Bob Beck's Foreign Policy Blog

This is the fifth in a series of articles on key foreign policy challenges for the next U.S. president.  The articles will continue between now and the general election on 5 November 2024. 

While much of the bandwidth of the foreign policy community is understandably focused on China and Russia – the “main threats” to U.S. national security, the next lodger of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will also be faced with the growing strategic importance of the global south.  Comprising much of what used to be called the “third world,” this disparate group of nations stretching across Southeast Asia, Oceania, Africa, and Latin America will present myriad challenges for our next president. 

The primary U.S. national interests related to these countries are, broadly, counter-terrorism, access to critical natural resources, and immigration, both from an American perspective and that of our allies. Let’s take a look at each of these in more detail. 

First, several areas in the global south, particularly in the Sahel region of Africa, have become fertile territory for terrorist groups due to the combination of unsustainable population growth, the growing consequences of climate change, and poor governance by military juntas. To highlight this trend, in Mali in west central Africa, jihadists recently attacked the international airport and other key locations in Bamako, the capital.  The regime in Bamako has turned to Russia for counter-terrorism support, in the process banishing French forces from the country that had previously carried out that mission. Next door in Niger, U.S. forces have been expelled from the country in favor of Russian troops, thereby denying the U.S. and its allies of critical intelligence on a seemingly metastasizing terrorism movement across that region. 

It would be dangerously naive to believe that Al Qaeda and Islamic State affiliated groups that establish bases in Africa’s Sahel region will limit their operations to that neighborhood.  What happens in Mali, Niger, or Burkina Faso will undoubtedly spread to threaten U.S. interests elsewhere. 

This author has in previous articles touched on the importance of access to rare national resources key to our electric future. The global south is already, and will continue to be, a major source of many of these resources.  According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a D.C-based think tank, the Democratic Republic of the Congo produces 69% of the world’s cobalt, Chile and Peru are the top two producers of copper, Indonesia and the Philippines are the biggest producers of nickel, and some of the world’s largest deposits of lithium are located in the so-called “lithium triangle” along the borders of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. 

Put bluntly, ensuring a reliable supply line for these and other minerals is a national security issue for Washington. Accordingly, the next administration will need to focus on this matter, or risk the U.S. becoming more dependent on China for the health of our future green economy. 

Then there is immigration, one of the most contentious issues driving our current toxic political polarization.  We, however, are not alone in facing this dilemma as European politics have been roiled by the topic since the immigration waves of the mid 2010s moved north of the Mediterranean in search of a better life.   

In America, on account of our rather tepid birth rates, we need healthy, legal immigration to ensure our economy remains dynamic and competitive.  Furthermore, for better or worse, this country’s research and development sector, essential for maintaining our technical advantages in the realm of national defense, will continue to require a steady influx of foreign scientific talent, primarily from Asia. 

On the flip side, America needs to do a much better job of securing its borders. That means beefing up border security as well as developing a long term strategy to improve the political and economic stability of the primary countries of origin of the immigrants, with Mexico being number one on that list.  America’s immigration woes will be solved not just along the southern border but also through sustained engagement, development work, and economic collaboration with our neighbors to the south.  

For far too long our elected leaders have failed in addressing this issue, often beholden to the more radical fringes of their respective political camps.  The next administration would be wise to start with the senate’s bipartisan draft bill from early 2024 that was shelved as a result of cynical political posturing.  Despite a dangerous fealty to “my way or the highway” beliefs regarding immigration among too large a portion of America’s citizenry, compromise will be key to successfully manage this challenge. 

Let’s hope the next president will be up to the task.

This article was published on 25 September by the Brattleboro Reformer and on 2 October by the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.