Domino theory and its applications in Africa during the last decade
"You have a row of dominoes set up,
you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the
certainty that it will go over very quickly.”
Former US President Dwight Eisenhower
This statement by Eisenhower represents an abbreviation for what is
called the “domino theory.” In April 1954, the American President repeated this
statement during a press conference, expressing the theory without naming it,
as he believed that communist control of Vietnam would lead to similar
communist victories in neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, such as Laos,
Cambodia, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, all the way
to Australia and New Zealand. US foreign policy makers had already adopted this
idea, so the National Security Council included the domino theory in its report
on Indochina in 1952.
The Origins of the Domino Theory and its Assumptions:
The direct background that influenced the emergence of this theory was
due to two basic factors: the first; The fate of the victory of the
revolutionary forces led by Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War, and the fear
of some American politicians in 1947 that the fall of China into the hands of
Stalin would be the beginning of the fall of all of Asia.
The second; The outbreak of the Cold War between the Western camp led by
the United States and the Eastern camp led by the Soviet Union, in light of the
difficulty of resolving differences between the two camps by force of arms and
the strong opposition to a new world war, and the awareness of the nature of
the mutual destruction that the war would generate after the Soviet Union
developed nuclear weapons in 1949 AD.
This theory assumes the existence of an external force capable of
destabilizing the existing state of stability between neighboring groups of
entities organized in a certain order, and it assumes that once that force
succeeds in destabilizing any of those entities; A wave of instability begins
to affect every element of the system, one after another. This wave has a speed
of propagation that is affected by the extent to which the elements that fall
first have an intrinsic ability to enhance the spread of the wave’s effect.
One of the conditions for this theory to be true is that the distance
between the entities that make up the system be equal, that they fall at a
certain speed, and that those entities must be willing to be affected by the
wave. This theory emphasizes the importance of the external factor to bring
about a change in a country. This theory has been used in the field of
comparative political systems, and the studies that have used it have concluded
that; the rise and fall in the degree of democracy in a particular country
spread and infect the neighboring countries. Thus, change within a given
country brings about a similar change in neighboring countries, similar to a
contagion effect.
The United States used the domino theory to justify its intervention in
the Vietnam War under John Kennedy in the 1960s to keep South Vietnam from
falling into the trap of communism, on the grounds that its fall would lead to
other countries falling into communism. After the assassination of John F.
Kennedy, US President Lyndon Johnson also used the domino theory to justify
strengthening the US military presence in Vietnam from a few thousand to more
than half a million soldiers over the next five years.
This theory was also the main reason why the United States stood in the
face of any democratic change in the Latin American countries that it
considered its backyard. It stood in the face of social and political
transformations in these countries, and even supported military coups in them
in order to stop these countries’ transition to democracy. Perhaps the most
famous of these coups occurred in Guatemala in the 1950s, and the same thing
happened in the Dominican Republic and other countries in the twentieth
century, including, of course, Chile in the 1970s, and Argentina, Nicaragua,
and others -in other decades-.
African Revolutions Domino:
After the success of revolutions in several African countries, and the
fall of a number of tyrannical rulers; The domino theory has returned to the
fore; Where the conditions mentioned above were met. A popular revolution took
place in Tunisia to overthrow Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, followed by the
revolution in Egypt to overthrow Hosni Mubarak, followed by Libya and Burkina
Faso, then Algeria, Sudan and Mali, in a literal application of the domino
theory.
It can be said that the main effect that can be related to the domino
theory, with regard to the African situation and the spread of protests in more
than one African country, is that the success of the Tunisian revolution,
despite the presence of an authoritarian regime, made the Egyptians break the
barrier of fear and realize that overthrowing such regimes Repression is
possible, but it only requires a strong will, a long breath, and collective
solidarity, which is what happened in Egypt. When the transformation succeeded
in Egypt, the central Arab and African country, and with the global attention
and international reactions it received, it restored hope to other peoples who
were suffering from oppression, the scenario of inheriting power, and losing any
hope for changing, which is what happened later in other countries.
The British historian and thinker Eric Hobsbawm pointed out this meaning
in the 1990s. He defined the revolution as a major transformation in the
structure of society, and pointed to four elements that must be considered when
talking about the revolution, the first of which is; Privacy: Every revolution
has its own specificity in terms of time and place. Secondly; Victory: means
the victory of a new system over the old system. And third: Cumulative: The
explosion of the revolution is due to factors accumulated over the years, which
created pressure on the base and generated the explosion that is represented in
the state of revolution. And fourth: The geographical dimension of the
revolution “contagion theory”:
The contagion effect means imitation of a successful democratic
transformation from one country to another, as this encourages a democratic
transformation in another country in the same way. Countries, like humans,
usually seek to imitate other successful people, and imitation is very similar
to a snowball that increases in size as it rolls.
