Episode 76. Shifting US strategic interests in Africa – Pawn or Partner

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:12] Welcome to a conversation in the American Academy of Diplomacy podcast series, The General and the Ambassador. Our podcasts bring together senior US diplomats and senior US defense officials in conversations about their partnership in carrying out US national security policy. I'm Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. Today we will talk about US engagement in Africa with a particular focus on Djibouti and Chad. Our guests are Admiral Mike Franken and Ambassador Geeta Pasi. The General and the Ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast has been sponsored by the Fletcher School Global Master of Arts Program. This program allows career executives to earn a Master of Leadership in global affairs in one year without leaving the workforce. Admiral Franken, Ambassador Pasi, welcome to the program. Let me start with a short biographical introduction. Admiral Mike Franken had a long career in the US Navy. He served as the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa in Djibouti from 2011 to 2012. He subsequently served as the Director of the Department of Defense's POW/MIA Agency. From 2015 to 2017, he was the United States Africa Command's Deputy for Military Operations. He is currently the CEO of Chartwell Strategic Advisors. Ambassador Geeta Pasi recently retired after a long diplomatic career at the Department of State. She served as a US ambassador to Djibouti from 2011 to 2014, then as the US Ambassador to Chad from 2016 to 2018. Subsequently, she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs and then the US Ambassador to Ethiopia until 2022. Well, Mike, Geeta, thank you so much for joining our podcast series. Before we begin on our topic today, I wanted to ask how and when you first met. Did you know each other before you started working together in Djibouti?

Adm. Franken: [00:02:18] Well, we hadn't other than reading her bio and meeting her on the tarmac when she arrived. It was our first introduction.

Amb. Pasi: [00:02:26] Yeah, that's right. My assistant flew in on a flight with you. She was very, very impressed that you took a regular plane and you flew in on the same flight as she had.

Adm. Franken: [00:02:34] So Row 47 B maybe.

Amb. Pasi: [00:02:37] Exactly.  In Djibouti, unlike other ambassadorships, because there's a co-location of a US military base and the embassy, the interactions are far more frequent than they would normally be anywhere else. I served as ambassador because you don't usually have such a senior military officer. Mike's deputy was a general. You know, most embassies, you might have a captain or a colonel possibly who's your senior military advisor. So it's interesting to have someone who's extremely senior and experienced as your counterpart.

 Amb. McCarthy: [00:03:06] Well, we're going to talk a little bit about how you work together on the ground, but I wanted to start out talking a little bit about the big picture history. Prickly issues on the African continent were not considered to be strategic priorities for the United States, particularly on the military side. It was not until after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya by Al Qaida, that the region began to be incorporated in our national security strategies. On the military side, however, the region continued to be divided up between different regional combatant commands until 2007, when a specific command for the region was set up US AFRICOM. Now, you served together during the Obama administration and in the Obama Administration National Security Strategy, it was noted that US priorities in the Africa region included, quote, access to open markets, conflict prevention, global peacekeeping, counterterrorism and the protection of vital carbon sinks. So I wanted to ask you, in your view, what are US strategic interests in Africa. 

Adm. Franken: [00:04:11] From a DOD perspective, they're multifaceted and increasing with every passing administration. I credit the Obama administration for having that vision, and it was happening in the Bush administration, too. But if we walk back to George Herbert Walker Bush administration with the National Security Strategy, the continent of Africa was hardly mentioned. But as time progressed, it became, with the increase of population, the realization that precious metals and natural resources it was a source for that. The rapid population growth, the fact that 60% of the world's arable land is in Africa. It required much more attention than what it was getting in the hierarchy of needs for people. You need to have security. So one of my missions from a security architecture perspective, peacekeeping and counterterrorism, and that has only increased as time has gone on as we've created a US AFRICOM.

