It’s plausible to now talk of an emerging “New World Order” or dual centres of global power following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a part of Ukraine, and subsequent economic sanctions on the former by the West; the signing of a massive gas deal between Russia and China; and what some analysts are now calling an “Obama Foreign Policy Doctrine.”

The doctrine, discerned from a speech by US President Barack Obama at West Point military academy last week, strongly embraces multilateralism and collective action in ensuring world peace and security, at the expense of traditional unilateralism.

He told military graduates that, yes, the US “will use military force, unilaterally if necessary” but only “when our [US] core interests demand it.”

While some have criticised Obama, viewing the policy as signifying “declining” US power and “weakness” on his part, to peace lovers it represents a fundamental shift from George W. Bush’s hawkish one that enunciated the era of unilateral military action after terror attack on the Twin Towers in New York in September 2001.

Then, Bush told nations, “you are either with us or against us,” and went on to name the “Axis of Evil” that must be destroyed. With this, it’s possible to state that Obama is the most liberal internationalist US president since Woodrow Wilson.

On May 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a $400 billion gas deal with China, a substantial shift in relations between the two nations that could counterweight Western alliance or at least check its excesses. This means the world order in the 21st Century won’t be determined by a single power.

What does this teach Africa? Restricting relations to a few nations is counterproductive. The Russia-China deal is more than a business pact as it opens up political or even military alliance should Western allies pursue dominance as they have since the end of the Cold War. But the biggest lesson is, as the US has realised, war is folly and should only be engaged as a last resort to defend national, not personal, interests.

Is Africa prepared to benefit from the emerging order? I would say, as in the past, Africa seems clueless. Take the East African Community. It’s supposed to strengthen itself internally to effectively engage the world, yet evidence points to widening divisions between the CoW and Tanzania.

While Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda are implementing projects and recently signed a military pact to defend each other, Tanzania and Burundi are still left out. And hostile rhetoric seems to have continued between Tanzania and Rwanda.

Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe is reported to have restated in parliament: “When I told the BBC Rwandans were causing instability in eastern Congo, I meant what I said.” His Rwandan counterpart Louise Mushikiwabo told The EastAfrican: “I heard he would benefit from a lesson in the history of the region.”

Indeed. For the uninitiated, it’s easy to sympathise with Membe, but M23 is dead and buried. Secondly, the Congo conflict erupted in 1996 as a result of the international community’s failure to disarm former Habyarimana army and Interahamwe, who were based there and causing insecurity. To claim that it’s a Kigali-created problem is to rewrite history.

Thirdly, as history attests, Banyamurenge are Congolese not Rwandans, and many resided in Congo even before the country known thus was born, and the core of M23 officers were in Kabila’s army.

However, what is more worrying is the connection between Membe rhetoric with recent deeds.

In May last year, President Jakaya Kikwete asked President Kagame to make peace with FDLR. Some interpreted it as well meaning and a strategy for sustainable peace.

In September, Tanzania expelled more than 7,000 Rwandans and thousands of others as “illegal” immigrants. Last month, Tanzania gave 162,156 Burundians citizenship and helped to defeat M23 through the UN Force Intervention Brigade.

Yet the promise to militarily defeat FDLR has not materialised as reports it met former Rwandan premier Faustin Twagiramungu to “strategise on how the FDLR could take over power in Rwanda” (The Citizen, May 28) has never clearly been substantiated. As Tanzania’s shadow foreign minister Ezekiah Wenje noted, this behaviour stokes tension; it’s neither innocent, nor is it helping to muster a regional voice.
Christopher Kayumba, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the School of Journalism, University of Rwanda, and managing consultant at MGC Consult Ltd. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: CKayumba