The militarization of US aid to Africa

Two reports from the blogosphere on the increasing militarization of the US’s foreign aid policy toward the continent of Africa. First, from the Africa policy blog Regrets Only:

Refugees International has released a new report titled U.S. Civil-Military Imbalance for Global Engagement: Lessons from the Operational Level in Africa. According to RI, it describes how what it terms “the increased militarization of U.S. foreign aid” is complicating the achievement of American foreign policy goals in Africa.

The report recommends that the US Africa Command, or AFRICOM, remain focused on security sector and peacekeeping capacity building, rather than hunting terror suspects under what it calls “a thin mantle of humanitarianism” when it becomes fully operational in October 2008.

Next, from MojoBlog:

[E]ven AFRICOM’s (the US’s) Africa Military Command) good intentions cannot disguise the geopolitical realities that compelled its creation. It’s not about doing good works in impoverished countries for their own sake; It’s about national interest. Countering China’s growing military and economic influence in Africa and assuring access to some of the world’s last remaining oil reserves top the list. (The United States now imports just as much oil from Africa as it does from the Middle East.) Terrorism also figures into the equation—primarily the elimination of ungoverned spaces terrorists might call home.

Not that these are unreasonable goals. On one level, the U.S. military’s ability to adapt is impressive. But problems could arise if AFRICOM begins to lead policy rather than follow it. A report released yesterday by Refugees International shows that, in the years since 9/11, the Pentagon’s slice of the nation’s foreign aid budget has ballooned at the expense of more traditional providers, like USAID.