Non-aligned!

Abstract

Abstract Africa’s stance on the Russian-Ukraine war has elicited censure from the West, resulting in diplomatic bruises at the multilateral level. Efforts by the NATO countries to utilise multilateral fora, such as the United Nations, to generate unanimous condemnation of Russia and the application of diplomatic pressure bilaterally have not yielded the expected outcome. We argue that without a clear strategy to support the mitigation of the fallouts of the conflict in African countries, the West’s expectation of Africa’s alignment with its interpretation of collective security is, at best idealistic. By mapping out the rationale for Africa’s position as expressed by individual member states and the African Union, we argue that Africa’s non-aligned position is not a deviation from the Charter principles but rather a pragmatic strategy for mitigating its vulnerabilities against the fallouts of the conflict.