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Africa in the International System: the Great Powers in Search of a Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Extract

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE AFRICAN CONTINENT HAS ALWAYS occupied an ambiguous and in the last analysis unhealthy place in the Western mind. To some its vast empty spaces have promised the riches of a new El Dorado together with the piratical thrills associated with their plunder, to others the challenge of a last frontier along which to stake out and defend their interests; while for many Africa was either the dark continent, a corrupt and corruptin place, or the last stronghold of barbarism waiting upon the enlightenment, or a refuge of worldly innocence where a breed of New Men might at last transcend their own past (and ours) and build a society based not on exploitation and conflict but on social justice.

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Article
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1979

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References

1 Keltie, J. Scott, The Partition of Africa, London, 1895, p. 1 Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., p. 404.

3 Kohler, F. et al., Soviet Strategy for the Seventies, Miami, 1973, pp. 5364 Google Scholar and Pipes, R., Soviet Strategy in Europe, Stanford, 1976, pp. 812 Google Scholar.

4 Pravda, 2 March 1976, quoted in Loewenthal, R., Model or Ally?, New York, 1977, p. 359 Google Scholar.

5 Pravda, 7 April 1971.

6 , op. cit., p. 361.

7 See Table, B., World Development Report, 1978, The World Bank, Washington, D. C., 1978, pp. 90–1Google Scholar.

8 Ibid.

9 It has also been suggested that similar considerations influenced the Soviet reaction to the Group of 77 demand for increases in the prices of raw materials generally; ‘if the spontaneous tendencies of the world market were unfavourable to the producers of raw materials it was again easier for the bloc countries with their state monopolies of trade to conclude bulk purchase agreements stabilizing the price for a time ‐ provided their governments made a political decision to do so.… It was this situation that the Soviet concept of a stable division of labour with a group of developing countries, and of an alliance with their raw material producers against the Western imperialist monopolies, emerged.’ Loewental, op. cit., p. 366.

10 Peking Review, 29 September 1978.

11 Nkrumah, K., Neo‐Colonialism: the last stage of imperialism, London, 1965, p. xi Google Scholar.

12 See for example, Amin, S., Neo‐Colonialism in West Africa, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1973, Unequal Development: an essay on the social formations of capitalism, London, 1976 Google Scholar, Arrighi, G. and Saul, J. S., The Political Economy of Afica, New York, 1973 Google Scholar.

13 For a discussion of British economic policies towards the African colonies during the period of the transfer of power, and of African reactions to them, see Bangura, Y., The Politics of Economic Relations between Britain and Commonwealth Africa: 1951–1975, Unpublished University of London Ph. D. Thesis, 1978 Google Scholar.

14 The Nigerian agreement was concluded in 1966 but fell victim to the civil war and, in the Nigerian view, to French opposition. See Twitchett, Carol Cosgrove, Europe and Africa: from association to partnership, Saxon House, 1978, pp. 145–6Google Scholar.

15 Twitchett, Carol Cosgrove, ‘Towards a New ACP–EC Convention’, World Today, 12 1978, pp. 472–83Google Scholar.

16 A human rights clause which would block transfers from the European Development Fund to offending states has been pressed by Britain and the Netherlands in particular. It is strongly opposed by the ACP states on the ground that it is inconsistent with continued support by the nine members of the EEC for the South African economy and therefore the system of apartheid, ibid. p. 482.

17 During the French President’s visit it was agreed that commercial, cultural and financial agreements would be concluded within two months. Reports suggested that French firms were likely to invest with government backing in a hydro‐electric complex to power a new alumina processing industry. See The Guardian, 29 December 1978.

18 Between 1960 and 1970 South Africa's total foreign liabilities grew from R 3024 million to R 5818 million. Over the same period direct foreign investment increased from 60–68% of the total. Sterling area investments fell from 63 to 58% but those from Western Europe increased from 14 to 24%. See, Callinicos, Alex and Rogers, John, Southern Aftica after Soweto, London, 1977, pp. 6368 Google Scholar.

19 In terms of Kenneth Waltz’s famous formulation, the proposition is that an explanation in terms of his second image ‐ international conflict and the internal structure of states ‐ needs to be supplemented by one in terms of his third image ‐ international conflict and international anarchy. See Waltz, Kenneth N., Man, the State and War, New York, 1954 Google Scholar.

20 See Wight, Martin, Systems of states, Leicester, 1977 Google Scholar, particularly , particularly chapters 4, 5.

21 Professor Bull, Hedley has distinguished between these two concepts in Western diplomatic thought. ‘An international society presupposes an international system, but an international system may exist that is not an international society. Two or more states, in other words, may be in contact with each other and interact in such a way as to be necessary factors in each other’s calculations without them being conscious of common interests or values, conceiving themselves to be bound by a common set of rules or cooperating in the working of common institutions.’ The Anarchical Society, London, 1977, pp. 1314 Google Scholar.

