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Thought Leader
/ 5 May 2025

What (really) went wrong with the Africa strategy under Biden?

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On Strategies

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, an American think tank based in Washington. 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 is the strategy?

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 US-Africa strategy is a departure from previous Africa strategy documents and a novelty in US 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 recognises that Africans live increasingly globalised 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 US 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 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 programmes 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:

“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 that merit further investigation. 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 hypothesise:

  • 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 (US), visiting researcher at the University of Granada (Spain), and visiting research fellow at LMU Munich (Germany). He is also the author of the Consilium Strategicum Blog.

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