There are few questions of greater significance in African international relations than China's actions in and engagement with other states. Chinese infrastructure, businesses, and people have blanketed the continent and revolutionized lifestyles, transportation, and political economies. The...

Australia, India, Japan, and the US are coordinating security activities in the Indo-Pacific under the guise of the ‘Quad’, a highly informal intergovernmental organization that some observers describe as an embryonic military alliance. For others, it is a loose group amounting to little...

The Middle East occupies the minds of policymakers, security experts, and geopolitical pundits arguably far beyond what the region’s territorial scope and economic heft appear to warrant. Notwithstanding the significance of hydrocarbon production from the region to the functioning of the...

The geopolitical situation of Eastern Africa is complex and volatile due to several socio-economic, security and political factors. These range from poverty to terrorism to maritime insecurity. This vast region—home to highly diverse states and peoples—is also rich in natural resources such...

The hardening rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is now taken as a given, and many will agree that the theater of this strategic competition is the Indo-Pacific. Spanning the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds, this region is a vast, maritime arena that defies control...

Uganda and Kenya agreed to jointly build the Uganda-Kenya crude oil pipeline (UKCOP) in 2014. The planned pipeline benefited from a history of common cross-border projects as well as a shared interest to monetize their respective oil reserves. Nevertheless, Uganda soon jettisoned the pipeline...

When it comes to states arming themselves, it has become axiomatic among scholars of comparative defence industries that go-it-alone production is no longer an option for most. The processes associated with defence-industrial globalization combined with the ever-rising costs of producing...

Strikes conducted by the US using armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against the terrorist group al-Shabaab have received widespread attention documenting the number of strikes, the reactions of the local Somali, and the disparity between AFRICOM and local reporting. Using interview data from...

Upon Eritrean independence in 1993, Ethiopia became landlocked and therefore dependent on neighbors – especially Djibouti – for access to international markets. This dependency has hampered Ethiopia's aspiration to emerge as the uncontested regional power in the Horn of Africa. This article...

Instituted in 2013, devolution in Kenya seeks to bring government closer to the people by devolving political and economic resources to Kenya's forty-seven county governments. Devolution's stated aim is to better address the local needs of Kenyans. This article attempts to gauge the extent to...