Amb. Pasi: [00:05:04] I think, as Mike said, definitely our interests in Africa are growing. When President George W Bush went to Africa and initiated. Fire that helped many, many people who are suffering from HIV. It now includes all sorts of women's wellness. We can't have a continent that is poised to have more people on it than any other continent. Be a place where people can't lead a healthy life, where they can't make decisions for themselves and for their children and for their future. Africa is the future, and I think the increasing economic ties between American businesses and businesses in Africa, whether it's for natural resources or other things, are testament to the fact that people are realizing that Africa is a place where we want to be and we need to be.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:05:51] Well, I'm going to turn now to Djibouti, where you served together. It is located in the Horn of Africa, along one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which serves as the gateway from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. Across this strait are Yemen and Saudi Arabia. On the land side to the south and west, Djibouti shares borders with Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Djibouti hosts Camp Lemonnier, the only US base in sub-Saharan Africa. The base is the home of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa. Geeta, Mike, can you explain to our listeners the importance of the strategic location of Djibouti for US interests?

Amb. Pasi: [00:06:33] Djibouti is very small. It has virtually no resources. I think the arable land is less than 1%. Almost all the food is imported. It's very difficult place, but it has one thing which is its strategic, its geographic location. You know, it's at the confluence of the Middle East, the Horn of Africa. It's a main port for shipping items to Ethiopia, which is landlocked and to Central Africa, and also for moving things from those countries out that are being exported. It's also a place which has mixtures of different cultures for the United States. Djibouti's place its role as a modern, moderate majority Muslim country and its acceptance and willingness of US military presence and its natural leanings toward the Western way of thinking. We're really revolutionary and something that I think that we need to continue to embrace.

Adm. Franken: [00:07:29] As Ambassador Pasi said, geography is destiny in itself. Djibouti shares the Straits of Bab El Mandeb with Eritrea and Yemen. A large percentage of the world's natural resources pass through the Bab El Mandeb, and if the Red Sea was closed off due to strife, as it nearly was, with the issues going on in Yemen with the Houthis, it would increase the transit lane from Europe to China by 28 days or so. Not only that, but it is also the crossroads of information flow. The underwater cables. It is conveniently located as a portal through which air traffic running from Africa into the Middle East, into Asia. It's at sea level. Consequently, you can refuel and get great distances out of your aircraft. It has a lot of challenges. The good news is, though, its geography cannot be removed and consequently it is where the Japanese built their first out of country facility, where China has built their first substantial out of nation facility and where the United States early on in 2001 and 2002, established a presence. And the djiboutian were very accommodating with the outside entities. They recognize that a peaceful region benefits all.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:08:47] Well, I want to ask you a little bit about your mission priorities. And let me start with you, Geeta. What were your mission priorities leading the US embassy in Djibouti? 

Amb. Pasi: [00:08:56] One of our top priorities was facilitating the work of the base and coordinating closely with the government to ensure that any diplomatic issues or other things that needed to be addressed or smoothed over were handled efficient. We we also were trying to help Djibouti with its larger number of refugees, many of whom came from Ethiopia or Eritrea or other places. And we provided training to help these people get jobs. Djibouti has very few possibilities for employment for its young people with huge youth population. In fact, the largest employer in Djibouti was Camp Lemonnier, and they had over 1000 local nationals. And in Djibouti, one person worked and ten people or 20 people, eight based on that take home pay. So a lot of what we did was promoting business, trying to promote best practices. Djibouti wanted to have a lot more US business, but the process of opening a business was very complicated and we help them improve their investment attractiveness. We suggested ways that they could do that and they were really great students and they have done, I think, remarkably well. When the base opened, it was not a permanent base, it was a presence, and nobody knew how long it would be. It was after 9/11, and Djibouti always said, well, we thought, you know, we'd be like a base in Germany. There would be McDonald's, there would be restaurants, there would be a movie theater, a golf course. So they always felt like we weren't doing enough. So a lot of it was managing expectations that had been set well before we arrived in 2001 that we'll have the base and all this other stuff will come to us just like other bases. And because we didn't have families there, we didn't provide the kind of support that I think they expected they would receive.

