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The new US strategy has begun to bear fruit in North Africa. Future American strategies will pursue diverse asymmetric strategies to fight China.
The US’s political decline brought geopolitical uncertainty. After the post-Cold war era, the US has sat on the throne of World leadership and assumed its position at the center of a new unipolar system with submissive satellite states. However, 9/11 marked the decline of US global power due to increasing asymmetric threats following Al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Instead of boosting a global strategy and maintaining leadership, the US abandoned lofty ideals and was bogged down in fighting petty terrorist groups. Due to this policy, rivals have capitalized on a distracted US and began climbing up to compete with Washington everywhere.
The US miscalculations affected its geopolitical decline. After the war in Iraq and the’ War on Terror’ campaign, the US global geopolitical performance slowed down. Despite having military bases over the globe, the series of military campaigns weakened US resources. Thereby, many rising powers have surfaced on the top of international disputes while regional powers got momentum with the void left by the US. For instance, the Arab-uprising marked a geopolitical interplay of many states competing in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, while the dispute in the East Mediterranean makes it clear that geopolitical competitions no longer the sole right of the superpower.
While rivals flex their military muscles, China used the economy to boost its strategy. Many rivals have capitalized on the negative role of the US, as China took the advantage of free trade in the system. Despite being ideologically far away from the Western camp, China has used a permissible and smooth way to avoid any potential strategic punishment from the US. Thereby, China could orchestrate between the free economies to link the world through its project OBOR (One Belt One Road) and could build and modernize its military. As a result, through its smooth economic strategy, China could pull in more than 150 states to sign for its economic projects.
In this respect, Algeria is one of the states that signed up for OBOR. Despite most North African states have signed the OBOR contract; the Sino-Algerian ties raise doubts for the US. The US and Algeria have never been on the same page, except for fighting terrorism. Algeria is always considered as a member of the Eastern camp that encompasses both China and Russia. However, the visit of the US’s Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, to Algeria the last October deemed a bold move from the US, while it was normal after frequent visits to Tunisia and Morocco.
The US move in North Africa is a geostrategic arrangement for the coming fight against China. Algeria is a pivotal state with a strong military capability in the region. Despite having Tunisia and Morocco to be the US’ proxies, Algeria can be considered a rogue state from Washington’s point of view. Strategically, Algeria could stand for a geostrategic spot in favor of China and Russia in case of war, in the eyes of the US. The Algerian refusal of any high-level strategic cooperation with the US means Algeria would help China to boost its OBOR to Africa through Algeria, and its ally Russia.
Fighting China implies weakening allying states. It is clear that the US cannot directly go to war with China. China is already ahead of the US in some decisive areas such as shipbuilding, defense systems, and offensive weapons. etc. Also, the geographic position that led the US to victory in the post-second WWII would be the same factor that would weaken Washington if the OBOR (One Belt One Road) takes place. Strategically, the geographic position of the US means that Washington would not be able to guarantee military supplies over Eurasia where China’s infrastructure will be off limits to American goods. At this point, the US strategy is to disconnect China from connecting states over the world.
In the same vein, Algeria’s neutral stand would be considered a threat to the US. For Washington, there is no guarantee that Algeria would be neutral in case of a dispute against Algiers’ allies. By that, the strait of Gibraltar would be the main challenging problem that would face the US to access to the Mediterranean than to the MENA, Europe, and Asia. Strategic calculations for any state consider the worst scenario to meet the expectation of political aims. This means the US strategy in the region to keep Algeria far away from causing any problem implies playing on security and economic areas.
Western Sahara is one of the implications of the US strategies in the region. It is not new to hear about the frequent back and forth between Western Sahara and Morocco. What is new is the asymmetric war between the two sides with the political support of the US allies to Morocco against Western Sahrawis in this time. Despite falling in the case of colonization liquidation whether, in the UN or AU (African Union), and the UN MINURSO mission to speed up the referendum process for self-determination, the US footprint became clear after the visit of the US Secretary of Defense to Morocco.
Intensifying insecurity spots, as one of the US strategies, would favor the US role. Not only standing against Washington’s allies would favor the US role. The military campaign against Sahrawis will incentivize insecurity implications in the region with the escalation of terrorist and smuggling groups. It seems that Morocco miscalculated its asymmetric capabilities and political support that Morocco has currently. Spoiling the security of the entire region would favor Washington too since China with its OBOR project is the target of the US. This means the main challenges that China faces in its project is security. Neither economic sanctions nor going to a direct war with China would prove successful. Thereby, insecurity spots would arrange the US back to the world screen after pushing China to consume its military and economic energy to achieve and secure its project.
Insecurity scenario would replicate over the Chinese OBOR. Besides Western Sahara, the dispute within Ethiopia of Tigray with the government, and the dispute between Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan, and Eretria would know a new twist. While Washington was to mediate and push all parts to reach a comprehensive, cooperative, adaptive, sustainable, and mutually beneficial agreement last year, a few weeks ago Trump called for Egypt to bomb the Ethiopian dam. That means, despite being a US ally for a long time, Ethiopia is considered for a strategic arrangement that the US needs. In other words, after the denial of Israel to protect the Ethiopian dam, it seems that the US wants to address a message to Ethiopia that; the US can protect your strategic project.
Ethiopia is the only country that meets the US geostrategic expectations in the region. Ethiopia is relatively stable compared to neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa, regional power, geopolitically well positioned (as the main gate to Africa from the East) and the US can easily control downstream countries once it gets control of Ethiopia. Another scenario in Ethiopia could take place, if the US would not establish a military base to balance the Chinese threat near Djibouti, the US would probably play the states in the region against each other. Not only in Ethiopia, but the US would also reach and use the game of insecurity wherever the Chinese threat exists.
Both the political and geopolitical decline of the US in the globe lead to a strategic dispute between Washington and Beijing. Despite the policy of insecurity has started over a decade with the withdrawal of the US troupes, the impact of Covid-19 over the globe has pushed up the dispute on the screen of international relations. The impact of the virus has weakened the US and the pendulum of power swung to the side of the Chinese with their health diplomacy that reached everywhere. This has compelled the US to proactively move and use its allies before being allied with China.
One target would cause the collapse of many victims. Intensifying insecurity spots is not the only strategy, diplomacy and rosy friendship also would color the US coming strategies. It is highly expected to see that the US would mobilize its traditional strategies to decisively finish off China. The US could return to its allies from Muslim majority countries as it happened in the 1980s, as Washington could get great ties with the Taliban. Furthermore, the Uighur Muslims’ matter would widely be known. However, the flip side of this strategy would clearly show how the real world is; Muslims are friends of America, but Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya…would be anomalous. Of course, Western Sahrawis are alike, not an exception.
Very well written, I learned a lot from this article and about current events that are shaking the world. Thank you!