Foreign Intervention In Africa

Abstract

Albeit somewhat improbably an historical survey of foreign intervention in black Africa produces a striking reinforcement of Maitland’s ‘seamless web’ view of history. Perhaps, one may remark upon the roots, sometimes long, of foreign intervention and action as all lying in the domestic histories of the intervening powers. This chapter explores a structure based on the activities of individual nations, in turn France, the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain. The only other country to match the French in overt military activities in post-independence Africa is the Soviet Union, together with its principal surrogate, Cuba. The United States has been chary of overt military involvements outside the American hemisphere, a chariness strongly reinforced by the Vietnam experience. Soviet interventions, weapon sales, military agreements and intelligence activities are perhaps more closely interlocked than those of other countries. Sometimes arms transfers are linked to specific political conditions, but generally African states have been able to exercise some preference against such conditions.