Adm. Franken: [00:10:39] You know, it was a constant struggle between keeping it as an expeditionary base, keeping it as a facility overseas that would be called an overseas complex. And it was a struggle, truly, because there's a desire amongst DOD to make it more accommodating for people to be there and to afford them the opportunity to maintain some kind of an evening education and gyms and all that business where it just was really at odds for a the length of stay that people were there and the mission, which was something that required a lot of attention, 18 hours a day.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:11:11] Can you give us some examples of how you coordinated the work between the embassy and the base?

Adm. Franken: [00:11:16] Once a week, because we had so many people coming and going and we had over 4000 people on the facility at that time, I welcomed everybody on a face to face conversation and the first person who spoke to them was the Ambassador, and I thought that was the most instrumental thing we could do because I would explain to people, and they're from all walks of life and from all the different militaries and also government agencies, inter agencies, etc. I'd explain to him she is the President's representative. Here we are. The Department of Defense is representative through us, AFRICOM, through the Secretary of Defense, who is a deputy to the President of the United States. I'm third tier, fourth tier down. She's second tier. So we answer to her. Let's begin. And I thought that was the proper setting to ensure that who we were working for was properly in everybody's focus. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:12:11] From the base in Djibouti. The US has been working to degrade violent extremist organizations. And in one of Djibouti's neighbors, Somalia, the terrorist group al-Shabab has been operating for years carrying out horrific attacks. Can you each talk a bit about this violent extremist organization in terms of the threat it poses to US interests? 

Adm. Franken: [00:12:33] My job was really the balancing of a troika diplomacy, defense and development. And we also had a very high humanitarian aspect that was part of that as well. But number one, it was to build partnership capacity to ensure somebody else could learn, do it properly, and ensure that they could maintain the security necessary for a nation, because in the hierarchy of needs, you must have security so you can go about your daily business. So we promoted security. We also dissuaded conflict as best we could. There were a lot of lingering long term issues between various tribal elements, both geographical and also bloodline, religion, etc. We did our very best to protect allied interests besides us in the region, and we would ensure that what DOD was doing was always in step with what the diplomats were doing and to working through such organizations as overseas intelligence, the UNHCR, Red Crescent and others, all of those organizations we stayed very much connected with. As the commander, I had this interesting call list where I would call Geneva and I'd call Washington and Singapore and shipping organizations and ambassadors, national security directors of various countries, even national leadership with other countries, because we were so diffused and you needed to have a lot of tentacles and a lot of different areas to ensure that you were working with everybody versus against someone.

Amb. Pasi: [00:13:59] Terrorism is something that has bedeviled the world, not just the United States, but the world for centuries. Al-Shabab, while based in Somalia, is particularly threatening because it operated all over the continent. There was an attack once at a World Cup game in Uganda, and there was an attack in Djibouti toward the end of my time. Mike had already left by then, but the Djiboutians were terrified. The persons who came, suicide bombers, a young man and a woman, they were from a clan who knew somebody at the border. They were able to slip in. It was the worst nightmare Djibouti could imagine. So they were always aware of who was doing what in their country. It's a tiny country, fewer than a million people, and they had a very, very active surveillance program. But that attack showed them that we were vulnerable, too. I think a key effort was working with the French and others who had been there for some time. The French had a very active military base. It had been a French colony for a long time. And we coordinated very closely with them on many issues, not just al-Shabab, but other groups that threatened the region or threatened Djibouti. I think one thing it's also useful to mention is that as the ambassador, I was responsible for our relationship with Djibouti. That was my total focus. But CJTF-HOA, the combined Joint Task Force for the Horn of Africa, had responsibility for all the countries in the Horn of Africa. And there was a Foreign Service officer, Sue Bremner, in fact, who was working there at the time. They liaised with my counterparts in all the countries in the horn when there was a terrorist attack in Kenya that had reverberations for the US military's footprint all over the continent, not to mention US embassies there. So it's a small country, but I always used to say its importance exceeds its footprint.

