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Notes -
Black African countries are very, very weak. Russia/Wagner managed to coup 3 while fighting Ukraine, they're pushovers. Most of them aren't even food secure. Yemen is especially reliant on imports. If we actually wanted to beat the Houthis as opposed to looking like we were doing something, they'd have no choice but unconditional surrender.
The original blank-slatist assumption was that once Africa was decolonized, they'd turn into powerful, modern industrialized states like Italy or Japan. So it would make sense to court them. But in reality... African countries have basically non-existent power projection and manufacturing, all they can do is offer bases and natural resource exports. It would be pretty easy to secure the resource-rich ones. If Wagner can do it, so could Blackwater (provided that there was no democracy-promotion mission).
Again, I wasn't talking simply about Africa, and the sheer size of population alone would mean this sort of a policy would inevitably become costly. After all, it's not something that America is doing now in a major way at least, despite there being unfriendly regimes - Black Hawk Down is still a point of reference.
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