Are We Shifting to Africa Rather Than Pivoting to Asia? | Hacker News Reader

Are We Shifting to Africa Rather Than Pivoting to Asia?

theatlantic.com

20 pointsjeanbebe5 comments

It boils down to this: the United States needs to have a sphere of influence (good or bad) within Africa to compete with China, which is pumping billions into various African countries' infrastructure. The strategy as given in the article is debatable.

The problem with our Africa "policy" is that it appears to be a purely military one. We're content to spend billions playing World Police in a series of endless skirmishes with local terrorist and insurgent groups. Meanwhile, China's pouring serious capital and resources into industrialization, supply lines, and economic development (a move occasionally referred to as China's "colonization" of Africa). We spend the blood and treasure to keep China's profits flowing.

I don't understand our strategy here. It seems blindingly misguided. It seems as if we're the suckers at the table, and round after round, we keep anteing up. Perhaps there's a nuance I'm not seeing here, and if so, I welcome someone with a bit more geopolitical knowledge and experience to set the record straight. I'm 100% earnest in asking. I just don't get it.

China wants to do to Africa what the USA did to Asia: China will support a growing wealthy middle class by outsourcing to low-cost labour in Africa and of course it's all about oil and cheap minerals.

The muslim world and China are way ahead when it comes to supporting the African growth. Europe has some traction in the old colonies, but the white guilt weighs heavy on Europe. The arabs feels no guilt, even though they were heavily involved in the slave trade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade

The USA seems to be far behind the curve in Africa. It's probably not feasible for the USA to overcome the white guilt for the slave trade in order to outsource to Africa.

The next global war will start over resources in Africa.

Your analogy breaks down with "USA" and "growing wealthy middle class". If anything the result has (intentionally?) been the reverse. Other than that, not bad.

Africa is the key for cobalt, chrome, and platinum, everything else is meh on the world market. I acknowledge they make plenty of money off copper, but they don't control the world copper market like they control the world cobalt market.

Historically the resource stripping strategy in Africa resembled the middle east, put up a crooked strongman, keep him bribed and happy, and its all good. Occasional coup here and there. Not seeing why that successful strategy would be abandoned for a global war so not so impressed with that idea.

Another political/cultural issue you missed is its hard to give money/support to people in, say, Namibia, when their distant cousins in Detroit have a perception of a worse economic situation. I say perception because they probably are numerically better off in Detroit.

Two raids don't make a policy.

What happened recently is that 3 countries that happen to be in Africa became frontlines in the War On Terror.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com