Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T14:24:55.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

United States Policy Toward Africa: Silver Anniversary Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Crawford Young
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At the important forum for debate of the current state of African-American relations provided by the African-American Institute meetings in Harare, Zimbabwe, in January 1983, two apparently contradictory themes emerged in the public and private assessments of American-African policy by the African delegates. On the one hand, they observed—to their disappointment and dismay—that American policy appeared to remain essentially unchanged over the last quarter-century. On the other, and in the next breath, they angrily denounced the theory of “constructive engagement” in southern Africa, and in particular its corollary of “linkage” of Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola to South African acquiescence in a Namibia settlement.

Is it possible that Chester Crocker is simply Richard Moose by another name? Senator Jesse Helms evidently thinks so, but should we? Or, to put the matter more graphically, is it plausible that, despite the apparent rhetorical contrasts, United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick holds essentially the same views concerning Africa as did her predecessors Andrew Young and Donald McHenry? Perhaps this is a timely moment to explore this seeming paradox. Within the foreign policy machinery of the United States government, Africa was accorded bureaucratic recognition in 1958, a quarter-century ago, through the creation of the Bureau of African Affairs. This organizational innovation symbolized the birth of an African policy, even though episodic connections with sundry African states extend far back to the early days of the Republic: Liberia, Morocco, Zanzibar, Egypt, Ethiopia.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, Kenneth L. 1980. African Realities. New York: Crane, Russak & Co.Google Scholar
Albright, David (ed.). 1980. Communism in Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Albright, David (ed.). 1983. The USSR and Sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Arkhurst, Frederick S. (ed.). 1975. U.S. Policy Toward Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Baker, Pauline. 1983. “The Lost Continent,” SAIS Review III, 1: 99–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertolin, Gordon. 1978. “U.S. Economic Interests in Africa: Investment, Trade, and Raw Materials,” in Whitaker, Jennifer S. (ed.), Africa and the United States: Vital Interests. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Bienen, Henry. 1977. “U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changing Africa,” Political Science Quarterly 92, 1: 47–64.Google Scholar
Bienen, Henry. 1982. “Soviet Political Relations with Africa,” International Security 6, 4: 153–73.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency. 1980. Communist Aid Activities in Less Developed Countries, 1979 and 1954-79.Google Scholar
Charles, Milene. 1980. The Soviet Union and Africa. Washington: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Clough, Michael. 1982. Changing Realities in Southern Africa: Implications for American Policy. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies.Google Scholar
Coker, Christopher. 1982-1983. “The United States and South Africa: Can Constructive Engagement Succeed?” Millennium 11, 3: 223–41.Google Scholar
Cooley, John K. 1981. “The Libyan Menace,” Foreign Policy 42: 74–93.Google Scholar
Crocker, Chester. 1980. “South Africa: Strategy for Change,” Foreign Affairs 59, 2: 323–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crocker, Chester. 1981. “A U.S. Policy for the 1980s,” Africa Report 26, 1: 7–14.Google Scholar
de St. Jorre, John. 1983. “Constructive Engagement: An Assessment,” Africa Report 28, 5: 48–51.Google Scholar
Eicher, Carl F. 1982. “Africa' Food Crisis,” Foreign Affairs LXI, 1: 151–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, Rupert. 1967. Africa and United States Policy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Foltz, William J. 1983. “United States Policy toward South Africa: Is One Possible?” Conference on African Crisis Areas and American Foreign Policy, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Glantz, Michael H. (ed.). 1976. The Politics of Natural Disaster: The Case of the Sahel Drought. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Jackson, Henry F. 1983. From the Congo to Soweto: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Africa since 1960. New York: William Morrow and Company.Google Scholar
