US Peace Operations Policy in Africa: From ACRI to AFRICOM

Abstract

This article examines the changing nature of US peacekeeping policy in Africa in the post-cold war period. After an account of the failures in Somalia and Rwanda in the early 1990s, it traces the evolution of various training programmes, from the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) in the early 1990s to the African Command (AFRICOM). We argue that, while these initiatives had some characteristics that were welcomed by African states, the programmes never achieved their full potential. The United States was quick to replace one programme with another when it ran into difficulty with the recipients, leading to a shift from guarded enthusiasm initially to a more pervasive scepticism about the real imperatives currently driving US policy on the continent, namely, counter-terrorism.