These reportedly make the internet in stateless Somalia very efficient. Terror and anti-terror organs also use the area for experiments and testing of strategies before applying them in more organized zones. All these international entities would not want to see stability in Somalia.
Sudan
Another country that has had problems ensuring peace is Sudan that has now split into two, with high possibilities of additional splits from Khartoum. Its problem was that its peoples experienced multiple-colonialism and generated a lot of conflicts within and outside the country. A cultural mix of historical and religious interactions of Africans and Arabs, its peoples were internally divided and appeared to be confused as to whether Sudan was an African or an Arab country. The rulers in Khartoum faced northwards to Egypt and the Arabs, others face southwards.
The South immediately challenged the legitimacy of the state and took up arms as the Arab rulers tried to assert authority in creating an Islamic state. The resistance to Islamisation was symbolized by the rise of the Sudanese Liberation Movement, SPLM, and its military wing SPLA in the South. The fighting spread to the neighbours where Uganda supported the SPLA and Sudan supported the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, led by Joseph Kony who, like Omar al-Bashir is a wanted international criminal. The war officially ended with the creation of a new country, the Republic of South Sudan.
Splitting Sudan has changed geopolitical dynamics in that other countries have to take it into account while deciding their regional policies. South Sudan has the challenge of locating itself within the geo-politics of Eastern Africa, Africa, and the world as other countries take into account the fact of its existence. South Sudan faces at least three geopolitical realities in ensuring peace for itself. First it is landlocked and has to depend on the goodwill of others to export and import large quantities of goods and services. Second, it is richly endowed with big land, minerals and other natural resources, some of which cut across state boundaries. It has to negotiate how to use those shared resources. Third, there are many suitors from near and far hoping to exploit its natural resources. It needs alert negotiators to avoid being short-changed.