Ethiopia-Eritrea Relations: Try Soft Power

 Ethiopia Insight published on 25 April 2025 a commentary titled "Give Soft Power a Chance" by Nebiyu Daniel Meshesha, former Ethiopian diplomat. 

While Ethiopia's quest for access to the sea is economically and strategically justified, its reliance on confrontational rhetoric and unpredictable hard power risks alienating neighbors, destabilizing the Horn of Africa, and threatening to make Addis Ababa diplomatically vulnerable.  Ethiopia should seek Red Sea access through persuasion and not coercion.  

Shutting Down American Soft Power

 The Washington Post published on 25 March 2025 a commentary titled "Trump Is Liquidating America's Reserves of Soft Power" by Joseph Nye.

Power is the ability to get others to do what you want.  In foreign policy, success is determined by the use of hard power and soft power.  By gutting institutions such as the Voice of America and US Agency for International Development, the United States is losing much of its soft power leverage.  

China: Combining Soft Power and Hard Power in Africa

 MES Insights, which partners with the Marine Corps University Press, published in June 2023 an analysis titled "China's Engagement in Africa: Security Initiatives and United Nations Voting" by Daniel Rice.   

The author concludes that China's ultimate goal in Africa is to increase its global influence by shaping the international conditions necessary for its rise on the global stage.  China's influence in Africa is demonstrating tangible results for Communist Party of China in the form of voting patterns in the United Nations.  

Reasons Why the US Should Not Pull Troops Out of Africa

 A recent issue of Prism published an article titled "No Competition without Presence: Should the US Leave Africa?" by Katherine Zimmerman, American Enterprise Institute.  

The author argues that the minuscule dollars and troops supporting U.S. efforts in Africa accomplish much more in terms of influence and effects than their redeployment to other theaters will in the competitive global field.  Reducing those assets too much will strain AFRICOM's ability to operate effectively.  To increase America's bang for the buck AFRICOM must innovate and transform its counterterrorism approach in partnership with the State Department and USAID in order to achieve enduring gains against the Salafi-jihadi movement, and cultivate strong African partnerships to counter Chinese and Russian influence on the continent.