it's actually worth noting that the united states has not been involved in any of the myriad african conflicts of the last 20 years, opting instead to focus on building infrastructure in a limited geographic area in the southern part of the continent, and leaving the heavy fighting to proxies backed by financing from egypt, turkey, the uae, russia, france, the uk and china. the british funding in rwanda wa a scandal that the recent change of government has addressed. the biggest source of funding in congo for years has been the chinese.

for the americans to step into congo like this is a clear challenge to the chinese, but it's apparently being done differently. they're not backing an army by proxy. rather, they're selling the idea of stability as a way to increase american investment. war chases off investment. have we changed so much since the days of cecil rhodes and royal dutch shell?

probably not. but, the americans are at the least broadcasting an amount of distaste in engaging in coups and low level wars to physically hold mines and a desire to have free market access and open competition, instead. shit, it's like somebody finally took the kitchen debates seriously. trump as neo-nixon in a world where history moves backwards gains more traction every fucking day.

is this serious? it depends. it doesn't solve the fighting on the ground, in a literal sense; it doesn't address the religion, the ethnicity, the language or the piles of dirt they kill each other over. however, if the people funding this shit from a distance for financial gain are pulling out, it could slowly remove access to weapons and could lead to national armies chasing the rebel groups out of the mines, forests and rivers and holding it for bankers, instead. if the result is that the financial backers decide to stop funding war and start funding security, you could see a subsequent end to the religious and ethnic conflicts, and pretty quick.

the caveat is that if trump is really turning the clocks back, he'll be happy to bankroll a fascist dictatorship that will stop the warring at the expense of trampling over civil liberties, and you'll get a series of brutal dictatorships protecting the interests of capital by viciously attacking civil rights instead of generating instability and chaos, like we used to have in africa. that is what trump told us he wanted to do.

i think that a refocus on africa is overdue. after the universally panned iraq war, obama was supposed to have an asian pivot that never really happened and was supposed to refocus on africa, which he tried to do but largely failed to organize. trump 1.0 and biden both flailed, and musk's messaging suggested a foolish alignment with white farmers in south africa, which would really turn the clock back. this agreement in congo looks like a preferable shift in direction, on it's face.

i'm a little skeptical. the chinese might react by dumping millions into congolese rebel movements. however, i think this is the right direction for the west to take in africa and hope it continues. control over africa will be extremely important in the next 200 years - more so than control over the south pacific, and certainly more important than control over greenland. crucially, if the chinese get a lock on africa, they have a staging ground into the americas that can probably not be defeated. the americans need to meet them in africa to stop them. it's something the us has been broadcasting for 20 years, but hasn't been able to actually get done.