

Are We Shifting to Africa Rather Than Pivoting to Asia? - jeanbebe
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/are-we-shifting-to-africa-rather-than-pivoting-to-asia/280318/

======
afreak
It boils down to this: the United States needs to have a sphere of influence
(good or bad) within Africa to compete with China, which is pumping billions
into various African countries' infrastructure. The strategy as given in the
article is debatable.

~~~
draugadrotten
China wants to do to Africa what the USA did to Asia: China will support a
growing wealthy middle class by outsourcing to low-cost labour in Africa and
of course it's all about oil and cheap minerals.

The muslim world and China are way ahead when it comes to supporting the
African growth. Europe has some traction in the old colonies, but the white
guilt weighs heavy on Europe. The arabs feels no guilt, even though they were
heavily involved in the slave trade.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade)

The USA seems to be far behind the curve in Africa. It's probably not feasible
for the USA to overcome the white guilt for the slave trade in order to
outsource to Africa.

The next global war will start over resources in Africa.

~~~
VLM
Your analogy breaks down with "USA" and "growing wealthy middle class". If
anything the result has (intentionally?) been the reverse. Other than that,
not bad.

Africa is the key for cobalt, chrome, and platinum, everything else is meh on
the world market. I acknowledge they make plenty of money off copper, but they
don't control the world copper market like they control the world cobalt
market.

Historically the resource stripping strategy in Africa resembled the middle
east, put up a crooked strongman, keep him bribed and happy, and its all good.
Occasional coup here and there. Not seeing why that successful strategy would
be abandoned for a global war so not so impressed with that idea.

Another political/cultural issue you missed is its hard to give money/support
to people in, say, Namibia, when their distant cousins in Detroit have a
perception of a worse economic situation. I say perception because they
probably are numerically better off in Detroit.

------
randomafrican
Two raids don't make a policy.

What happened recently is that 3 countries that happen to be in Africa became
frontlines in the War On Terror.

