A new scramble is on for Africa, and the US wants to secure the vast continent of 800 million people not only for its oil but also as a buffer against future terrorist threats to Europe.
Instead of being left in the dust, as Washington was at the 19th century Berlin Conference, where European powers divided up the dark continent, the US military is already out in front with its own new programs.
For example, the US European Command, based in Germany, has already forged an anti-terrorist coalition in northern Africa that recently pursued the leader of the tourist-snatching, Algerian-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat across Niger and into Chad. The leader, a man who goes variously by the names Saifi Amari and Abderrazak le Para, escaped, but 43 followers were killed and 18 were detained.
At a seminar on Tuesday in Washington, US General Charles Wald, deputy commander for the US European Command, used bold terms to outline ambitious plans for Africa. The ideas presented at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative, free-market think tank, will likely anchor discussions at a European-wide meeting next month in Luxembourg, Wald said.
Key to Washington's push is increasing US reliance on oil from West Africa and the offshore Gulf of Guinea reserves, which currently meet about 15 per cent of US needs and are expected to rise to 25 per cent of US needs over the coming decade. In addition to the apparent abundance of offshore oil, the direct trans-Atlantic shipping access allows US-bound tankers to avoid congested and potentially dangerous Middle Eastern bottlenecks.
As US interest in Africa's oil has grown, so have the al-Qaeda terrorist network and other groups seeking to make inroads around Africa. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had a base in Sudan during the 1990s and was blamed for the 1998 twin bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Moroccan terrorists are believed to have been at the core of last month's Madrid railway bombings, which killed nearly 200 people.
With just the narrow strait of Gibraltar separating Europe and Africa's burgeoning population, Wald painted a bleak picture if the dual threats of terrorism and AIDS are allowed to develop unchecked.
"Europe is a safe haven for a lot of terrorists. They can grow and recruit there. That's going to raise more and more of an issue.
Those ... 1.3 billion (Africans) 20 years from now, is that going to be a curse or a benefit to Europe?" Wald asked.
Seminar participants suggested that Europe could stem its plummeting economy and "voluntary self extermination" -- the phrase David Hale of Hale Advisers LLS used to describe Western Europe's low birth rate and population decline -- through expanded economic and military cooperation with Africa and more liberal immigration policies.
"Western Europe doesn't need us any more," Wald said, sounding an increasingly familiar note among US military officials. The region must "step up and help the US. We've been protecting their economies for 50 years."
Other participants at the seminar anticipated that consumers of Africa's raw materials would pay higher prices in the coming decades as China and other Asian economies demand more resources on the open market.
China, for example, already has 4,000 troops stationed in Sudan to protect an oil line its workers built, according to David Hale of Hale Advisers LLC.
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