Africa Center Research & Reports

IntelBrief: Unmanned Peacekeeping: Are Drones The New Blue Helmets?

By Amy Calfas

Bottom Line Up Front • On December 2, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) announced it will deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as “drones,” to monitor rebel groups along the Congolese-Rwandan border.

Al-Shabaab’s Somali Safe Havens: A Springboard for Terror

The Africa Center’s Assistant Director Joshua Meservey argues in the Perspectives on Terrorism journal that Al-Shabaab’s September 2013 terror attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi is not, as some have argued, a sign of the group’s desperation, but is instead evidence of its intact capabilities. Download the PDF

IntelBrief: Mixing Oil and Water in Northern Kenya

By Adrienne Chuck

Bottom Line Up Front In the past 18 months, scientists and oil exploration companies have discovered an estimated 300 million barrels of crude oil and 250 billion cubic meters of water in the impoverished county of Turkana, in northwest Kenya

Lessons from Somalia

By J. Peter Pham

State Collapse, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency In a monograph just published by the US Army War College, Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham argues that, after years as the world’s prime example of a failed state—one that gave rise to catastrophic humanitarian crises, a wave of maritime piracy, and Islamist militancy, including an al-Qaeda-linked insurgency—Somalia appears […]

IntelBrief: Barclays and the Somali Remittances Crisis

By Amy Calfas

Bottom Line Up Front Since 2011, Somalia has struggled to maintain one of its most important revenue streams—remittances from Somalis in the diaspora—as one Western bank after another cuts financial ties with the country. Inadequate regulatory regimes have made money transfer organizations vulnerable to exploitation by terrorist groups, and financial institutions doing business with Somalia […]

Morocco’s Vital Role in Northwest Africa’s Security and Development

By J. Peter Pham

In the Africa Center’s most recent issue brief, “Morocco’s Vital Role in Northwest Africa’s Security and Development,” Director J. Peter Pham outlines the country’s increasing reengagement with Africa and its emergence as a key political, security, and economic actor integral to the continent’s future. He argues that Morocco’s willingness to shoulder the challenges in the […]

IntelBrief: South African Peacekeeping – Punching Below Its Weight

By Bronwyn Bruton and Sam Fishman

Bottom Line Up Front South Africa, one Africa’s more successful democracies and its largest economy, has mostly resisted Western pressure to intervene in other nations’ conflicts President Zuma has shown some enthusiasm for foreign engagement, but has been stymied by the poor condition of South Africa’s undersized and under-resourced military, with limited capability to project […]

IntelBrief: West African Piracy

By J. Peter Pham

Bottom Line Up Front Gulf of Guinea piracy remains a persistent, potential danger, with significance for commercial shipping and local economic development The lucrative take from theft of cargo, fuel oil, and crew and vessel ransom drive the motivation of the criminal networks Frequent, local ‘seaway robbery’ and sale of stolen crude on the oil […]

IntelBrief: Somalia – The Problem with Proxies

By Bronwyn Bruton

In the latest in the series of “IntelBriefs” on African security issues being produced by the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center in partnership with the Soufan Group, an international strategic consultancy, Africa Center Deputy Director Bronwyn Bruton argues that the US support of proxy forces in the conflict in Somalia has failed to achieve a number […]