Why Trump might help keep African dictators in power

Indeed, the United States was not embroiled in two foreign wars during Mr. Trump’s first coming, and tensions with China were not on a hair-trigger as they seem to be now.

This is music to the ears of African leaders tired of being reminded of democratic due process by the West. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni confirmed this in a comment he made in 2018.

"America has got one of the best presidents ever," Mr. Museveni said during the opening of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) in the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

"I love Trump because he tells Africans frankly. The Africans need to solve their problems, the Africans are weak."

The president’s preference for Africans solving African problems might be a pan-Africanist notion, but it is also a way to stop the West from invading Uganda.

R2P

The United Nations invoked the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) doctrine in 2011 after Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya's longtime dictator, responded to local protests with extreme violence.

As the world eyed the gathering storm of potential carnage in the face, the United Nations authorised NATO to breach Libya's sovereignty in order to protect civilians from Qaddafi's forces.

This UN principle, although well-meaning on the surface, led to calamity in Libya. Yet the principle grew out of political expedience, on a global scale.

World War 2, many historians agree, was catalyzed by how the west appeased Adolf Hitler. It was this policy of Appeasement, the straw-clutching effort by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to keep Hitler from starting World War Two, that helped him invade the Rhineland.

On March 7 1936, German troops re-occupied the Rhineland, a demilitarised zone according to the Treaty of Versailles. This was the first shot across the West’s bow. War hove on the horizon. When it did break out, plans were set in train to ensure it never happened again.

“At the end of World War II, the world was desperate to avoid such horrific conflict in the future. After an unsuccessful attempt to drive multilateral cooperation through the League of Nations after World War I, national leaders came together to create the United Nations (UN). Designed as a forum for international engagement, the UN was founded to defuse international conflicts and to stop aggression from escalating into a full scale war. Underpinning this new world order was a respect for sovereignty—the principle that no country can interfere in the domestic affairs of another,” says the US Council on Foreign Relations website.

“To preserve peace and defend human rights, the United Nations created multinational peacekeeping forces, ideally to work in coordination with local governments. Ideally, such forces were to work in coordination with local governments. But problems quickly emerged: how would these peacekeepers respond if a local government was the one committing violence against its own people? Could preventing a mass atrocity justify violating a country's sovereignty?”

Enter Trump

Mr. Trump does not seem overly preoccupied by these geopolitical prerogatives and this will give African presidents legroom to trot out several draconian measures, and not have America breathing down its neck.

This is likely to lead to more iron-clad dictatorships as the emphasis in international relations shifts from human rights observance to maintaining the status quo.

Still, if Mr. Trump is not really an isolationist, he could do a lot more damage to the status quo.

The President-Elect, while talking to The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in October, said he wouldn’t have to go eyeball-to-eyeball with China over Taiwan because President Xi Jinping “respects me and he knows I’m crazy”.

President Joe Biden’s alliance-building and internationalist approach to localised politics may be a thing of the past. However, Mr. Trump’s impetuousness could lead to foreign policy-by-declaration and impulse.

President Trump, one weekend, said he would pull American forces out of northern Syria, after a call with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But when things went pear-shaped, Mr. Trump realised the Turkish leader worked him over so he could go after Kurds in his own military operation.

The American president went postal as he posted “if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey.”

It remains to be seen whether America’s foreign policy under Mr. Trump will be measured and given to method over madness. Or, on the tide of the moment, he could interfere in countries less militarily endowed than America.