Perhaps one of the factors that contribute to greater transmission of
infection is: This tremendous development in communications systems and
audio-visual radio networks and the ease of receiving them all over the world,
despite some governments trying to block the arrival of such news to their
people, it was transmitted in more than one way to the people, which provided
an opportunity for global public opinion to influence the form and
crystallization of public opinion. In addition to this, other factors play a
role in achieving the contagion effect, such as cultural similarity and
geographical borders. The revolutionary tide of the Arab and African countries
was a real and actual embodiment and application of the extent of the impact
and effectiveness of the contagion of democratic transformation as an important
factor of transformation.
On the African continent; Soon after one domino game ends, another
begins. While the countries of the African continent witnessed a decline in the
rate of coups in the 1980s and early 1990s, the rates of civil wars increased,
reaching their peak during the mid-1990s, when the number of wars and civil
conflicts on the continent reached about 15 wars. With the beginning of the new
millennium and the twenty-first century, the intensity of civil wars subsided,
but the phenomenon of military coups soon re-emerged, especially as a shift in
the course of popular revolutions.
African Coups Domino:
Egypt paved the way for coups like she did for revolutions. This
happened after the military coup in Egypt in 2013, which was followed by a coup
in Burkina Faso in 2014. In less than two years, Africa witnessed five
successful military coups, two in Mali, one in Guinea, one in Sudan, and one in
Burkina Faso.
In Tunisia, elected President Kais Saied turned against the government
and parliament. He monopolized most of the powers in a move described as a soft
coup. In addition, there is a failed coup attempt in Niger, and an arbitrary
transfer of power in Chad following the assassination of its president, Idriss
Deby. This is all in addition to a number of failed coup attempts, the most
recent of which was carried out by soldiers in Guinea-Bissau against the rule
of President Amaru Sissoko Embalo.
There are many reasons and pretexts used by the military to justify
their coups, but it has been noted that the military in the third millennium
provide the same reasons and justifications that the generation that preceded
them gave in the seventies of the twentieth century, which is the trinity of
corruption, poverty, and mismanagement at home, and the conflict of interests
of the major powers abroad, in a new phase that is more like a cold war in the
way it manages the hidden conflicts between the traditional Western powers and
the new Eastern powers as competitors.
If we look at how Western powers, led by the United States of America,
deal with coups in Africa, we will find that they condemn them, but in the end,
they accept them as a method for transitioning power in Africa, and so does
France, which is a blatant contradiction between the philosophy of promoting
democracy and accepting coup governments and dealing with them.
The External Factor and the Domino Theory in Africa:
The last decade witnessed the rise of Russian influence on the continent
at the expense of French decline, with Turkish attempts to penetrate the
African Horn and Sahel regions, as well as American attempts to regain control
in Africa. Geopolitical considerations have become dominant in the dealings of
major powers with Africa, and the increasing international scramble to exploit
African resources has led to the outbreak of proxy conflicts and then
escalation of tensions that spread to neighboring countries in a manner similar
to domino movements.
This was accompanied by two main trends: the first; It is represented by
the expansion of transnational terrorist networks in the Sahel and East Africa
in a broad sense, which is based on the presence of an abundance of roaming
foreign fighters. Secondly; It is represented by the proliferation of foreign
military bases amid increasing Sino-American geopolitical tensions. Thus, the
external factor plays a major role in multiplying the domino effect and
spreading tensions in the countries of the continent, which ultimately opens a
loophole for external powers to penetrate into Africa and achieve their
interests there.
Conclusion; During the last decade, the African continent has
witnessed dramatic transformations that have upended all expectations and
aborted the struggle of the African peoples to achieve liberation, development
and construction. When the African Spring revolutions domino converted to African
coups domino that herald the fall of the continent, a return to the square of
exhaustion and endless conflicts. With African countries topping the Fragile
States Index for the year 2021, The possibility of coups occurring in Africa
increases, which will deprive the continent of many opportunities that could
have contributed to its economic and development renaissance, and will
exacerbate the already deteriorating situation. By reading the debates of
international powers on the African stage, it can be said that these powers may
contribute to exacerbating the chaos if necessary in order to achieve their
interests.
By: Dr. Doaa Ewida
Sobol Magazine
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