Diplomacy & Politics Archive

At the end of last year, visiting Kenya under the auspices of a Stimson Center development and transnational security project in East Africa, I met Baraka, a 2.5-ton black rhinoceros that, despite being completely blind, is truly lucky. Baraka, whose name means “blessings” in Swahili, lives in a 100-acre safeguarded part of Kenya’s Sweetwaters National Park on the foothills of Mount Kenya. There he mingles with visitors, whom he allows to both pet and feed him. Though rhinos are a naturally aggressive species, Baraka seems to think he has no natural enemies. Perhaps he would feel differently if he knew […]

Africa has never been central to America’s global security strategy. From Washington’s vantage, the continent has always been less important than Europe, the Pacific Rim, the Middle East or Latin America. The official approach has normally been one of relative indifference with a bit of aid when things got really bad. In the past year, though, several factors have increased the attention being paid to Africa by American policymakers and military leaders. For starters, the past 10 years have seen significant economic and political progress. While Africa remains the world’s poorest continent, its economy is flourishing, potentially providing an opportunity […]

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on Tuareg politics in northern Mali. Part I examines the factors shaping internal political development among Mali’s Tuareg community. Part II will examine the factors shaping external relations among Mali’s Tuareg, the Malian government and France. The crisis in Mali put the Malian Tuareg community at the center of international security concerns. But for all the attention that the “desert warriors” behind the armed uprising in northern Mali have received, little effort has been made so far to develop an understanding of the internal politics of the Tuareg community and […]