Adm. Franken: [00:15:42] Yeah, a couple of quick stories. I would always travel with my State Department colleague in this case, Sue Bremner, and ensure that she was well positioned going in. And we also had some human terrain analysis, people with PhDs who were born in Ethiopia or Somalia, etc., linguists and knew the culture. And I would often take them along as well to ensure that when I spoke to local leaders, I would have them on my plane and I would have them step off the plane first and I would walk with them through the tarmac so that they knew subliminally that they were very close to me. And what they said was what I was hearing. It's just a way to strengthen my position and their position and to ensure that we were not stepping crosswise. Regarding Shabab, they're an offshoot of al Qaeda, and they were somewhat of a criminal organization as a result. And we won't go into the difference between English settlements and Italian settlements in present day Somalia. But there is a difference as to the location and what kind of Shabab they are, and they're filling a void. But they were often a violent extremist organization that was a criminal undercarriage. Consequently, you had to starve them for funding. That's what was a principle methodology that we were using.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:16:54] Well, amongst the things that you coordinated was also economic assistance. Djibouti receives some economic assistance from the United States, both the embassy through USAID, but also the base engaged in development projects. How did you deconflict?

Amb. Pasi: [00:17:13] Well, that's a good question, because that was an area of controversy. The military officials who came to Djibouti, those who were serving there, were often there for four months, six months, and they might have a project because they went to a certain village. They thought that village needed this or that. But later, sometimes a year later, when the project was completed, we would find out, Oh, a hospital has been built here, but there's no water. The water is a mile away, but that could be fixed for $1,000,000. Bringing water is really expensive, it turns out, from a mile away. And Djibouti is one of the most expensive countries on the planet. So our aid director at the time had this brainchild, and I thought it was a fantastic idea. He led a group that included people from CJTF, from Civil Affairs, from all the commands at the base, military commands and people in the embassy to talk about which projects we should ask them to do. You know, they had a lot more money than we did. So we would say, well, don't build a school there. Let's do this. I think that was good to focus the energy and the drive, But we picked areas where we felt we could make an impact, and that wouldn't be controversial for the Djboutians

Adm. Franken: [00:18:22] And an example of a multifaceted problem. I was asked by the country, a host nation, not Djibouti, but another nearby country, if I could help them throw a compliment to the Muslim population, and that was to provide them water, to provide them as well. So we sent out a team to take a look and that got characterized as, Oh, they're going to pump water up this mountain from this valley. Well, wait a minute. They're very, very steep. All these fittings inside a mountain. And what do you provide power to? There's no electricity there. And then that became, well, we need a road. Well, to create a road that you could put a vehicular traffic on was ridiculous, expensive. I mean, it was tens of millions of dollars. But the more often you'd send a survey teams, their engineers there, the higher the expectation of what you're going to do. Pretty soon it was a helicopter pad. All the good intentions have a tendency to run awry because this is America and we can do anything. And we have a tendency to say, hey, now's the time. We can really make an effort. But in this remote place, in the most stark area of Africa, we were going to do this $100 Million development. So we had to back off it and got some egg on our face because of it, and for all the good reasons, try to do a little bit and it spiraled out of control. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:19:36] Well, I wanted to turn now to chat. Kita, you served there as the US ambassador from 2016 to 2018. At that same time, Mike, you were the deputy for military operations at US AFRICOM. During your overlap, the US administration shifted from President Obama to President Trump and a new national security strategy was issued. My question is how did US policy towards Africa shift with the change in administrations.

Amb. Pasi: [00:20:05] As you know, from being an ambassador serving in the State Department, we always say there won't be a change regardless of who's in the White House. When President Trump was elected, there was, I think, a very significant change. I think the idea of protecting the homeland went from preventing terrorists from coming here or threatening our way of life to preventing people from entering the US in a global way. People were very apprehensive in Chad about what the Trump administration might do. I think across Africa, the president's remarks describing African countries in a very derogatory manner still resonate. I think Africa was not a focus of President Trump, although his daughter Ivanka Trump, did go to on the continent a few times. Secretary Pompeo traveled to Africa. I actually traveled with him later after I left Chad, but it didn't have the same focus.

