This issue of the African Journal of Foreign Affairs (JoAFA) is being published in a particularly turbulent geopolitical environment. Since the 2020s, the international order seems to be moving ...adrift: Brexit (2020); the United States’ (US) chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the fall of Kaboul (2021); Russia’s war on Ukraine (2022); Gabon and Togo joining the Commonwealth (2022); surprise reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran (2023); annexation of Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan (2023); return of Syria to the Arab League (2023); civil war in Sudan (2023); October 7, 2023 events in which Israeli civilians were killed and/or kidnapped by Hamas and other non-state armed groups, followed by a new Israeli-Palestinian war; a series of military coups d’etat in western Sahel; and US’ military gesticulations in the Middle East where local conflicts are merging into one regional war.
This issue of the African Journal of Foreign Affairs (JoAFA) is being published in a particularly turbulent geopolitical environment. Since the 2020s, the international order seems to be moving ...adrift: Brexit (2020); the United States’ (US) chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after the fall of Kaboul (2021); Russia’s war on Ukraine (2022); Gabon and Togo joining the Commonwealth (2022); surprise reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran (2023); annexation of Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan (2023); return of Syria to the Arab League (2023); civil war in Sudan (2023); October 7, 2023 events in which Israeli civilians were killed and/or kidnapped by Hamas and other non-state armed groups, followed by a new Israeli-Palestinian war; a series of military coups d’etat in western Sahel; and US’ military gesticulations in the Middle East where local conflicts are merging into one regional war.
This issue of the Journal of African Foreign Affairs has a variety of topics that can be classified in four categories: direct relationships with great powers such as France and China, the impact of ...international events on Africa such as the Russia-Ukraine-NATO war, international organizations and the relationships of a liberation movement such as the Southern African National Liberation Movements with the United Nations, and intra-African affairs. The range of topics reflects the increasing complexity of the environment in which evolve African affairs. Within a generation Germany might become the most important military power in the European Union. Will Europe experience a period of deindustrialization of which the United States will be the principal beneficiary? Will a Cold War materialize between China and the United States, much more complex than the previous one, and with a racial overtone? What will be the consequences of such an environment for Africa? And what are the challenges and opportunities for the continent? The debate about unipolarity and multipolarity is a false dilemma. While Europe lives in a more unipolar world with the United States at the center, the rest has a multipolar tendency. As the articles in this issue collectively show, Africa cannot retreat in a passive nonalignment. It should engage, on the contrary, in an initiative-taking multi-alignment.
