What (Really) Went Wrong with (Africa) Strategy under Biden?
Judd Devermont Asks Question, Dances around Answer, and Offers Valuable Context
On Wednesday, Judd Devermont published a personal reflection on the significant challenges in strategic planning on national security and foreign policy in the United States government. The essay presents his analytic judgments about what has gone wrong with formulating and implementing these kinds of strategic plans.
Some serve as brutally honest indictments of the current state of national security and foreign policy planning in the US government. For example, Devermont observes that the US policymakers often do not know what they want out of their own strategies and strategic plans.
The essay has solicited responses from a few well-known commentators on African Affairs. One of the criticisms is that Devermont fails to answer the provocative question that inspired the essay. In other words, he never says what exactly went wrong with the Africa Strategy of the Biden Administration.
That criticism is valid. But, it belies the full story. The essay may dance around that important question, but it still provides insights that mark a valuable contribution to the literature on applied foreign policy.
Who Is the Author?
Devermont has a long record of public service. Under the Obama Administration, Devermont served as the National Intelligence Officer for Africa at the National Intelligence Council. Under the Biden Administration, he served as the Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. In that role, he was the primary author of the US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa. He is now an operating partner at Kupanda Capital and a non-resident senior adviser at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Given that work history, Yinka Adegoke, editor of Semafor Africa, suggests that it is safe to assume that Devermont is “one person who has thought a lot about US-Africa policy over the years”.
“This is the most important consideration: what is the point? When you factor in all the consultations, interagency meetings, and hours it takes to put pen to paper, you should really know why you are doing all of this.”
Judd Devermont
What Was the Plan?
The US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa was a “strategy” that was formulated under the Biden administration. Effectively, it was a formal document that articulated a set of whole-of-government objectives for advancing US national security, foreign interests and trade interests. It was released in 2022, a few months before the US-Africa Leaders Summit. In response, commentators said:
“The strategy document lacks new ideas and basically restates the Obama administration’s 2012 strategy.” (Alex Thurston, University of Cincinnati)
“The new U.S.-Africa strategy is a departure from previous Africa strategy documents and a novelty in U.S. engagement in Africa, which has evolved little since the colonial era and the Cold War.” (Catherine Nzuki and Mvemba Dizolele, CSIS)
“In contrast with the Trump administration’s approach to the region, which largely saw the continent as a “great power” battleground between Russia, China, and the United States, the Biden approach is considerably more balanced and recognizes that Africans live increasingly globalized lives.” (Witney Schneidman and Landry Signé, Brookings)
“Although somewhat comparable to recently launched initiatives for Latin America and the Indo-Pacific, the Africa strategy stands out as an uniquely elaborate effort at a moment when the administration is working to revamp U.S. relations across the globe.” (Zainab Usman, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
“The new US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa is a good first step in improving America’s position on the continent.” (Komlan Avoulete, Foreign Policy Research Institute)
“If you aren’t changing the policy in demonstrative ways, what’s the rationale for writing a strategy at all? There is nothing inherently wrong with continuing with the status quo - just don’t waste everyone’s time by suggesting you are embarking on something new.”
Judd Devermont
What Did It Promise?
The US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa was intended to declare a new vision for African affairs. That included reframing the importance of African affairs for US national security, foreign policy, and trade interests. Overall, the document was light on structure. It articulated a set of four strategic objectives: 1) fostering openness and open societies; 2) delivering democratic and security dividends; 3) advancing pandemic recovery and economic opportunity; 4) supporting conservation, climate adaptation and just energy transition. Reflecting on the content, commentators have said:
“The strategy was very status quo.” (Joshua Meservey, Hudson Institute)
“The release of the Sub-Saharan Africa strategy is a demonstration of the Biden administration's commitment to re-engage with the African continent.” (Brownstein)
“This document laid out for the first time a modern, strategic, and comprehensive vision of Africa—not one defined by charity or geopolitics.” (Cameron Hudson, CSIS)
“The most exciting aspect of the strategy, by far, is its articulation of Africa’s climate challenge in a way that acknowledges the continent’s concerns and realities.” (Zainab Usman, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
“The administration hasn't learned from past mistakes, is overly focused on great power competition, and can’t quit the counterterror lens.” (Alex Thurston, University of Cincinnati)
“The challenge lies in the implementation of the strategy, as it presents current initiatives that have not always delivered on their promises.” (Catherine Nzuki and Mvemba Dizolele, CSIS)
“Whether that influence will be positive or negative from a US perspective depends on whether in implementing its new strategy, the US matches actions with words.” (Komlan Avoulete, Foreign Policy Research Institute)
“Biden must prove his Africa strategy is no ‘tick the box’ exercise.” (Julian Pecquet, The Africa Report)
“The final marker of a sound strategy is whether it has presidential support. It is not enough to have received interagency sign-off or to be announced by a secretary of state or national security advisor. It needs to have the president behind it and, eventually, the resources to fund it.”
