Darfur Conflict Spreading
The grinding genocidal conflict in Darfur appears to be spreading to neighboring Chad. But why should we in the West care? Don’t we have problems of our own that take precedence? And isn’t this horse race of an election far more exciting than yet another trip through the dreary, no-win environs of international ethnic politics?
As occurred in Rwanda, ethnic conflicts provoke refugee flows as victims attempt to find safe ground. International borders are meaningless as the search for food and water take precedence. Rebel groups often form within these refugee communities, provoking attacks that encourage additional flows of refugees. And when refugees wind up in a neighboring state, the additional pressures on scarce resources add to cross-border fights between rebels and pursuers to produce an international conflict.
So the reasons for the West to care exist on two levels. First, the genocidal conflict itself again calls into question the sincerity of western pledges to “never again” turn a blind eye to genocide. To their shame, Western governments largely ignored the genocide in Rwanda or tied the hands of Western forces sent to show the flag. In Bosnia, the problem was closer to home and the response a bit more vigorous, though still tepid and half-hearted.
Second, however, the refugees and cross-border attacks threaten to affect more than just moral interests. As the conflicts spread to challenge the government of Chad and expose the involvement of the government of Sudan, the conflict threatens to broaden to a general regional war similar to that in the Congo, where armies of surrounding states compete with bands of brigands to control natural resources and pursue complex tribal vendettas. And in Sudan, the natural resources in question include oil, accompanied by a substantial Chinese presence. This conflict could find practical importance to the Western-centric geopolitics game very quickly.
The primary challenge may lie with Europe, however. The United States is exhausted by its existing military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan and additional involvement in an international conflict is a political non-starter, especially in Africa, which huge portions of the American electorate believe to be nothing more than a hopeless morass of primitive tribes unworthy of American attention. Europe’s options may, however, be severely limited by decades of underinvestment in military capabilities and a perverse cultural penchant for simultaneously condemning American “hyperpower” even while tacitly relying on American airlift and logistics capabilities to support even modest European military efforts. And it is all but certain that even the most strongly worded statement from the EU is unlikely to have much impact on Darfur’s militias and refugees being bounced out of Chad back into the militia’s welcoming arms.