Adm. Franken: [00:20:54] People that were supportive of international affairs, the professionals were still in office for the most part. They had a long range plan for Africa. And although we weren't the first among equals in development in Africa that had long since been used by the Chinese. Our Africa policy became somewhat a policy based on sound bites and that which became spoken at various rallies or off the cuff conversations. I was mostly focused at the time in Libya and Mali and some direct combat operations. We were also told to evacuate a lot of our of our capabilities off the continent. So we were involved in Operation Barkhane with the French and in Somalia and having been responsible for Somalia previously at CJTF-HOA, I knew the significance of moving the capabilities out of that nation and knowing that void as fast as we were going to do it, we're going to have longer term ramifications. So we try to clarify as best we can. And the professionals in the room tempered a lot of that and were the bromide to sound bites. But we did change in the continent.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:21:57] Geeta, You mentioned some changes and I note that in September 2017, the President announced a travel ban on Chad, citing the risk of terrorism. Though they are part of efforts to fight terrorism in the region. What can you tell us about the ban in terms of the effect it had on our relations with Chad and the efforts made internally to roll it back?

Amb. Pasi: [00:22:20] Well, that was a really difficult time for the embassy for me personally. And I remember I received instructions to tell the Chadians this was going to be announced in an hour. Someone woke me up in the middle of the night. We have something, a special type of message that requires immediate action. I went to the embassy to read the message and I was told, Please deliver this. But at such and such a time in Chad, which would have been, I don't know, one in the afternoon, it was on a Sunday to find somebody and to tell them that this was going to happen. Everything was closed. But the minister of internal Security and the acting foreign minister were there and they said come to the foreign ministry. But unfortunately, they've been unable to open the doors of the foreign ministry. So they had prayer, blankets and we sat and we explained and, you know, at first they said, well, okay, but it still hadn't officially been announced anyway. It was announced and the Chadians couldn't understand why. And, you know, Chad has a it's a majority Muslim country, but there's a significant Christian population. And in addition, the number of visas Chadians were issued were very, very minimal. So the Chadians couldn't square the logic. We worked really hard with the White House, with the State Department, with everybody who would work with us, and we convinced senior officials to send a team to Chad to talk to the Chadians about improving their security profile, who gets a passport and so on. And when then Secretary Tillerson visited, he was able to say that it's about to be lifted. That was in the spring, but it was harrowing and nobody in Chad could really understand, especially because Chad has been a security partner with the US and going to fight in peacekeeping missions and other things that we needed them to do so they couldn't understand how we could treat them that way. It was really, really tough. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:24:06] Well, Chad participates in the Trans Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership, which is a US cross government effort to fight terrorism in the region. The Department of Defense is trained and provide equipment to the Chadian special Anti Terrorism group and the Chadian army. And in the region we have both Boko Haram and Icis. Can you talk a little bit about the threat that those two videos represent for the US and how that compares to al-Shabab?

Adm. Franken: [00:24:34] Shabab, as we talked about, is an Al offshoot, which is a group of clan leaders who lost a lot of moxie as the nation tried to establish itself under a federal government in Mogadishu and Boko Haram. There was in Maiduguri and elsewhere in the north, there was a religion based pushback. The leadership was using religion to actually develop a criminal enterprise. The lack of jobs, a lack of opportunities, the desertification of the lands, the struggle that they had, the influx of weapons that heretofore was not available, caused an uprising, was favorable to young men, mostly who could find a career in criminality versus being unemployed and just steal what they wanted. And that's kind of, I think, the roots of all that. Regarding ISIS, I didn't view ISIS as a long term threat in Africa. Frankly, not south as a whole. It is an Arab organization that doesn't view the African type of Islam as being of value to them, and they were in essence a pawn and they were a facilitating an opportunity. And as you went further south in the continent of Africa, ISIS became less of an issue because frankly, ISIS just wasn't interested. There were no command and control structures and the transfer of funds, as Boko Haram said, they got some money from ISIS. I think the total was like 35,000 or something at the time it was insignificant. So people are aspirational versus of significance.

