U.S. Interests and Policies in Africa

Abstract

U.S. interests in sub-Saharan Africa are relatively less vital than in any other world area, but they are not unimportant. Our main interests in Africa are economic and political, but we also have strategic and cultural/ideological interests. There are a number of policies that we can follow to promote our interests, but my basic conclusion is that we need to work as closely as possible with the government in power. We are trying to do this in South Africa, where constructive engagement has had some success in resolving the regional issues, but considerably less on the more visible internal South African situation. While constructive engagement appears to be the only policy with a chance of succeeding relatively peacefully, we must find a way to translate that policy into progress on the internal South African issue, especially since lack of success on this issue affects perceptions concerning the administration's African policy in both black Africa and the U.S.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1985
Accession Number
ADA160353

Entities

People

  • Marc Baas

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Department Of State
  • Economic Systems
  • Foreign Policy
  • Foreign Relations
  • Governments
  • Human Rights
  • International Organizations
  • Market Economy
  • Military Facilities
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Political Systems
  • Public Policy
  • Recreation
  • Regional Security
  • Saharan Africa
  • United States

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union