Nowhere is pressure on the United States to reimagine its foreign policy more acutely felt than in Africa. Initially caught off guard by the unexpected reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Washington has found itself in bad odor in several African countries. When its flag is not being casually incinerated by protesters in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) early this year, it has to deal with the humiliation of eviction from military bases in countries—Chad and Niger, for instance—that it once saw as key counterinsurgency allies.   

In one sense, the United States is a collateral victim, caught in the crossfire of anger and hostility directed toward the West specifically and nefarious foreigners and “colonizers” more broadly. At least in the Sahel region, whatever rage is aimed at the United States seems secondary to the fury reserved for France, the former colonial overlord widely—and not all that wrongly—accused of not minding its own business. Yet, in another sense, anti-American resentment is well-aimed, originating in longstanding grievances that the country is both imperious and neglectful, too inclined to make decisions independent of ethical considerations.

Washington’s predicament in Africa is further complicated by the fact that it appears to be losing ground to the geopolitical competition, especially Russia and China, both of which have managed to consolidate military and security alliances on the back of rising anti-Western sentiment. Since 2013, its famed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has seen Beijing committing billions of dollars in bilateral loans to big-ticket infrastructure projects, especially ports, railways, power plants, water projects, roads, and oil and gas pipelines across an estimated fifty-three out of fifty-four countries. 

For its part, Russia’s outreach across Africa has consisted mostly of military cooperation between its mercenary outfits (Wagner, latterly Africa Corps) and various African leaders. Having turned against Washington, the military juntas in Chad and Niger have immediately turned around and opened their doors to the Kremlin. For a cross-section of African leaders, Beijing and Moscow’s “see no harm” pragmatism is understandably appealing, carrying none of the vexations of Washington’s ostensible “values-based” approach.              

The question of how to respond has left the United States in a pickle. It has to balance curtailing Russia and China’s undeniable advance with winning back allies who remain crucial to Washington’s long-term diplomatic and security interests in the region. If nothing else, the latest U.S. strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa points to U.S. awareness that it now operates in a changed strategic environment, faces unprecedented threats, and requires new objectives and approaches.

One popular suggestion is that the United States should essentially infringe on the competition’s strategic copyright and adopt its approach wholesale. In this mode of thinking, the United States goes out of its way to out-China China by pouring resources into its own Belt and Road “development” initiative and out-Russia Russia by reinventing itself as a kind of Wagner of the Atlantic, focusing narrowly on African states’ security needs and—at least for the foreseeable future—ignoring human rights and associated concerns.  

Although one can understand the allure of an approach that appears to one-up one’s adversaries at their own game, these ideas have two obvious flaws. Firstly, it reduces diplomacy to a purely commercial exchange in which victory automatically goes to the biggest spenders, forgetting that it takes more than infrastructure to bridge certain differences of opinion. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the recommendation does not appear to take into account the fact the United States carries the self-imposed moral burden of exceptionalism and that what is expedient in the short term may, in the long term, erode its reputation as a democratic country that stands for its values.    

What, then, should the United States do?

First, it must recognize that the new strategic environment in Africa, while definitely challenging, is also clarifying. This is the case insofar as it presents the United States with an opportunity to put moral daylight between itself and the geopolitical competition in the region. Accordingly, rather than offering a more palatable version of whatever it is that China or Russia are trying to sell, the United States should double down on liberalism while exploring new openings and alliances at various subnational, educational, and policy levels. 

In practice, doubling down on liberalism means articulating the case for it as the best option for the African continent and, in contrast, showing why the top-down model of governance championed by Russia and China is bound to fail. The growing popularity of a “development sans democracy” illiberalism, especially among sections of the African intelligentsia and political elite, would seem to make this particularly urgent.       

Now, there is some truth to the accusation that, until very recently, what passed for American policy toward Africa was a hodgepodge of instincts and reflexes marked by ethical flexibility bordering on hypocrisy. Accordingly, Washington must take full responsibility for the unseemly way it has gone about its business in the past. That said, penitence must not be conflated with prostration, meaning that accountability can be taken without the complete genuflection that an important strand of African opinion seems to demand.

By restating the case for liberal democracy, the United States logically commits itself to a defense of the African region’s many straggling democracies. If once its African diplomacy was guided by the cynical dictum that “so and so might be a dictator, but at least he’s our dictator,” henceforth, the new message has to be “so and so may be an imperfect democrat, but at least he’s trying to be a democrat.” In shoring up support for flawed regimes in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, etc., the United States should aim to show that although it is determined to hold its allies’ feet to the fire, it is by no means looking for perfection among them. At any rate, its adaptability must include leaving the backdoor open for consultation with some of the renegade regimes that, sooner or later, are bound to tire of Russian and Chinese antics.

In all fairness, it is worth emphasizing that Washington is not the only one with a decision to make about or in Africa. The United States, like France, Britain, and other key members of the Western coalition, faces a test of sincerity at a moment of renewed doubts about the soundness and universality of liberal values like individual liberty, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, constitutional government, and political toleration. Working with these countries, the United States must unapologetically raise the banner of liberal democracy.

It has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Ebenezer Obadare is the Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a senior fellow at the New York University School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, as well as a fellow at the University of South Africa’s Institute of Theology. He is the author of Pastoral Power, Clerical State: Pentecostalism, Gender, and Sexuality in Nigeria.

Image: Andrew Leyden / Shutterstock.com.