The New US Strategies: What They Mean for The Horn of Africa

Abstract

The Biden Administration recently released three important strategies: the Strategy toward sub-Saharan Africa (STSA), the National Security Strategy (NSS), and the National Defense Strategy (NDS). This policy brief explores these strategies, what they mean, and their potential impact in the Horn of Africa. We argue that aside from the STSA, both the NSS and NDS largely ignore Africa. The shift in focus of these new US strategies is rather dramatic, and it is away from Africa, the US-Africa summit notwithstanding. Yet they indicate that we should expect the United States to engage more in mitigating climate change in the Horn of Africa, and that its strategies are to a certain degree aligned with Kenyan foreign policy goals in the region. Further, the strategy papers indicate a continued and more robust US engagement with Somalia and to a lesser extent with Uganda, and an ad-hoc cooperation with Ethiopia and the Sudan. Furthermore, these strategy papers suggest also that the US will have a problematic relationship with Eritrea in the next few years.