Conclusion: NATO and the Threat to Africa

Abstract

Contrary to received opinion, the Atlantic Alliance recognises very well that the Soviet record in Africa is one of failure as well as success and that the Africans themselves do not want Western help at the moment. The Europeans have tried to avoid simplifying the African situation in terms that might make sense to a European or American audience but not to an African audience already suspicious of Western intentions. As the Political Committee of the North Atlantic Assembly reported in 1979, the appeal of the Soviet Union for many Africans, not all of them Marxists, come from several diverse sources, part ideological, part social. The language of Soviet policy — its support for ‘non—capitalist development’, ‘national democratic regimes’ and national wars of liberation merely echoes the authentic voice of African nationalism. Ultimately, ideological sympathy will probably count for much less than the fact that the Soviet Union is prepared to finance and equip guerrilla movements, while the West is not.¹ As the Committee had concluded in 1978:

Undoubtedly Africa is of immense importance to the Alliance, strategically, politically and economically. This does not mean that the Alliance as an alliance should encompass Africa. In fact, such a development could have possibly serious disadvantages of viewing African developments only in the light of the East-West conflict without due consideration for traditional indigenous traditions and developments.²