The World: A Brief Introduction

by Richard Haass

  Regional organizations have made little contribution to stability or prosperity in this part of the world. The Arab League, founded in 1945 and now numbering twenty-two Arab countries, has largely ignored internal issues that have held back most of its members and focused instead on maintaining a confrontational, united front against Israel or, more recently, Iran. The Gulf Cooperation Council, essentially comprising the Sunni Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, has become little more than a Saudi-dominated front against Iran. There is no regional organization that includes Israel, Turkey, and Iran in addition to the Arab states—which is to say there is no regional organization in a position to tackle regional issues.

  LOOKING AHEAD

  One additional factor merits discussion. The Middle East includes one country with nuclear weapons, and that is Israel. Israel developed nuclear weapons in the 1960s, largely through its own efforts but also with French assistance, presumably as the ultimate instrument of self-defense given the hostility of many of its neighbors to its existence. The details of the Israeli program are uncertain, though, because it has purposely decided on a public policy of ambiguity to avoid sanctions and so as not to increase the desire of its neighbors to develop their own nuclear arsenals. At least twice Israel has attacked neighbors to prevent them from going down such a path, launching air strikes on facilities in Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007. Several years later, the United States and Israel are widely believed to have inserted malware into the Iranian nuclear program in an effort to slow its development.

  The question is whether the Middle East can continue to avoid a dangerous nuclear competition. Iran came close to developing nuclear weapons but backed off in the face of economic sanctions and the risk of being attacked. What followed were negotiations among Iran, the United States, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and Germany that culminated in 2015 in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The agreement temporarily reduced Iran’s ability to amass the fuel required to build a nuclear weapons arsenal; in exchange, Iran received considerable sanctions relief. Under President Trump, though, the United States in 2018 exited the agreement on the grounds that its terms (negotiated under the Obama administration) were not demanding enough given that important elements of the pact would expire in a decade or so and also because the agreement did not restrain either Iran’s missile program or its malign regional activities. At the same time, new economic sanctions on Iran were introduced. In response, Iran decided to breach the limits on uranium enrichment specified under the JCPOA, use its proxy forces to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, attack Saudi Arabia, and target U.S. personnel in Iraq. There are several questions: Will U.S. sanctions persuade Iran to agree to new constraints on its nuclear program and missile development in order to achieve much-needed sanctions relief? Or, will Iran seek to enrich enough uranium to put itself in a position to make a number of nuclear weapons with little warning? Will it achieve a nuclear capability that in turn leads others (particularly Saudi Arabia, but possibly Turkey and Egypt as well) to follow suit? Or, will the United States and Israel use military force to attempt to destroy critical elements of Iran’s nuclear program before it becomes operational?

  Whatever happens involving Iran, what is certain is that the Middle East lacks many of the prerequisites of stability. The map of the region conceals the reality that many of the borders are contested and several of the governments are not in control of what goes on within their borders. There is no balance of power and no shared sense of what the region should look like or how change should come about. Increasingly, the region is a venue of often violent competition among the most powerful local countries—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt—that is further complicated by the regional interests of several of the major powers—mostly the United States, Russia, and to a lesser extent China—and the actions of a troubling range of non-state actors such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, and various Kurdish militias. All of this suggests a future for the Middle East that is like its past, defined by violence within and across borders, little freedom or democracy, and standards of living that lag behind much of the rest of the world.

  Africa

  Africa is difficult to characterize because it is a continent of contradictions, of successes and failures, of economic progress and extreme poverty, of emerging democracies and old-fashioned tyrannies, of countries that are stable and others racked by conflict. Its sheer size makes it even more challenging to encapsulate. It is made up of forty-nine countries occupying territory larger than the combined area of the United States, Western Europe, and India.

  For the purposes of our discussion, Africa refers specifically to Africa south of the Sahara or sub-Saharan Africa. This is an admittedly imprecise geographic designation used to distinguish the countries and peoples constituting the bulk of the continent from those of northern Africa that are normally treated as part of the Middle East given their use of Arabic, their religion (Islam), and their identity. The countries of northern Africa view themselves as part of the Arab world, even though they retain their membership in Africa’s regional body (the African Union). Making matters even more confusing is that a number of other countries, including Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti, are sometimes grouped on linguistic and religious grounds with the Maghreb countries of northern Africa.

  HISTORY

  Arbitrary groupings aside, the history of sub-Saharan Africa, or simply Africa as it will be called here, goes back centuries before the Europeans arrived and exploited its resources and people. The Europeans enslaved more than ten million Africans and transported them to the Western Hemisphere, beginning in the sixteenth century and lasting until slavery was outlawed in the nineteenth. There was a parallel, trans-Sahara slave trade in which Arabs enslaved millions more Africans and transported them to North Africa and the Middle East. That traffic lasted longer than the transatlantic trade, starting in the Middle Ages and continuing until the twentieth century.

