As I was browsing the wonderful and (often) intellectually stimulating subreddit known as TrueReddit, I noticed a rather fascinating article written by Bruce Whitehouse, PhD found here discussing recent events in Mali. The article, as is seen by a cursory glance at the title, deals with Mali, or rather what went wrong. After giving a brief background, it discusses how the Democratic government that numerous Western nations held as an example of success (and funded, as well) slid into corruption and was eventually taken over forcibly by a military junta. The author goes on to propose at the end that "It may be that the way to help these societies sort out their conflicts is to let them do it on their own." This concept is one that has intrigued me since the start of the Wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan; to what extent does the United States and other Western Powers have any ethical or moral legitimacy to interfere in so-called "third-world" nations?
Naturally, given that analysis is easier from the perspective of the United States, I'd like to approach the topic from that degree.
After the dust settled on the horrors of September 11, 2001, the United States was hungering for blood. President Bush promptly authorized the so-called War on Terror, and the game was afoot. Using the so-called "War on Terror," Iraq was later invaded; the sovereignty of Pakistan has been continuously invaded via Drone Strikes, and national boundaries have come to mean almost nothing so long as a "terrorist" is present. To be fair, I'm massively simplifying things; this thought has little to do with Africa, and more to do with US (and by extension Western) foreign policy in the 21st Century. This is merely one example of the US (and NATO) interfering with the development of foreign nations.
Another contemporary example, that is quite curious and more so relevant, was the alleged "No-Fly Zone" over Libya during the Arab Spring. As those of us who have been studying our maps of Africa know, Libya is along the northern coast of Africa; this places it on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, and a potentially dangerous outpost for many European nations. I don't want to go into the details of the morality of the No-Fly Zone, as I feel it will suffice to put this quote here- "Nato military operations played right into the tribal animosities which exist in Libya," says India's UN ambassador, Hardeep Singh Puri, calling NATO the "armed wing" of the Security Council. "I think in retrospect, we were right to have abstained." Now, I personally believe after discussion with a friend who is an Economics major at USF, Sean Gabel, that the intervention was more of an economic endeavor to protect European oil prices, but it is yet another example of Western manipulation.
The classic historical example of a Western coup that backfired is of course Iran. Details can be found here, and again a theme I proposed in the section on Libya is present; that of stabilizing oil supplies.
The answer will likely not be decided for a number of years in the future, as politics tend to take a long time to work itself out. The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Drone Strikes in Pakistan)
reflect the US' War on Terror in an applied form; it's difficult to
believe, however, that potential payout resources were not secretly
considered by those who were planning the war. Given the presence of natural resources the West has interest in in the majority of nations that it has interfered in throughout history however, I can only conclude the West has (rather obviously) systematically set up points of control throughout the greater World in order to stabilize supplies of resources.
Is this the best answer? Economically speaking, probably; but I'm inclined to stop fighting and try Whitehouse's proposed solution in which "It may be that the way to help these societies sort out their conflicts is to let them do it on their own."
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