Judd Devermont
Did It Meet Expectations?
Despite all of the rhetoric, critics have argued that the US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa failed to significantly change the trajectory of US-Africa relations. Some point out that US government programs remained heavily focused on traditional policy issues such as major power competition, counterterrorism and critical minerals access. Others claim that the Biden administration failed to take the actions required to achieve a number of the strategic objectives, including severing ties with African autocratic leaders or making game-changing climate adaptation investments. Commentators have remarked:
“Anyone expecting major changes or big new programs will be disappointed — but also missing the point. White House strategies are not plans or roadmaps, but rather a top-line set of objectives, a signal to our partners, and a North Star for the direction of government policy.” (Todd Moss and Katie Auth, Energy for Growth Hub)
“Commentary on the strategy has praised its lofty ambitions and purposeful rhetoric, while also underscoring the challenge of translating this into actionable and sustainable policy.” (Natalie Colbert, Harvard Belfer Center)
“We argue that there has been a mismatch between the rhetoric and practice of an equal partnership. For example, African leaders or the African Union were not consulted about the agenda of the 2022 US-Africa Leaders Summit. This was also the case with the US’s Africa strategy.” (Christopher Isike, Samuel Oyewole, and Ruth Kasanga, University of Pretoria)
“My fundamental philosophical critique of the strategy and the approach is that it was a lot of doubling down on policies that we have already been using that haven’t really protected the U.S. position in Africa.” (Joshua Meservey, Hudson Institute)
“It’s clear if you look at US strategy from about 2011 through the Biden administration that the guiding principle has been the pursuit of regional security and economic integration.” (Jim Ryan, Middle East Research and Information Project)
“U.S. Africa strategy has not received the attention and resources needed to manage deteriorating political and security developments on the continent. America’s current Africa policy is being overtaken by events and is ill suited to adequately address the coup pandemic.” (John Chin and Haleigh Bartos, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology)
“In the United States Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, the Biden Administration declared transcending geographic seams to be a national security priority. However, this declaration does not appear to have spurred systematic changes in the production of research studies and expert commentary on African affairs within the United States think tank community.” (Michael Walsh and Stephen Porter, Foreign Policy Research Institute)
“The Biden Administration engaged the continent more than the previous Trump Administration, but left several diplomatic engagement opportunities on the table.” (Corey Holmes, New York University)
“Biden’s binary ‘democracies vs. autocracies’ ideology, defining a complex world by regime type, is fostering an intellectually lazy, yet familiar, landscape of antagonistic alignments.” (Robert Manning and Mathew Burrows, Stimson Center)
“The Biden strategy document fails to take a ‘whole of Africa’ approach that Africans themselves embrace and instead reverts to the Obama-era billing of a “Sub-Saharan Africa” focus.” (J. Peter Pham and Samuel Millner, Atlantic Council and Institute for National Security Studies)
“The US hasn’t had a coherent strategy for Africa since the George Bush era.” (Jahara Matisek, Payne Institute for Public Policy )
“There’s absolutely nothing new with the new approach.” (Krista Johnson, Howard University)
“What’s my problem? Well, for starters, we usually don’t know what we want out of a strategy and what we are really trying to achieve by crafting it in the first place.”
Judd Devermont
What Really was the Problem?
The essay only scratches the surface of what actually went wrong with the US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa. However, it offers some clues. One is the observation that the US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa was never a strategy in the first place. That merits further scrutiny. The US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa may have expressed some big ideas. But, it never clearly articulated a winning aspiration, where to play, how to win, capabilities, and management systems. Absent those strategic choices, it is not surprising that there was so much incongruence, incoherence, inconsistency, and non-responsiveness in US-Africa relations under the Biden administration. Following Deloitte, one might hypothesize:
The document was based on some faulty underlying beliefs at home and abroad. As a consequence, the strategic narrative that emerged was fundamentally misaligned with the realities of domestic and international politics.
