On Defeatism
U.S. policy toward Africa often suffers from low self-esteem. There's a remedy.
There is a thin line between realism and resignation. When it comes to U.S. policy toward sub-Saharan Africa, there is a long history of officials congratulating themselves for what they claim was strategic restraint when the outcome was clearly suboptimal. It is a form of defeatism: lowering one’s standards or efforts because you assume a better result is unattainable or not worth the fight. It may be the most damaging mindset affecting U.S. policy.
This post has been a long time coming. It is an issue I struggled with myself when I served in government, and one that feels especially relevant in the current moment. The question, then, is what defeatism looks like in practice, why it harms U.S. policy toward Africa, and how one combats this negative attitude.
Defeatism is a tricky word. It usually refers to an attitude of accepting or resigning oneself to defeat, but I think of it differently. To me, defeatism is watering down objectives and rationalizing bad decisions. It is settling for less because it just feels easier—not because it is strategically sound. Despite how it’s often justified, defeatism is not about hard tradeoffs or smart concessions; it is about going along to get along at the expense of your agenda. Unfortunately, it happens too often in U.S.-Africa policy.
Asking for Less. This is essentially self-censorship, refraining from asking for more because you assume you will fail and lose credibility in the process. I made this mistake several times. As I recently told Santi Ruiz on his podcast, Statecraft, I was overly cautious about requesting meetings between President Biden and his African counterparts, especially following the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December 2022, because I expected my proposals would be rejected. This kind of hesitancy has a long history. In 1955, State Department officials meekly suggested a need for an independent strategy toward the region, insisting it wouldn’t introduce “revolutionary” new programs because our interests are “real but limited.”
Accepting Less. This is the most common form of defeatism in policy. To be sure, it is part and parcel of working in a government bureaucracy: you are sometimes expected to craft and support policies even when you disagree with them. However, it can be more pernicious when it’s internalized. Former U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Smith Hempstone, in his memoirs Rogue Ambassador, recalled how many smart young diplomats soon realize the “best guarantee of promotion, as in the military, is not excellence of performance” but rather “sucking up and keeping one’s head down.” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, for example, removed three assistant secretaries of state for African affairs before he found one who would accede to his policy demands and replace the Bureau’s entire leadership team.
Embracing Less. It is one thing to compromise or cave, but it is entirely another thing to cheer an inferior outcome. Recently, there has been public acclaim surrounding the potential extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), even though H.R. 6500 does not exempt AGOA beneficiary countries from President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs. In the late 1960s, U.S. diplomats hailed President Johnson’s speech on the third anniversary of the Organization of African Unity as a major landmark, despite the absence of new policies and a lackluster reception. White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers characterized it as a “cheap way” to keep people at home quiet on civil rights issues and outflank Robert F. Kennedy.
Sources of Defeatism
Defeatism is a learned behavior, reinforced over time by rejection—and sometimes ridicule. U.S. diplomats, who are told to keep Africa off the Secretary of State’s desk or overruled when objecting to U.S. embassy and consulate closures, start to lower their expectations. This sense of helplessness compounds when commentators, as they did in the 1990s, suggest that Africa’s strategic importance to the West had declined or conclude that the United States has few, concrete material interests in Africa. It becomes difficult to keep one’s head up, especially when life-saving assistance is cut, staffing is reduced, and engagement is curtailed.
In the past, there has been belittling and bullying of U.S. officials working on Africa, which eventually quieted advocacy for better policies. Kennedy’s Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, G. Mennen “Soapy” Williams, who was initially teased for his forward-leaning proposals, found himself sidelined when President Johnson appointed Averell Harriman as ambassador-at-large for Africa. David Newsom, who served as top diplomat for Africa from 1969 to 1974, recounted that a member of President Nixon’s team looked askance at the suggestion that the president make a speech on Africa. The staffer replied, “Why should he? We only got 8 percent of the Black vote.” In his memoirs, Kissinger disparaged Africa Bureau officials as having a “siege mentality in which they transmuted their isolation into a claim to moral superiority, casting themselves as the defenders of American idealism.”
And finally, there are the true believers who promote defeatism because they genuinely support a diminution of U.S. engagement in Africa. U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Ed Korry, for example, returned to Washington in the 1960s to lead a new task force on U.S. assistance. He argued that Africa was “for the most part outside the main areas of U.S. attention,” proposing that President Johnson drastically cut most aid programs to focus on a few strategic countries. The Korry Report “ruined” assistance in Africa, according to one former ambassador. This same sentiment appears to be back in vogue, as U.S. officials applaud budget cuts, press for embassy closures, and reject the idea of Africa as a strategic region.