22 I have discussed the theoretical implications of this development in Donelan, M. D. (ed.), Reason of States, London, 1977 Google Scholar, Chapter 7, ‘International Theory and International Society’.

23 The practical significance of the OAU commitment to those principles should not be discounted. It clearly weighed with the United States, for example, when they refused to supply arms to Somalia for use against Ethiopia. See, Mayall, James, ‘The Battle for the Horn: Somali Irridentism and International Diplomacy’, World Today, 09 1978, pp. 336–45Google Scholar.

24 In October 1973 Colonel Gaddafi claimed that ‘Libya in two years has succeeded in isolating Israel from Africa; seventeen countries of the dark continent have broken relations with the Jewish state thanks to our efforts. We have reduced the Zionist state to the level of Taiwan’. The Times, 25 October 1973.

25 Article III(5) of the OAU Charter.

26 Wight, Martin, ‘The Balance of Power’, in Wight, Martin and Butterfield, Herbert, Diplomatic Investigations, London, 1966, pp. 174–5Google Scholar.

27 See Watt, D. C., Survey of International Affairs, 1963, Oxford University Press, 1977 Google Scholar, Chapter 10, and Hoskyns, Catherine (ed.), Case Studies in African Diplomacy, Number II, ‘The Ethiopia–Somali–Kenya Dispute, 1960–67’, OUP for the Institute of Public Administration, Dar–es–Salaam, 1969 Google Scholar.

28 Raymond Aron has noted, when contrasting American policy in the Congo and the Nigerian Civil War, that the decline in globaism preceded Nixon's election, was logically consistent in the sense that there had never been a Soviet or Free World bloc in Asia, Africa or Latin America as there had been in Europe, and was merely accelerated by the Vietnam tragedy. The Imperial Republic; The United States and the World, London, 1975, p. 140.

29 See, OAU, Council of Ministers Conference Dakar, 2x‐11 August 1963 Verbatim Report of the Plenary Sessions, (Restricted). Mongi Slim, the Tunisian Foreign Minister, who represented the OAU on this occasion, concluded wrongly that it would lead to more decisive action. ‘If, on October 31, the Secretary General were to present a report to the effect that the situation had not changed a report condemning South Africa for persisting in its policies then we would be in a position to take measures much more effective than those which have been taken up till now.’

30 The Americans had cause to use this base as late as 1973 when their European allies refused to allow their territory to be used for shipping military supplies to Israel.

31 See, Good, Robert C., UDI: The International Politics of the Rhodesian Rebellion, Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 324 Google Scholar.

32 In August 1960 ‘John Tettageh went to Moscow with Tawia Adamafio… In the Crimea they visited Khrushchev who, according to Tettageh promised them that if the West delayed over the Volta River project he would build it for them just as he was building Nasser’s dam.’ Thompson, W. Scott, Ghana’s Foreign Policy 1957–66, Princeton University Press, 1966, p. 164 Google Scholar. For the United States assurance, see p. 170.

33 The evidence for this view is provided by the National Security Council Memorandum which Dr Kissinger had prepared in 1969 for the incoming administration. It was subsequently leaked and published in 1975. See Cohen, Barry and El‐Khawas, Mohamed A. (eds.), The Kissinger Study of Southern Africa, Spokesman Books, 1975 Google Scholar.

34 On the reasons for the failure of this policy, see, Wolfers, Michael, Politics in the Organisation of African Unity, London, 1976, pp. 3641 Google Scholar.

35 For an analysis of the impact of these developments on the central balance see the Introduction to Navari, Cornelia and Mayall, James (eds.), The End of the Post War Era: Documents on Greater Power Relations 1968–75, Cambridge – forthcoming Google Scholar.

36 See Kissinger’s, statement before the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 29 January 1976. ‘Peace requires a sense of security which depends upon some form of equilibrium. That equilibrium is impossible unless the United States remains both strong and determined to use its strength when required… Military aggression, direct or indirect, has frequently been successfully dealt with, but never in the absence of a local balance of forces. US policy in Angola has sought to help friends achieve this balance.’Angola. Hearings before the Subcommittee on African Affairs, Washington, 1976, pp. 67 Google Scholar.

37 See, Davis, Nathaniel, ‘The Angola Decision of 1975: A Personal Memoire’, Foreign Affairs, Fall, 1978 Google Scholar.’ (In 1975 Davis was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.) For a CIA account, see Stockwell, John, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, New York, 1978 Google Scholar. (In 1975 Stockwell was Chief of the CIA Angola Task Force.)

38 Mazrui, Ali, Africa’s International Relations, Heinemann/Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1978, p. 180 Google Scholar.

39 See for example, Doxey, Maragaret, Economic Sanctions and International Enforcement, Oxford University Press, 1971 Google Scholar.

40 Austin, Dennis, ‘White Power in South Africa: Cohesion without Consensus?’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 13, No. 1, Winter 1978 Google Scholar.