A "New Deal" for Africa: A Joint Humanitarian Role for U.S. Armed Forces
Abstract
New roles and missions are evolving for America's military; these new roles and missions are largely humanitarian with significant peacemaking, peacekeeping, and nation building components. Development issues in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Common Wealth of Independent States (CIS), the Caribbean and the Americas's, will occupy U.S. and U.N. resources well into the next century. Few organizations possess the planning, distribution, and execution capability necessary to deal with development problems of the magnitude facing the New World Order. The U.S. military, particularly the U.S. Army, possess a treasure chest of planning and execution capabilities remarkably well suited to intelligently confronting these problems in coalition with other U.N. partners. This paper examines the feasibility of a U.S. military led U.N. coalition project to build a grid of road, rail and water transportation infrastructure throughout the continent of Africa. Approaching African development through concentrating U.N. coalition efforts on a continent wide transportation infrastructure project puts the problems facing Africa in a fresh and coherent perspective. New light is shed on the problems of agriculture, education, appropriate technology, common language, deforestation, desertification, and AIDS, population and erosion control. Actively using the U.S. military as the lead agent in U.N. coalitions charged with promoting environmentally sensitive humanitarian development in Africa and other depressed areas will help promote peace and prosperity.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 07, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA251233
Entities
People
- A. D. Ackels
- John M. Gray Iii
Organizations
- United States Army War College