The strategic narrative was never adequately translated into lower-level action plans and strategic initiatives that would have promoted strategic integration between the higher-level goals and on-the-ground actions.
The key stakeholders were never fully aligned with the intended strategic direction. Some actors even went so far as to undercut the agenda.
The National Security Council failed to adequately respond to major changes in the internal and external environments following the release of the document. As evidence, no new version was released after the October 7 Attacks.
“During the Biden Administration, the strategy shifted U.S. rhetoric about Africa. Its ideas framed the US-Africa Leaders Summit in 2022 and almost 30 trips to the continent by senior leaders, including the president’s visit to Angola in December 2024. We had message discipline, but it proved more challenging to meet the strategy’s ambition with commensurate resources as well as consistent senior-level time and attention.”
Judd Devermont
Why Should We Care?
The US Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa was one of the major deliverables for African Affairs under the Biden administration. The admission that things “went wrong” by a senior official is therefore likely to have knock-on effects. For Devermont, those are likely to be positive. The initial reactions suggest that there is admiration for his willingness to engage in public reflection on what went wrong under his watch. The same cannot be said for the rest of the Biden administration. There is already a live debate over whether the US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and other senior officials have depicted their “foreign policy achievements in terms that exaggerate its legacy”. The essay could very well reinforce that perception in the eyes of their critics. On why that matters, one analyst has argued:
“What Biden’s legacy is most likely to be measured against are his own sentiments and aspirations for Africa as expressed in his 2022 Africa Strategy.” (Cameron Hudson, CSIS)
“Judd Devermont’s reflection of the Biden Administration outlined an ambitious approach to US-Africa relations - centered on strategic investment, regional connectivity, and expanded diplomatic engagement.”
Johanna Leblanc
What Are Experts Saying?
The essay has caught the attention of both the media and analysts. Here’s what some have had to say:
“A thoughtful essay by Judd Devermont on why Biden’s strategy for Africa failed. The problem wasn’t the ‘strategy’ [in my opinion] but the lack of leadership from the top – deliberate in Obama’s case, inevitable in Biden’s case. ‘America First’ > ‘leading from behind.’” (Joel Pollak, Breitbart)
“Dervermont’s reflections on strategy, especially his admonishment to not write if you don’t have anything to say, ring true today. However, it also neglects the reality that one cannot put together a regional strategy without a global strategy, as regions are just theaters of a broader struggle in international relations. From the point of view of Africa, it did not really matter what the Biden administration wrote about its goals, with strategies elsewhere in shambles (Afghanistan, Ukraine), the best laid plans in Africa were never going to come to fruition.” (Christopher Hartwell, Zurich University of Applied Sciences)
“Initiatives like the US Africa’s Leaders Summit and support for infrastructure corridors marked important steps toward elevating Africa on the global agenda. However, as Judd noted, it reflects a sobering reality that the administration at times struggled to match rhetoric with sustained action. As global competition intensifies, President Biden’s legacy on Africa will be defined less by the symbolism of high-level summits and more by the permanence of institutional commitments and the extent to which U.S. policy truly advanced African priorities.” (Joanna Leblanc, Howard University)
“In truth, (Devermont) doesn’t really say what was wrong with the Biden Africa policy, but rather looks at the challenges of announcing a strategy in the first place — going all the way back to the Eisenhower administration to examine whether this is the most effective way of implementing US-Africa policy.” (Yinka Adegoke, Semafor Africa)
“Devermont offers a dual critique of Biden’s Africa policy: while it successfully shifted from Trump-era negative rhetoric through strategic messaging and diplomatic engagement, despite good intentions, the policies lacked focus and consistent senior-level commitment.” (Corey Holmes, New York University)
“The personal reflection emphasizes the importance of clarity and purpose while challenging the idea that having a strategy is equivalent to providing a sound policy.” (Akofa Burce, HBCU-Africa Correspondents Corps)
Michael Walsh is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (United States), Visiting Researcher at the University of Granada (Spain), Visiting Research Fellow at LMU Munich (Germany), and Affiliated Researcher at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service (United States).
Note: This article originally appeared in the Mail and Guardian (South Africa). The original can be found here.
I've always thought that the ramped up visits by senior officials were a major tactical success. You can't compete if you don't show up, and for the first time in quite a while, the US was showing up.