If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times: wars come and go, but agendas often stay the same.
The stage is being set for a series of political, economic, and military developments which will create an important new factor in African and Middle
Eastern politics. I believe this effort will be made by the United States, which in many ways can be seen as having assumed the same strategic goals
which the British Empire pursued in the late 19th century.
America's political rivalry and potentially dangerous economic relationship with China creates a compelling interest for America in securing a close
relationship with India, which will likely include attempts to pull India away from its non-aligned tradition.
In addition to the necessity of developing a closer relationship with India both economically and politically, there are direct incentives for
American development of East Africa.
America can find new export markets in Africa, opportunities for investment, new sources for metals and other mineral resources as well as textiles
and other goods. Additionally, it's time for America to start thinking about a new strategic anchor for the Middle East in the light of Turkey's
refusal to host our forces for the invasion of Iraq, and the possible that Iranian nuclear weapons may one day threaten our ability to maintain a
presence in the Middle East itself.
If an Islamic nation gets the bomb and tell us to get the heck out of Saudi, we need somewhere to fall back to from where we maintain the ability to
project force, but do not have an objectionable presence in the region and are not within such easy reach of Iranian weapons.
Britain's relationship with India was an important factor in that empire's approach to the "Scramble for Africa". Britain's goal was to control
East Africa from Cape Town to Cairo, which would have made British access to India almost solely contingent upon their continued naval dominance and
possession of Gibraltar.
In similar fashion, though not primarily by direct military means, I expect that America has plans for a sphere of control including Southern Sudan,
Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, and either Somalia or Eritrea. The Democratic Republic of Congo, and further in the future perhaps also Tanzania,
Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Zambia are also potential targets of US ambition.
I believe the purpose of such a plan would be to develop closer economic ties to India in addition go gaining obvious direct strategic and economic
advantages. India, despite being a major exporter to Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Somalia currently only derives 0.95% of its export revenue
from these nations because of their low purchasing power.
www.africa-business.com...
India's potential exports to these countries include machinery and transport equipment, petroleum products, paper and wood products, textiles,
iron and steel, plastic and linoleum products, rubber manufactured products, agro products, chemicals and pharmaceutical products. These countries can
also be important sources for import of petroleum, metallurgical goods, raw cotton, fruit, vegetables and preparations, chemicals, non-metallic
mineral manufactures, precious stones, textile yarn, gold, nickel, and ferro-alloys.
What I specifically expect is the following:
Southern Sudan will seceede from Sudan by 2012 if not sooner. Efforts will be made to secure possession of the Blue Nile and Kordofan provinces before
this occurs. This may be accomplished via an expansion of conflicts in Darfur- the recent declaration of war on Sudan by Chad could be a means to this
end. (I hesitate to even say this, because I can't prove it, but I began researching this subject on December 15th, and anticipated Chad's
declaration of war- I can't overstate how much I hate myself for not finishing my work that week, before Chad declared war.)
Anyway, here's what I expect from Southern Sudan by the time of secession, which, although I haven't yet done enough looking to be sure, could
hypothetically start to materialize well before the 2012 referendum- maybe even this year in the event that the war with Chad actually gets rough.
The blue line represents currently autonomous Southern Sudan.
The red line represents probable S. Sudanese ambitions (or outsiders ambitions for S. Sudan).
The brown line represents an uncertainty which could result either in Southern possession, especially of West Darfur, a VERY unlikely Chadean
occupation, or Northern retention of those provinces.
There is some uncertainty as to the inclusion of the West and South Kordofan provinces- those may be hard to come by. Blue Nile is far less doubtful
in my opinion because of the potential implications for the region of the hydroelectric potential there.
Tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia suggest a probability of Somalia being the choice for a port. There are two possibilities here. 1. America,
India, and the EU can get together behind Swaziland and make Berbera the port in the North, and just use Mombasa and Dar es Salaam in the South. 2.
They can try to stabilize all of Somalia to open up Mogadishu as well.
Ethiopia and Kenya can expect to enjoy peace and business as usual, with India steadily upping its investment and interaction with each. Eventually
they can expect to see power, road, and irrigation infrastructure being developed to tie them in better with Southern Sudan, particularly the
electricity that can be generated from Blue Nile. I suspect that there will eventually be some industrialization of those nations if neighbors can be
made to pick up the slack on food.
Uganda's a logical component of feeding this little outfit, but they've got more than a few problems... ditto most of central Africa actually, so
I'm beginning to think that nothing will be done with them until there is something economically promising developing in the neighboring nations.
When that happens, India and neighboring nations, probably with a lot of backing from ECOWAS will step up to put down the Lord's Resistance Army.
It seems like I'm ready to end this post for now, although I feel like I haven't done as much with this theory as I intended. Hopefully I'll be
able to improve and clarify this as I do more reading, and of course as news events either confirm or refute the basic premises I'm working under.