Mike Brodo

This article originally appeared in the Africa Report. Angola and Mozambique offer a test case for America’s engagement strategy with ‘hybrid’ regimes. The presidents of Angola and Mozambique both visited Washington in recent months, a testament to warming ties and growing US interest in the semi-autocratic African countries whose ruling parties were once America’s adversaries. This… Continue reading How the US can engage with Africa’s semi-authoritarian states →

To advance core interests like countering China, the U.S. should put the promotion of its democratic values and institutions at the forefront of its Africa policies.

U.S. policymakers should not shy away from the promotion of good governance, as it is the most effective way to achieve the goals outlined at the U.S.-Africa Summit.

This article originally appeared in Modern Diplomacy. In Zambia’s August 2021 elections, Hakainde Hichilema defeated then-incumbent President Edgar Lungu by a margin of over twenty percent. Lungu’s defeat and timely commitment to ensuring an orderly transition of power came after he went to great lengths during the campaign period to ensure his continuity in power. Actions taken include revision… Continue reading In Zambia’s Reform Process, Political Parties Remain a Weak Link →

This week’s general elections in Angola may be among the most consequential elections on the continent in some time. So, why have they attracted so little attention from the U.S. government?

Main Argument This thesis argues that given Africa’s continued relatively low foreign policy priority for the United States, Washington’s assessment of and approach toward the continent derives from its broader foreign policy and geopolitical concerns, allowing the changing external environment globally to shape perceptions of African realities and consequently, policy. This thesis also argues that the United States’ paradigmatically-driven policies in Africa affect the interests of African citizens and the United States through their impact on the development (or lack thereof) of capable and accountable domestic political institutions. Where capable and accountable domestic political institutions exist in African countries, the interests of African citizens and the United States are generally positive, and vice versa. However, understanding how and why capable and accountable institutions developed in some countries that were sites of Cold War rivalry but not in others with similar East-West competitive histories requires an analysis of how domestic factors combined with immediate post-Cold War US foreign policy. Investigating two case study countries that possessed similar Cold War experiences yet diverging post-Cold War trajectories is instrumental in this process rooted in historical institutionalism.

A few days ago, Russian mercenaries affiliated with the Wagner Group indiscriminately opened fire on a village in the Central African Republic (CAR), killing seventeen people. How has the international community responded to such incidents? Some multilateral groups, like the United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries, have focused on the specific dangers of Russian security contractors. But while it is important to criticize the egregious human rights abuses attributed to the Wagner Group in the CAR, better analysis would characterize its footprint in the CAR as a maintenance and exacerbation of the status quo in a conflict defined by profit motives and zero-sum political competition.

Overall, this paper aims to explore and identify the roots and dynamics that cause economic inequality to persist in post-apartheid South Africa. While conducting research for this investigation, familiar themes arose. After sifting through numerous sources, I realized that all of the core arguments and elements of my three critical analysis papers this semester—which focused on the African continent more broadly—were evident and possessed explanatory power vis-à-vis the persistence of economic inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. Therefore, I will structure this paper around the three critical analysis papers’ core arguments (in reverse order) and demonstrate how the involved dynamics accurately explain the source and continuation of economic inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. A brief overview of the three papers’ arguments and how they will proxy in the case study of post-apartheid South Africa will subsequently be provided, followed by the main argumentative sections that expatiate the details.

By highlighting the holistic underpinnings of AFRICOM’s mission and outlining the conflict’s underlying dynamics, this paper seeks to argue that the insurgency in Cabo Delgado represents a prime opportunity for AFRICOM to prove the efficacy of its holistic approach to counterterrorism after years of repeated failure. In order to defend this claim, the paper will proceed as follows. First, the United States’ framing of security policy toward Africa in the 21st century will be overviewed, followed by sections addressing the importance of pursuing a holistic approach to counterterrorism in Africa and previewing how AFRICOM is the best suited vehicle for carrying out such an approach. Next, the Cabo Delgado insurgency will be introduced as a prime opportunity to prove the efficacy of AFRICOM’s holistic counterterrorism approach via four main components. The introduction to the argument is followed by sections that provide an overview of the conflict and discuss the extremist group’s founding, grievances, and member composition, in addition to a brief section on the group’s sources of financing. After providing this context, the Mozambican government’s responses to the insurgency will be described, followed by accounts of external involvement in the conflict, including that of the United States. Before discussing how AFRICOM should become more holistically involved in Cabo Delgado, specific US economic interests in the province are identified in a brief section in order to justify (i.e., beyond altruistic motives) increased US involvement. The main argument, discussing how AFRICOM should build on its holistic approach to the Cabo Delgado insurgency through four main components—counterfinance, training local militaries/police (in professionalism and transnational cooperation), building and assisting with maritime capacity, and providing aid (both humanitarian and development)—is subsequently advanced, followed by a conclusion about how holistic approaches can be used in preventing civil conflict from erupting in the first place.

In December 2020, eight years into the Central African Republic’s (CAR) civil war and roughly a week before the latest presidential election, six of the country’s rebel groups—who at the time controlled two-thirds of national territory—formed Coalition des patriotes pour le changement (CPC). Though opportunistic alliances among previously-warring factions were not a new phenomenon, the rapid territorial gains which reached the outskirts of the capital, Bangui, gave credence to its legitimacy, despite the lack of centralization among its constituent members. This report will primarily focus on the time period December 2020 to May 2021, at which point the CPC had lost much of its territorial gains. Drawing from the USAID Conflict Assessment Framework (Version 2.0), this report employs both a stakeholder and mobilization political economy analysis (PEA) and a political network analysis (PNA). The PEA investigates eleven key individuals involved in the conflict: President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, Héritier Doneng, Yevgeny Prigozhin, President Vladimir Putin, François Bozizé, Nourredine Adam, Ali Darassa, Mahamat al-Khatim, Sidiki Abass, Maxime Mokom, and Dieudonné Ndomate. Through the PEA, this report seeks to demonstrate that profit motives for elite actors in CAR constitute the preeminent driver of conflict, through which they use disbursed financial incentives, offerings of political power, and/or ethnic/religious grievances to mobilize fighters necessary to achieve their economic goals. Building on these concepts, the PNA serves to demonstrate—in contrast to some popular notions regarding deep-rooted ethnic/religious tensions structuring the conflict—that the personal alliances formed during the CPC phase of the war were driven by profit motives, overcoming both ethnic/religious tensions and even bringing together former enemies.