Amb. Pasi: [00:26:01] My first assignment was Cameroon. I was in Douala and I remember going with the then ambassador and a group of people to Chad by road, and it took two days. When I was ambassador to Chad, my embassy was about two miles or three miles from the border with Cameroon, but we couldn't cross into Cameroon because the situation in Cameroon was very dire. Boko Haram was at the border. They were in Cameroon. Chad was very much under siege by Boko Haram in various parts of Chad. Boko Haram at the time was assessed to not have aspirations to, let's say, launch an attack in Europe, which is the difference when you're talking about a local terrorist group versus something that has international capabilities.

Adm. Franken: [00:26:40] If you go to the communities that a lot of the refugees came from, where the coyotes actively recruited people to go up through Libya and into Europe, it's many of those communities. And so consequently the young working business owners, etc., they all left. They went north to look for other opportunities up through the trot line of Niger and Agadez and into Libya. Some of those communities were really left destitute in terms of economic activity. Farming became a very difficult and the young people were looking for a different line of work and Boko Haram gave them an opportunity to live and to, you know, in that area of the world, it's all about having the necessary wealth to to have a partner in life, get a wife, I think was a driving factor in a lot of young men to join Boko Haram. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:27:25] I wanted to turn now to the issue of Chinese influence in Africa. China has vast economic interests across the continent via investments, loans and trade. It also has a military footprint. We noted the Chinese military footprint in Djibouti, but they also have troops deployed as peacekeepers in other parts of the continent. According to one study by the Foreign Policy Institute, economic engagement by China has led to an overall significant increase in the political alignment between Africa and China in terms of voting at the UN. How would each of you assess from a military and a diplomatic point of view China's current influence in the region? 

Amb. Pasi: [00:28:06] China is very critical to African countries. China gives loans to build things that Africans want. There are no strings attached. Let's say if the US were doing something, we'd want to make sure human rights were being respected. That the building meets US Building codes. China Loans. Money. It's not gifts, it's loans. And it's creating huge indebtedness. In Djibouti, for example, they built a railroad, which was critical, a line between the port of Djibouti up to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, because 80% of Djibouti's port activity was for items that were headed to Ethiopia. So both Ethiopia and Djibouti needed it, but eventually, probably already they can't service that debt. So if you play that out around the continent, it means that these countries, while they want railroads or sports stadiums or hospitals or whatever it is, it's creating indebtedness and future generations are going to have to bear that. I think it's going to be a problem. I have seen that some countries are refusing to pay the debt, so China may be left waiting to get its money back. But this is a terrible problem and countries have to decide for themselves what they want to do.

Adm. Franken: [00:29:14] I was at a social event and young, upstanding Chinese staff at their embassy in Addis Ababa came walking up to me in perfect English. He said, Admiral, the Chinese ambassador would like to speak with you. So I walked on over there. He looked me dead in the eye and through a translator he said, I would like to go on your facility in Djibouti tomorrow and look at where you will put up my 54 survey military people, as we look to see where we would like to build our facilities here. And I said, well, that's kind of kind of a chuckle. That is an issue for Beijing and Washington to work out, but I appreciate your forwardness in this manner. He was a bit taken aback that he couldn't get this thing done just between the two of us over a glass of wine. But ultimately, that was their first entree into Djibouti and elsewhere. I had a four factor discriminator on what to do about China, and I started working China issues in Africa, going back to even before this time in various think tanks. But A, you could ignore what they were doing. B, if it was something potentially nefarious or something that had long term negative consequences, you would insist transparency and actually inform the government on defense cables, etc. What was the long term implications of this, but also work with the Chinese to ensure that what they were doing could be bettered by something that we were doing, whether it was from an overseas investment to Millennium Challenge to any other facility.