  Once the slave trade began, it was not long until Europeans established colonies in Africa. France, Portugal, and Great Britain, to be followed by Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, all built outposts on the continent. By the early twentieth century, Europeans had laid claim to most of the continent.

  The details of the division of the continent into colonies reflected European interests more than African realities. Colonial lines were drawn with little or no attention given to local tribal, religious, or clan-related identities or commercial patterns. Seeds were thus sown for instability both within and between the countries that emerged from colonialism.

  The colonial era in Africa proved to be relatively short-lived, lasting less than a century. Following World War II and the advent of the Cold War, neither the United States nor the Soviet Union was much interested in African colonies; the United States in particular opposed any extension of the European colonial era lest it provide opportunities for the Soviet Union to make inroads by backing nationalist forces. In addition, the Europeans themselves mostly grew weary of African colonies, given the mounting cost of maintaining them at a time when their citizens questioned the benefits of such sacrifices. France, which tended to see its colonies less as colonies than as extensions of France itself, tried to stay the course in Algeria but in 1962 gave up after a ruinous eight-year war that cost upwards of fifteen thousand French lives and hundreds of thousands of Algerian lives and threatened political stability back home.

  As was the case in the Middle East and South Asia, the rapid end of the colonial period after World War II was often occasioned by conflict. Wars dominated the postcolonial years of what had been the Belgian Congo, Nigeria, and a number of other newly independent countries. It is also true that few of the former colonies were prepared to meet the demands of self-rule. Ever since, for most African countries, their biggest challenge has been establishing good governance. Those that have succeeded are more the exception than the rule. More common have been autocratic and corrupt government
s and countries characterized by a lack of stability and economic opportunity for the majority of their people.

  One of the most compelling and important episodes in Africa’s modern history is that of South Africa. The area was colonized successively by the Dutch and the British. There were at times extended armed conflicts between them and the African tribes who were living there when they arrived. The last of these wars, the Second Boer War fought between the British and the Boers, who were the descendants of Dutch settlers, ended in 1902. The British won the war, but it was a Pyrrhic victory in many ways, and over the course of the century the modern-day Boers, or Afrikaners, gradually gained the upper hand.

  What we now call South Africa became a self-governing nation within the British Empire in 1910. Nearly four decades later, in 1948, the National Party was elected to power and formalized existing policies of racial discrimination, which became known as apartheid, or separateness. Under this system, citizens were classified as White, Coloured, or Black. A white minority ruled over a black majority that was disadvantaged by every economic, social, and political measure.

  This cruel reality provoked two reactions. One was the rise of political and military movements dedicated to overthrowing the system. The best known is the African National Congress, later led by Nelson Mandela. The other was the eventual response of the international community that included economic and political sanctions to isolate and weaken the minority regime. In 1961, following a referendum, South Africa terminated its status as a dominion with the queen of England as ceremonial head of state and became a republic. That same year, South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations because of its members’ hostility to apartheid. Matters came to a head in the early 1990s with black riots and a declining economy, the latter in part a result of sanctions.

  Change when it arrived did so quickly and, for the most part, peacefully. Historical precedents would have predicted a violent transition. It was avoided in this instance, however, due to the leadership of two remarkable individuals. One, Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid activist, had been a political prisoner for twenty-seven years, eighteen of which were spent on Robben Island, a rock quarry near Cape Town. Nevertheless, after his release his message was one of reconciliation, not revenge. The other was F. W. de Klerk, who turned out to be the last president of the Afrikaner-dominated system. It was de Klerk’s understanding that change in the form of majority rule was inevitable. His concerns were when it would happen, how it would come about, and whether it would be violent or peaceful. Neither Mandela nor de Klerk acting alone could have succeeded. Decades ago I wrote about ripeness, and the bottom line is that diplomatic success requires leaders on both sides of a struggle who are willing and able to compromise. To have had such leaders was South Africa’s good fortune. In the end, change came without prolonged or large-scale violence, and Mandela in 1994 became the first president of postapartheid South Africa. But as will be discussed below, that development, as significant as it was both for what it meant and for what it avoided, did not guarantee a successful future for the country.

