why was the conflict between the united states and soviet union called the cold war

To pursue such questions would invite painful self-scrutiny.

What they never seem to get around to asking is why the United States (or the continent’s former imperial bosses) has such tenuous relations with African countries in the first place, nor what-let’s stick to Washington for now-the country’s diplomats have been doing on the continent all this time to make the arrival of a new potential partner for an African state seem so disruptive and challenging. For starters, that might include looking into why, if Africa supposedly matters so much to Washington (or Europe), it hasn’t built more solid relations with the countries of that continent by now, into most African countries’ seventh decade of independence and nominal sovereignty.Īs in Niger in the last two weeks, the least hint of a supposedly menacing wind from any authoritarian quarter brings on all kinds of heebie-jeebies for policy people in Washington (and Paris, in this case), as well as for most Western commentators. or Western influence and power?Īs persistent as it is, this pattern of assessments can only continue so long as the writers only think in the short term and fail to ask bigger questions. The years may come and go, but the main question asked in the rich world seems to never change: How will the rise of the latest authoritarian government on the block that doesn’t hew closely to Europe or Washington threaten to reduce U.S.

And now, following the coup in Niger, writers have been rushing out analyses about a seesaw battle between Washington and Moscow in Africa’s Sahel region, with the added wrinkle of the shadowy Russian mercenary outfit known as the Wagner Group. More recently, during a period when Beijing’s profile on the continent was sharply rising, it was U.S. For most global observers trying to make sense of recent events in West Africa, the key points of interest follow a story as old as the Cold War: Outside of enormous humanitarian crises, the only events that garner much attention in Africa are contests between big outside powers.įor decades, that mostly meant the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Why was the conflict between the united states and soviet union called the cold war