Adm. Franken: [00:30:38] The other thing was to actively oppose it and the manner in which to oppose it was to just confront them head on, say this is inimical to the well being of host nation and to the region. And if you don't change it accordingly, I will confront you on this issue, not in a military sense, but in the various other tools that were at my disposal. And, you know, in the United States has to be careful with our relations with China, because their extractive economic model indeed used to be ours in Africa for the most part. Let's be clear eyed about that. And they're doing what we did in the sixties and seventies, but they don't have that same perspective as we did. They're building future markets and a place for their workers to go. I mean, the whole the whole complexion of things, there is a very complex issue that they're working. I think it takes a wise, wide open approach to working with Chinese on the continent, and I think we have varying levels of success in that regard. 

Amb. Pasi: [00:31:29] I think too, that for some of my time as ambassador to Chad and since then, the Africans felt we considered them a pawn in our fight with China. And this is something that Africans have said, No, no, we'll pick who we want for what we want. Please don't make it a US or China or US or Russia model. And I think we saw this very clearly in Djibouti that we love America. We wanted American products, an American quality of life. That doesn't mean that China couldn't play a role in providing medical care, so they were willing to take things from anyone. And I think overplaying the China card can be a challenge as well. 

Adm. Franken: [00:32:06] It's the same issue we have in Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. They do not want our issues with China to interfere with their relations with China, so we shouldn't put them in a position where they have to choose. We should just rely on their self determination, ensure their population knows the implications of what their national. Leadership is choosing to do. 

Amb. Pasi: [00:32:27] I think also that China is very interested in, as you mentioned, Mike, all the resources and minerals that are in Africa. Some of the poorest countries in Africa and Central Africa have incredible resource wealth. I mean, we wouldn't be able to have iPhones or iPads or whatever else we might be using. A lot of these rare earth minerals are there. China knows that. I think these countries will play to what will help them the most.

Adm. Franken: [00:32:52] And to add on to this. I was speaking to the Foreign Service Institute in Mozambique and a large group of their creme de la creme of their college graduates. And someone raised their hand and said, well, you know, big America, what do you actually do for Mozambique? Because the Chinese are doing this, etc.? And I said, Well, does anybody here know somebody with AIDS? And of course, every hand in the place shot up. And I said, well, do you know that 97% of your funding for antivirals comes from the United States? And not a person knew that in the room. The United States keeps people alive. It builds the structure of a family and life and food and the like. And the Chinese, their perspective of this is different. Their perspective is I'll build you a road, I'll build you a facility, I'll build you a power station, and then you'll owe me for it. We keep people alive. They build infrastructure that's more visible.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:33:43] Well, Russia is also sought to expand its influence in Africa, but it uses different tools. It relies on mercenaries, widespread disinformation, social media, election interference and arms for resource deals. In your experience, how effective are Russian military and diplomatic efforts in Africa?

Adm. Franken: [00:34:03] Well, I would speak to national security directors, military counterparts, etc. about Russia, and I wouldn't tell them what to do, that's for sure. But I would ensure that they were clear eyed about this and the Russians would come in and they would promise the moon. And I'd say, if you want to see what a moon promise is, go to Bashir and look at the nuclear power plant that was in the process of being constructed when I first joined the Navy. And I'm not young and it's still in that process of being constructed. They lack follow through. Russians are here as a extraction of something that's easily and they do through, frankly, hugely nefarious means. And that's the reputation and it's well deserved.