Jaster, Robert. 1982. Southern Africa in Conflict: Implications for U.S. Policies in the 1980s. Washington: American Enterprise Institute.Google Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1976. Perception and Misperception in International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jouve, Edmond. 1983. “France and Crisis Areas in Africa.” Conference on African Crisis Areas and American Foreign Policy, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Kalb, Madeleine G. 1982. The Congo Cables. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Kanet, Roger. 1974. The Soviet Union and the Developing Nations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Kitchen, Helen (ed.). 1979. “Options for U.S. Policy towards Africa,” Foreign Policy and Defense Review 1, 1.Google Scholar
Kitchen, Helen (ed.). 1983. U.S. Interests in Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry. 1979. The White House Years. Boston: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Klinghoffer, Arthur Jay. 1977. The Soviet Union and International Oil Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kornegay, Francis A. 1980. The Candidates in Africa. Washington: African Bibliographic Center.Google Scholar
Kornegay, Francis A. 1982. Washington and Africa: Reagan, Congress, and an African Affairs Constituency in Transition. Washington: African Bibliographic Center.Google Scholar
Laidi, Zaki. 1983. “L'URSS et l'Afrique: vers une extension du système socialiste mondial?” Politique Etrangere 4: 679–99.Google Scholar
Lake, Anthony. 1969. The “Tar Baby” Option. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Lancaster, Carol. 1983. “Africa's Economic Crisis,” Foreign Policy 52: 149–66.Google Scholar
Legum, Colin. 1955. Must We Lose Africa? London: Allen.Google Scholar
Legvold, Robert. 1971. Soviet Policy in West Africa. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lemarchand, Rene (ed.). 1978. American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance. Washington: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Lyman, Princeton. 1983. “The Scope of Africa's Economic Crisis, CSIS Africa Notes 14.Google Scholar
McLane, Charles B. 1974. Soviet-African Relations. London: Central Asian Research Bureau.Google Scholar
McMurtry, Virginia A. 1974. Foreign Aid and Political Development: The American Experience in West Africa. Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.Google Scholar
Mickelwaite, Donald R., Sweet, Charles F., and Morss, Elliott R.. 1979. New Directions in Development: A Study of U.S. Aid. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ogonbadejo, Oye. 1980. “Soviet Policies in Africa,” African Affairs 79, 316: 297–325.Google Scholar
Ottaway, Marina. 1978. “Soviet Marxism and African Socialism,” Journal of Modern African Studies XVI, 3.Google Scholar
Ottaway, Marina. 1982. Soviet and American Influence in the Horn of Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Oye, Kenneth, Rothchild, Donald, and Lieber, Ronald J. (eds.). 1979. Eagle Entangled. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, Amos. 1983. “Extricating the U.S. from a Mideast Aid Morass,” Wall Street Journal, 27 August.Google Scholar
Politique Africaine. 1983. “La politique africaine des Etats-Unis.” Special Issue 12 (December).Google Scholar
Price, Robert M. 1978. U.S. Foreign Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa: National Interest and Global Strategy. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Rondos, Alex. 1983. “Why Chad?” CSIS Africa Notes 18.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Robert L. 1977. The Weak in the World of the Strong. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Singleton, Seth. 1983. “The Shared Tactical Goals of South Africa and the Soviet Union,” CSIS Africa Notes 12.Google Scholar
Sklar, Richard. 1982. “Democracy in Africa.” Annual Meetings, African Studies Association, Washington.Google Scholar
Stremlau, John J. 1977. The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stremlau, John J. 1980. The Foreign Policy Priorities of Third World States. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Stevens, Christopher A. 1976. The Soviet Union and Black Africa. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
United States Congress. House of Representatives, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Subcommittee on Mines and Mining. 1980a. Sub-Sahara Africa: Its Role in Critical Mineral Needs of the Western World. 96th Congress, 2nd Session.Google Scholar
United States Congress. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on African Affairs. 1980b. Imports of Minerals from South Africa by the U.S. and the OECD Countries. 96th Congress, 2nd Session.Google Scholar
Walters, Robert S. 1970. American and Soviet Aid: A Comparative Analysis. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Warren (ed.). Soviet and Chinese Aid to Africa. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Whitaker, Jennifer S. (ed.). 1978. Africa and the United States: Viral Interests. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Wiles, Peter (ed.). 1982. The New Communist Third World. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1981. Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank.Google Scholar
Young, Andrew. 1981. “The United States and Africa: Victory for Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs LVIX, 3: 648–66.Google Scholar