We Ignore Africa at Our Own Peril

Amid the myriad challenges that confront us in the coming months, it’s easy to simply pigeonhole African issues under the heading of: “We’ll get around to it, someday, maybe.” That, as I’ve noted previously in writing about Africa, has been our customary way of approaching such issues, at least until they become too big and pressing to ignore, by which time they also have become much harder to address and less possible to solve.

Consider the way in which African problems now present themselves at our southern border. Officials in Tijuana, Mexico, express themselves as “baffled” at a recent surge in Africans arriving trying to enter the U.S., by some reckoning a fourfold increase in 2023 alone, or more. Mexico’s Interior Department recently offered year-end figures showing that from 2022 to 2023, the number of African migrants arriving in Mexico increased from 6,672 to 59,834. And there is little indication that most of these migrants view Mexico as their final destination.

Why this dramatic increase in such a short period of time? Some analysts contend that, as the overall profitably of people smuggling increases, traffickers have worked hard to make the hitherto daunting passage through the Darién Gap, the infamously horrifying jungle region at the Isthmus of Panama. But in many instances Africans are responding to a now widely advertised workaround by paying a premium to fly into Nicaragua, thus avoiding the Darién Gap altogether. It’s worth noting, in this connection, that the Nicaraguan regime is notably unfriendly with the U.S. and little inclined to discourage this, instead choosing to profit. How do the migrants afford it? One Senegalese migrant testified that “relatives in New York had paid for his passage.” Considering the massive volume of remittances flowing from migrants already in the U.S. to their home countries, one can only suspect that this is quite common.

Why the drastic increase in the flow from Africa? The New York Times predictably suggests that it’s the result of those nasty European countries showing more hostility toward African migrants and erecting more effective barriers. Anyone who pays even the slightest interest to Europe’s ongoing inability to deal with the migrant flood will quickly recognize this as the usual progressive misdirection. No one, after all, should suggest in any way that Biden’s open borders regime is to blame for any fresh aspect of the crisis at our border.

A better explanation lies in the aforementioned “pull effect,” that is, once members of a given community become established, legally or illegally, in the U.S., it becomes more attractive — and affordable — for their friends and relatives to afford the journey. This is, unfortunately, almost impossible to measure, but remittances to Africa may rise into the billions annually. In some respects, of course, one could count this as a good thing, a form of foreign aid paid by migrants rather than out of the U.S. Treasury. But when the money flows to countries beset by serious problems, it’s unsurprising that it becomes the means for financing the rising tide of illegal immigration.

Sadly, the problems appear to be growing rapidly, and the solutions that would encourage potential immigrants to stay home appear to be diminishing. Consider the case of Mauritania. Although slavery was officially abolished in Mauritania in 1981, in practice it remains widespread (would that Nikole Hannah-Jones might have paid attention to this reality rather than indulging in performative fantasies about the past). Although formally illegal, the Arab element that controls the government of Mauritania still treats black Mauritanians as little better than slaves. Black Mauritanians fleeing Mauritania for the U.S. are among those who’ve discovered the route through Nicaragua.

Last August, I wrote of how the then-recent coup in Niger had comprehensively undermined efforts by the U.S. and France to prevent Niger from returning to its previous role as an entrepot for illegal immigration. As of just this month, relations between the U.S. and Niger have gone from bad to worse, as the Niger junta has revoked a military accord with the U.S. that not only was designed to help deal with Islamist terrorists in the region but also remained the last foundation for rebuilding cooperation in the area of illegal immigration. Without such cooperation, cutting off illegal immigration at the source becomes immeasurably more difficult.

The deteriorating situation in the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo (a name, sadly, that reeks of irony) also promises to push yet another surge in migration. A long-simmering pattern of violence involving the Congo and Rwanda — and, somewhat tangentially, a variety of different African “peacekeepers” — now has become open warfare. In a region where the memories of the 1994 genocide of more than 800,000 Tutsis is still fresh, the prospects for total destabilization, mass killings, and a refugee disaster grow more urgent every day.

It’s tempting to just simply dismiss all this amid all the other crises we face, but we do so at our own peril. Not only are African problems showing up on our border in ever more dramatically increased numbers, but we also must contend with how our enemies exploit African instability to our international disadvantage. We’ve already seen how South Africa has placed itself most firmly in Putin’s camp and developed warmer relations with China and Iran, recently lending itself to pro-Hamas maneuvering at the U.N. When South Africa participates in war games with the Russian navy, we should take notice. Think losing free passage in the Red Sea to the Houthis is to our disadvantage? Try compounding that if shipping also has to give the Cape of Good Hope a wide berth. And the Chinese navy also chose to participate in these war games. Wherever Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping work in concert, we have every reason to be concerned. (RELATED from James H. McGee: We Should Stop Exploiting Africa — And Start Caring)

China, of course, has used its “Belt and Road” initiative to achieve economic penetration in a number of African countries. And, despite Putin’s recent public disavowal, the takeover by Russian military intelligence of the former Wagner Group’s widespread assets and influence in Africa provides multiple avenues for leverage at a time of retreat by U.S. allies and indifference on the part of the administration in Washington.

There are those who contend that our declining position in sub-Saharan Africa is of little moment, and that arguments in favor of maintaining our (surpassingly small) military presence in the region are little more than another example of Pentagon empire building. They are wrong — not least because, in spite of recent token efforts, no element in this administration, not the Defense or the State Department, certainly not the office of the president, has shown the slightest genuinely consistent interest in Africa.

We can comfort ourselves with the notion that none of this matters, but the evidence suggests it does. It’s already bad enough that our open border has meant access for Chinese and Venezuelan special operators, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, and a lethal flood of fentanyl and the gang-related violence it promotes. Should we then also turn a blind eye to an increasing flow of illegal immigrants for various African conflict regions? One of the signature efforts of the previous administration lay in working with the countries that were the sources of illegal immigration to stem the flow — should we just abdicate these profitable influence operations when it comes to Africa? Should we simply yield to the Russians and the Chinese control of the immense natural resources found across the African continent?

The good news is that the Chinese have, in a number of cases, already overplayed their hand, leaving African governments more wary even as they try to navigate away from Chinese clientelism. The Russians have a knack for making themselves unloved — the “Ugly Russian” bears more than a passing kinship to the once notorious “Ugly American” of the early Vietnam era. At this juncture, we still have the means to rebuild our influence in Africa, and we can do so without massive effort or expense. Many African countries would still prefer working with us, and these are relationships we can build on.

Moreover, many Africans, in contemplating the long journey to our border, are still daunted by the danger or the expense. Making the journey more unappealing involves finally, and decisively, implementing measures to physically secure our border. It necessitates making it harder for illegals to remain in this country. It means rooting out the people traffickers, directly attacking their operations, and making their business unprofitable.

Finally, it involves working closely with source countries to address the drivers for immigration. In some instances, this will simply be a bridge too far — the cultural, political, and economic drivers will simply be too great, such as the legacy of slavery in Mauritania. But helping African initiatives, for example, to contain the war in the eastern Congo should scarcely be beyond our remit.

We can’t do any of this, however, if we don’t take Africa seriously, if we don’t start paying attention. Right now, given our blinkered pundit class and our blind existing leadership, that simple first step seems like a very tall order indeed.

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His 2022 novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region, and a forthcoming sequel carries the Reprisal team from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find it on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.

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