  GEOPOLITICS

  There is relatively little in the way of geopolitical competition for influence—be it between local countries or outside powers—in contemporary Africa, especially when it is compared with the Middle East, South and East Asia, and Europe. If colonialism constituted the first phase of contemporary African history, and the era of decolonization and the Cold War the second, modern Africa is now in its third phase. There has been some European, American, and, increasingly, Chinese investment in infrastructure and minerals. And there is periodic terrorism. But again, the continent is more distinguished by a relative lack of geopolitics. Wars within countries are more common than between them, and when conflicts are instigated by external factors, it tends to be less for reasons of coercion or conquest than because of refugee flows or ethnically based violence.

  ECONOMICS

  As is the case with everything else in Africa, the economic reality is mixed. Africa’s collective GDP has grown sharply over time but is still small, constituting only a few percent of the world total. In recent years, overall growth has averaged between 3 and 4 percent, lower than it needs to be for most Africans to enter the middle class given the low starting point and the fact that the region’s population continues to grow rapidly. Still, the percentage of Africans living in what is judged to be poverty has gone down, but the absolute number of Africans living in poverty has gone up. More than half of the world’s poor live in sub-Saharan Africa, with 400 million people living on less than $2 per day. Half of the people in the world lacking regular access to electricity live in this region. Tax collection tends to be minimal; corruption tends to be extensive. Literacy has improved to the point where as many as 60 percent of Africans are literate, but the number of illiterate people has actually increased.

  GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF THOSE LIVING IN EXTREME POVERTY

  Number of people living on less than $1.90 per day

  Note: Data is for 2015 or the most recent year available for each country.

  Source: World Bank.

  Intra-African trade is negligible. Imports from outside the region constitute a large share of what is consumed. Exports are largely primary commodities, such as oil and minerals. Infrastructure is inadequate; in sub-Saharan Africa, only Nigeria and South Africa rank among the top one hundred connected countries globally. Given visa requirements, it is often easier for Americans to travel around Africa than it is for Africans themselves. Manufacturing is also modest and is growing slowly. It is too soon to determine whether the African Continental Free Trade Area established in 2018 will make a meaningful difference, but there is reason to doubt that it will given the many obstacles to its implementation.

  PEOPLE AND SOCIETY

  There has been important progress in the realm of health. Over recent decades, life expectancy has increased across the continent and is now over sixty years, although this still lags the global average of seventy-two years. Infant and maternal mortality rates are down. Many infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and malaria, have largely been brought under control.

  Africa still remains highly vulnerable, though, to infectious diseases, as evidenced by periodic outbreaks of Ebola. Less dramatic but arguably no less important, Africa is increasingly bearing the burden of noninfectious, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, often associated with a sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, and the use of tobacco products. Health-care systems are inadequate.

  Africa’s population, now more than one billion, is the world’s fastest growing. It is also the youngest. The region’s population has quadrupled in the last fifty years and is predicted to double again, to two billion, by mid-century. It is steadily becoming more urbanized. Also likely, though, is that this population increase will prove to be more of a burden than an asset because it is unlikely that there will be sufficient jobs for those entering the workforce. The real danger is that population increases will mean that many Africans will continue to lack many of the essentials of life even if a higher number of Africans come to have them. Adding to the troubling forecast for the people of Africa, this population increase will take place against the backdrop of technological innovation that in many instances will threaten existing jobs or create new ones that will require training that few will be able to acquire.

  AFRICA’S POPULATION IS PROJECTED TO GROW FROM 1.1 BILLION TO 3.9 BILLION

  Projected population, in billions

  Source: United Nations Population Division.

  POLITICS

  There are meaningful examples of political progress in Africa, and these will likely continue. Democracy is gaining ground in many countries. More than half of all Africans live in countries that are free or partly free and can be accurately described as functioning (if not full-fledged) democracies. Increasingly, incumbents are being voted out of power; also increas
ing is the number of constitutions that impose term limits on heads of state. Still, it is premature to conclude that the tide of history is running in democracy’s favor in Africa or that it can be concluded that democracy in any particular country is there to stay. Too many African countries have experienced internal conflict. The Rwandan civil war in the early 1990s claimed as many as 800,000 lives, many of whom perished in a genocide that targeted the country’s Tutsi minority. More recently, there have been violent internal conflicts in Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is no sign that such conflicts are becoming either less frequent or less intense.

  The two most important countries in Africa are arguably South Africa and Nigeria. They represent more than one-fifth of Africa’s population and more than 45 percent of its economic output. They are the continent’s two anchors.

  As noted above, 1994 marked the arrival of a postapartheid South Africa ruled by its black majority. As is often the case, one-party rule (in this instance, under the African National Congress) has proved disappointing. Inequality remains high; for many blacks, political change has not brought economic change. Corruption has been extensive. The world’s largest population with HIV/AIDS lives in South Africa. The bottom line is that the promise of postapartheid South Africa has not been realized.