Un modèle de développement à l’américaine ? Quelques aspects de la politique des Etats-Unis en Ethiopie dans les années cinquante

Abstract

Freed from Italian occupation by the Allies in 1941, Haile Selassie's Abyssinian empire benefited in the 1950s from an American economic and military development plan rooted in the alignments of the Cold War, and motivated by a bipartisan wish to transform this rare case of African independence into a model for other emerging countries about to break loose from European colonial powers. A stronghold on the shores of the Red Sea, strategically located in the defense area meant to assert US hegemony over both the Middle East and Africa, Ethiopia offered a rare example of political stability favorable to Western interests, whose economic progress was designed to counter the growing influence of the "non-aligned" movement born in Bandung. Suddenly granted the status of a regional power against the global background of the East-West struggle, Ethiopia thus became Washington 's proxy when the United States set out to curb down Nasser's nationalist influence in the region and his claims over the Suez canal. A cornerstone in the containment ring established in the Middle East by the Eisenhower doctrine, Ethiopia was to be a bridgehead from which to win over the rest of the African continent.