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Article: Africa, Relations with
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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AFRICA, RELATIONS WITH
AFRICA, RELATIONS WITH.
Despite its fascinating cultures and great needs, Africa has rarely interested U.S. policymakers for its own sake. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s they continued to view Africa primarily as a setting for U.S.-Soviet rivalries. Policies therefore were frequently superficial and clumsy, with little attention paid to their long-term effects on Africans. Four factors have been instrumental in shaping U.S. policies in Africa. First and most important was the Cold War, which drove U.S. policymakers to resist what they believed was Soviet expansion. The Central Intelligence Agency often emerged as a principal executor and, some have argued, maker ...