Africa Policy in the Clinton Years: Critical Choices for the Bush Administration

Africa Policy in the Clinton Years: Critical Choices for the Bush Administration. Edited by J. Stephen Morrison and Jennifer G. Cooke. Significant Issues Series. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2001. Pp. xiv, 153. $19.95 paper. J. Stephen Morrison and Jennifer G. Cooke have provided a comprehensive collection of critical essays on the institutional legacy of the Clinton administration foreign policy in Africa and the priorities for the Bush administration to craft a more coherent, effective, and in Chester Cracker's words "realistic and sustainable" one. Taken together, Morrison and Cooke's "Preview of Major Findings" and Terrence Lyons chapter on diplomacy propose approaching Africa policy from the vantage point of focusing the institutions inherited by the Clinton administration, building robust Africa policy alliances with Congress, European allies, some African states, the United Nations, media and non-governmental organizations, and, finally, rebuilding the diplomatic corps in Washington and in Africa so that reliable and consistent information about the continent can be incorporated into a sound vision of strategic U.S. interest in Africa. Finally, they argue that marshalling partnerships will promote accountability in states where misdirected, scattered, and symbolic assistance and intervention has harmed U.S. credibility and contributed to the needless loss of life in consistently high-stakes conflicts. Given the ongoing tragedies of terrorist bombings in London, Madrid, and New York and the G-8 Summit focus on African debt cancellation and development, the most conspicuously and tragically timely of the chapters of this handbook is, of course, Jendayi Frazer's and Jeffrey Herbst's recommendation for increased commitment to narrowly focused African security operations that require better interagency cooperation, assessment of the Clinton administration's diffuse policy toward conflict intervention on the entire continent, strengthening regional and Atlantic peacekeeping efforts, and soliciting better intelligence on the continent with a view toward prevention and peacekeeping. In the same vein, Peter M. Lewis considers the criticism that the Clinton administration's African Growth and Opportunity Act replaced a vastly diminished foreign aid regime with one focused on increased foreign investment. Critics argue that even the most successful investors in the energy sector in Africa have been made vulnerable by the lack of well-coordinated U.S. led incentives for African governmental reform and an improved regulatory environment for best practices on human rights and environmental protections. Without such U.S. leadership, particularly on the funding of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and re-direction of money secured from debt cancellation to immediate expansion of social services, the private sector is vulnerable to the many economic challenges that continue to outweigh Africa's economic promise. …