Obama, Africa, Influences and Allies

President Barack Obama recently met with 50 African dignitaries and representatives in a Washington summit to encourage U.S. businesses to set aside $14 billion to invest in the troubled continent.

Although much is said of the humanitarian nature of the action, one infers that the ultimate goal is to counteract Chinese investments, trade and political influence in Africa.

The question is whether these measures will enable the White House to offset the advances of a power that isn’t holding summits but rather injecting capital throughout the continent.

Africa is a rich continent, whose mineral and petroleum resources are enormous. Of course, it also has issues: the dictatorships in Senegal and Zimbabwe; the countries that remain in conflict, such as Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Mali, Somalia and Sudan; those that are being affected by the Ebola virus, like Sierra Leona, Guinea and Liberia; and the poorest countries, like the Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Zimbabwe and Somalia, that barely survive amid tribal conflicts, poverty and famines.

Africa is a mosaic of languages, tribes, and cultures, which suffered arbitrary territorial demarcations in the past century. These, instead of creating order, installed mechanisms that have facilitated internal conflicts, economic imbalances and political inequality that still abound.

With this summit, President Obama takes a break from the continued degradation of his controversial global leadership, which his detractors claim makes the United States look bad. Very few will question him about his good intentions towards Africa. Although, on a strategic geopolitical level, the United States is also losing influence in the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.

In the Middle East, the recent disproportionate reaction of the Jewish population in Gaza threatens to make Israel look bad. And Washington’s more “conservative” allies, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, have become irritated by U.S. diplomacy´s inability to contain Benjamin Netanyahu in his unbridled military actions in Gaza, which have caused extensive suffering for hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

For their part, Iraq and Afghanistan will always be a mortal trap, in which al-Qaida radicals and rebels from the caliphate of Iraq and Syria will be a constant and purulent threat, which could spread throughout the entire region.

In Europe, the United States’ closest allies — England, France, and Germany — are experiencing similar, uncomfortable internal situations, in which transparent, democratic mechanisms and opposing forces prevent them from easily engaging in any type of military action. Besides, Europeans engage their diplomatic resources more than their military force (of course, France’s actions in Mali and the Central African Republic have been the exception in the last few years).

In Latin America, the recent visits by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe couldn’t be more important or relevant. From a strategic perspective, these are not courtesy visits: they are visits by world leaders that bring capital in their portfolios, cooperation in diverse areas and strategic alliances that corrode and call into question any leadership from Washington in the region. Additionally, the countries visited by these leaders are already nations of great prominence and influence. It suffices to say that Brazil is the sixth largest economy of the planet, Mexico, the fifteenth, and Argentina, the twenty-first, according to the World Bank.

Thus, the position of these countries sets up a new international order. Here, Russia, Japan, China, India, Brazil and the European Union are on par with the United States. In other words, these nations are forming a new multi-polarity, lost since 1914.

If we examine the crises that have originated or worsened during the Obama administration – in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Gaza and Ukraine – the accounts don’t favor the U.S. president´s interests. Not one has been resolved, but rather, all have escalated.

Is it bad luck or a less interventionist approach? Are military actions necessary to improve the president’s image? Must the United States necessarily involve itself in every global conflict?

Or is it no longer possible to harness U.S. diplomacy without its foreign allies, since the above-mentioned powers could offset any American action by presenting pacifist alternatives?

I believe that Obama is a good man. But his international leadership, anchored in the same White House methods (and others will add Pentagon and CIA methods), doesn’t have the effectiveness that these new international political phenomena require to be resolved.

New leadership strategies and new diplomatic approaches are needed. Why not strive for a new international compromise to counter dictators, reduce conflict, advance equality and respect the diverse cultures of the world?