The Pentagon said last Thursday that it would withdraw nearly 100 Special Operations Forces from Chad and around 1,000 troops from Niger after the two countries reversed the so-called status-of force-agreements. The two countries have reportedly been part of the United States' counter-extremism and counter-terrorism efforts across the Sahel region.
Kwiatkowski said the expulsions "show that the US military strategy of carving up the world into US combatant commands is a colonial-style paradigm that has finally run its course."
These moves mark the end - and failure - of the neocolonial policies toward Africa launched by the Clinton and Bush administrations starting in the 1990s, she said.
They also indicate the ignominious end of the much-vaunted African Crisis Response Initiative of the late 1990s, which was always shallow in terms of mutual commitment, Kwiatkowski said.
US Shows No Interest in a New Africa Strategy
The moves are part of the United States retreat from the continent because the Biden administration has given no sign of even being interested in coming up with any new continent-spanning strategy or replacing the old and now abandoned concepts, Kwiatkowski said.
"It is significant because nothing programmatic awaits in the wings to shore up US bilateral relationships with most African countries," Kwiatkowski said.
US policies toward the entire continent had always been last thoughts, casually cobbled together without much regard for their practicalities or their impact on the peoples of Africa, she said.
"Truly, the United States never had much of a consistent or serious footprint in Africa beyond leftover Cold War proxies, oil corporation protection and more recently so-called anti-terror operations that most in Congress were absolutely unaware of," Kwiatkowski said.
Policy toward the region had been subcontracted to dubious elements of the US government and to its allies, she noted.
"The CIA, of course, has been active throughout the continent, and US-Israel cooperation has also been evident and useful to the United States in past decades," Kwiatkowski said.
Africa Seeks Trade and Investment, Not US Military Adventures
The peoples of Africa are looking for constructive relations based on trade and investment - now trending downward and consisting mainly of oil and raw materials - rather than a continuation of the US military adventures and political intrigues, Kwiatkowski said.
"What is not needed is left behind, and I see the rejection of Pentagon and CIA anti-terrorism projects as recognition of this fact by Africans themselves," Kwiatkowski said.
US constructive input on economic development had been nonexistent and one can think of no examples where the United States has genuinely wished to improve economies or governments on the continent, she said.
China and India had both approached Africa with an eye to economic mutuality and political respect, unlike the United States, Kwiatkowski said.
"The Cold War US-Soviet 'division' of Africa ended 30 years ago, and while Russia's economy is small compared to China, India and the US, it likewise has looked for mutuality in trade and expertise in Africa," Kwiatkowski said.
On the other hand, the US government invested heavily in African neocolonialism and persisted in Cold War thinking. Therefore, the decisions of the Niger and Chad governments to expel US forces from their operating bases have domestically been very popular, she added.