Regrets, I’ve Had a Few
The problem with defeatism is that it doesn’t serve U.S. interests in the long term. Doing the least is not a strategy for success. In almost every case, the pullback of U.S. engagement and assistance was deemed a mistake and reversed. For example, a major drought in the Sahel in the 1970s spurred Congress to pass the Sahel Development Program and reestablish bilateral aid missions, marking the end of the Korry Report. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, U.S. policymakers reopened embassies, USAID missions, and CIA stations that had been closed during the budget cuts of the 1990s; the Biden Administration in 2023 announced a return to a full-time diplomatic presence in Seychelles after a 27-year absence. Even Kissinger, who said Africa resided in the “backwaters of policy,” eventually changed his mind, engaging directly on crises in Angola and Rhodesia. While at a luncheon in Zambia, he remarked “there is nothing to be gained in a debate about whether in the past America has neglected Africa or been insufficiently committed to African goals…in active collaboration there is much we can do; in contention or apart we will miss great opportunities.”
The Courage of One’s Convictions
The antidote for defeatism is to stand up for what is necessary to implement an effective policy toward the region. I am not saying this is easy; I wasn’t always consistent about when I went for broke and when I pulled my punches. (I had to psych myself up to insist on more time and attention—an approach that doesn’t come naturally to me.) But, if you are determined to effect positive change, you can’t accept the status quo and certainly can’t countenance less. It requires strategic clarity, prioritization, and a compelling theory of the case. Above all, you have to show some fortitude and demand more, even if that means a face-off with powerful people.
Asking for More. The first step is to state your intentions and make the case to do more. This usually happens through strategies or congressional testimony. In his 1981 confirmation hearing, then–assistant secretary nominee Chester Crocker argued that “Africa is becoming increasingly important to the United States in pursuit of our global objectives.” He then waited six months for confirmation because he wouldn’t compromise his policies or fire any of his deputies. Johnnie Carson, President Obama’s first assistant secretary for African affairs, repeatedly argued for more diplomatic outposts in the region, especially in Nigeria, an idea he has continued to champion even after leaving his position.
Defending More. It is not enough to ask for more—you have to defend why it’s necessary. In his 1969 confirmation hearing, Newsom refused to concede when the committee chairman menacingly asked if “it might even be more to our interest if we have no programs at all, don’t you think?” In 1994, National Security Council Senior Director for African Affairs Donald Steinberg penned a memo to President Clinton arguing for a more robust policy toward the region, which helped set the stage for training an estimated 6,000 African peacekeepers and increasing U.S. staffing.
Enacting More. Most importantly, you have to ensure that you will do what you say. President George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy in 2006 indicated that “Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority of this Administration.” Bush’s record was unrivaled, passing landmark legislation such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); securing international agreement on multilateral debt relief; expanding training for African militaries; and helping to resolve conflicts in Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan’s Darfur region.
Let’s be clear: defeatism starts at the top. When a U.S. president has little interest in or time for African issues, policy inevitably suffers. Conversely, a president who sees the region’s strategic importance will overrule his bureaucracy to strengthen U.S.-African relations. In October 1963, President Kennedy met with Mauritanian leader Mokhtar Ould Daddah. The meeting went long, frustrating his staff who asked with exasperation: “how many votes are there in Mauritania?” Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also dismissed bureaucratic reservations to deploy warships off the coast of Liberia during the civil war in the 2000s and dispatch troops to fight Ebola in the 2010s, respectively. Even in retirement, both presidents continue to involve themselves in African issues; in 2017, 2023, and 2025, Bush—either personally or through his Institute—intervened to protect PEPFAR funding.
Post Strategy
Let’s end where we started. I am convinced the region’s strategic importance will only continue to grow. It is not realism to relegate U.S. policy toward Africa to the periphery; it is a lack of foresight. This month, I joined my friends Eric Olander and Cobus Van Staden on the China-Africa podcast. We agreed on the perilous state of U.S.-Africa relations, but we argued about what to do next and whether it was possible to recover from this nadir. My position is that this moment of disruption and disillusionment is an opportunity to rethink our approach and truly interrogate what has gone wrong and what has gone right in some eight decades of U.S.-Africa relations. We have to reject defeatism and start mapping out what it would take to build a new future partnership with the continent. It has happened before and it can happen again—but only if we ask for more, not less.
I enjoyed your piece "On Defeatism" and especially the historical evidence to support it. I lived through many of these events from the vantage point of the State Department, but never from the optic of the National Security Council. While I agree with your analysis, I never thought of the problem as "defeatism" but rather apathy towards and ignorance about Africa. Your NSC perspective sheds another light on an issue that lingers from the past and worsens.
David Shinn
The good news here is that neither Africans nor Americans need the US government’s involvement or permission to be great. I spent 25 years representing the United States abroad, as a contractor and then a diplomat. Now a private citizen, I have founded a company and moved my family to Nairobi seeking the energy of the entrepreneurial culture here and a healthy environment to raise my daughter. The United States has so many wonderful virtues, but safe to say: whatever the USG is betting on these days, I’m going all-in the other side of it.