political, economic, and social instability in Africa after the Cold War resulted in new waves of foreign intervention. Global, regional, and subregional state-based organizations were central to war-making and peace-building processes, and nonstate actors associated with interna-tional terrorist networks played key roles in some conflicts. During the periods of decolonization and the Cold War, foreign states intervened in African affairs unilaterally or in collaboration with other states. Former imperial powers and new Cold War powers were the most significant sources of external intervention. After the Cold War, unilateral engage-ment continued. Onetime imperial and Cold War powers continued to intercede in their historical spheres of interest; Middle Eastern states and organizations took a special interest in North Africa; and African countries intervened in their neighbors’ affairs. However, multilateral intervention by organized groups of states (intergovernmental organi-zations) and transnational networks of nonstate actors grew increasingly important.
This chapter introduces the major foreign actors involved in African conflicts after the Cold War, including nation-states on other continents, neighboring African countries, multilateral state-based organizations, and nonstate actors associated with international terrorist networks. It distinguishes the outside contestants in decolonization and Cold War conflicts from those involved in their aftermath, and it establishes a framework for understanding the interests and motivations of the for-eign actors featured in the regional case studies.
During the post–Cold War period, Western nations continued to implicate themselves in African affairs. France and the United Kingdom
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intervened in their former colonies, while the United States focused on its former Cold War allies and on countries deemed strategic in the war on terror. In some instances, Western powers and their allies interceded under the auspices of intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, NATO, or the EU.1 In other cases, they took unilateral action. Middle powers like the Nordic states also played significant roles in multilateral peace negotiations and peacekeeping operations, and they often engaged in independent diplomatic initiatives.2
The other former Cold War powers, China and Russia, ordinarily opposed political and military intervention in the internal affairs of other nations—their immediate neighbors excepted. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, they frequently challenged Western-sponsored initiatives focusing on human rights and governance issues. Like other industrial states, China was particularly interested in regions that were rich in strategic natural resources. In exchange for guaranteed access to such resources, China invested heavily in African industries and infra-structure and turned a blind eye to human rights abuses, political repres-sion, and corruption. However, China, like the West, recognized that its economic interests would be best served by peace and stability. In conse-quence, Beijing expanded its involvement in multilateral disaster relief, antipiracy, and counterterrorism operations. In 2016, it contributed more military personnel to UN peacekeeping operations than any other per-manent member of the Security Council. It engaged in mediation and peacekeeping efforts in Sudan and South Sudan, where it had significant investments in oil production and infrastructure, and also in Mali, where its primary interests lay in the oil and uranium of neighboring countries.
China also joined France, the United States, Italy, and Japan in estab-lishing a military facility in Djibouti, which overlooks one of the world’s most lucrative shipping lanes.
Russia, like China, viewed post–Cold War Africa as a new frontier of political and economic opportunity. Itself the target of Western economic sanctions, Moscow had no interest in critiquing its partners’ domestic human rights abuses or international transgressions. It offered goods and services to countries sidelined by Western restrictions and used its power on the Security Council to oppose robust military interventions that would encroach on national sovereignty and promote Western in-terests. Critical of Western influence over peacekeeping structures and initiatives, Moscow also recognized that its participation provided it
with an avenue toward increased global prominence. Although its per-sonnel contributions to African peacekeeping missions have been rela-tively small, Russia has trained African peacekeepers for both UN and AU missions, and it has sought leadership roles in the UN peacekeep-ing headquarters in New York and in missions on the ground. In Africa, Moscow’s military imprint is more evident in its substantive weapons trade: a major military supplier to African governments during the Cold War, Moscow has continued to expand its arms trade on the continent.
It has also used its military connections to extend its influence in other arenas. Although Russia’s commerce with Africa is still small relative to that of China, Europe, and the United States, it has increased dramati-cally since 2000. Like China, Russia has focused its investments on the energy and mining sectors and on infrastructure development.
Middle Eastern powers also intervened in Africa after the Cold War. Historically, Middle Eastern countries maintained strong political and cultural ties with North Africa, which was commonly considered part of the Arab World. During the post–Cold War period, a number of Middle Eastern nations intervened in North Africa and the Horn of Af-rica, acting unilaterally or through the intergovernmental Arab League.
Most significant for this study, the Gulf states and Turkey provided im-portant political, economic, and military support to established govern-ments and their opponents during the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath.3
African states also implicated themselves in their neighbors’ affairs through the UN, the AU, and subregional organizations, as well as uni-laterally. Like other outside powers, they often had mixed motives: they sought to engender peace and stability but also to further their own aims and interests. In some cases, they backed the governments in power. In others, they supported warlords or rebel movements.4 Somalia (chap-ter 4) was the subject of interference from Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, and Uganda, while the conflict in Sudan (chapter 5) sparked intervention by Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya, and Uganda.
Uganda and Zaire implicated themselves in Rwandan affairs before and after the 1994 genocide (chapter 6), while wars in Zaire’s successor state, the Democratic Republic of Congo (chapter 7), engaged Angola, Bu-rundi, Chad, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In West Africa’s Mano River region (chapters 8 and 9), the civil war in Liberia involved intervention by Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Libya;
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the related civil war in Sierra Leone implicated Liberia and Libya; and the ensuing civil war in Côte d’Ivoire involved Liberia and Burkina Faso. The Egyptian military intervened in Libya after the Arab Spring revolt (chap-ter 10). In Mali, the French-led intervention to counter a secessionist move-ment and jihadist insurgency was joined by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, and Niger, while the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria was challenged by armies from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger (chapter 11).
Some individual states played outsized roles in their own subregions and, in a few cases, wielded considerable influence continentwide. In par-ticular, Nigeria in West Africa and South Africa in Southern Africa were notable for both their subregional and continental influence. In North, East, and Central Africa, no single nation could claim subregional domi-nance. However, Algeria and Egypt possessed considerable clout in North Africa. Kenya and Ethiopia carried significant weight in East African af-fairs, while Egypt also aspired to wider influence in the Greater Horn.5 In Central Africa, the DRC was large in size and rich in minerals, but internal conflicts prevented it from assuming a leadership role.
Several intergovernmental organizations and nonstate actors played key roles in shaping the post–Cold War order in Africa. The most consequential included one global organization, the United Nations; four regional bodies, the Organization of African Unity, the African Union, the European Union, and the Arab League; and five subregional organizations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The most significant nonstate actors were the international jihadist networks, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, along with their African branches and af-filiates. The composition, purpose, and interests of these organizations are described below.