Amb. Pasi: [00:34:41] Russia's involvement in countries depends in each country. It's very different, very involved in governance questions. And some of the most fragile states in central Africa probably involved in providing weaponry to places that fuel conflicts. When you talk about Africa, you have to look at each country. I also wanted to just go back to the Chinese, the Russians may be opportunistic. People used to joke about the former Soviet Union and the five year plan. I think the Chinese might have a 100 year plan. They really are in it for the long haul. We're in it thinking, what can we do in our ten year administration? Our time is ambassador or whatever it is this century. But China really has a lot more strategic patience than we do.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:35:23] Well, speaking of US administrations, the Biden administration has just held the African Leaders Summit, which was attended by 49 African heads of state. The agenda was vast. One key message emerged Africa will shape the world's future. Now, this is the second US Summit of African leaders. You both have long experience in the region. How has US engagement changed?

Adm. Franken: [00:35:49] We understand this isn't all about resource extraction. You know, the chromium and other materials that we certainly need for our industries. That's of high import to us. But we need to realize that two of five children born on Earth in 2050 will be born on the African continent by the 2100 places like Nigeria, which is the fifth largest population, Christian and Muslim, will soon transcend the United States and its population. So if we want to ensure that people born on the African continent have a viable future and do not become an election changing issue regarding refugees and migrants, they need to have an opportunity on the continent. And from a climate perspective, I think it's incumbent upon America and other nations, like minded nations to provide an opportunity for those people on the continent to obtain our standard of living or an equivalency there, and not through the carbon process that we went through. They can just skip that large step, as they've done from the analog to the digital era. We need to help them with their electrical grid. Our Power Africa is a infantile step to something greater that has to be with the electrification of Africa. It has to be the equivalent of our rural electrification process continent wide. And I think it's very important that the United States has that long term vision. As Ambassador Pasi said, the Chinese certainly have. I think we can do it with a more level I and it's going to be costly, but the entire world will be a beneficiary and also has skin in the game.

Amb. Pasi: [00:37:22] The youth of Africa has been a focus of the US government through the Young African Leadership Initiative, YALI, and other such invitational travel to the United States. And as I was leaving Chad, which truly is one of the poorest countries on the planet, I was invited by someone who had been to the US and he was starting an economic incubator and a bunch of young Chadians and they were making things out of tires and other things, recycled furniture. It was unbelievable, their ingenuity and their willingness to work hard. And I see now that they have really taken off because I sometimes am in touch with them on LinkedIn. There's a lot of promise there, and it's in our interest and in their interest to ensure that this promise continues to bear fruit, that we support these people so they can have a better future and it will make us have a better future.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:38:08] Well, to wrap up, listening to the passion in your voices of the part of the world that you covered, I wanted to ask one final question of each of you, Geeta, Why did you choose to become a diplomat? And obviously, Mike, what made you decide to join the US Navy and travel the world?

Amb. Pasi: [00:38:25] I worked as an intern in the State Department when I was in college, and I worked in the Bureau of Economic Affairs, and most of what I did was shepherd these letters around that explained to Americans why we're giving food aid to the Soviet Union. And I thought, Wow, I never want to work for the State Department. And I remember being told to go to all these various offices and get clearances. It was highly bureaucratic. After I finished my education, I really wanted to work in international affairs and I thought, you know, this is a place I can do it. But I was very worried because I still had that intern experience in my background in the back of my mind. But I had very committed to public service. I wanted to represent my country. It was one of the most fascinating things I think I could have done. It wasn't easy, and I sometimes joke that it must have been a moment of temporary insanity and anyone in the Foreign Service usually nervously agrees. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:39:17] I'm nodding.

Amb. Pasi: [00:39:19] You know, there are very few times in your life when you get to serve your country, represent your country, and in the Foreign Service, not only do you represent US views and policies, but you help educate the United States about the country where you are serving. So a place like Djibouti, a place like Chad, you know, people don't know that much about it. So the decision makers rely on the people in our embassies to help inform them about what's going on in this country and why it's important to the United States. That was an unbelievable place for me to land. So why I did it? There are various reasons, but I'm certainly glad I did.

Adm. Franken: [00:39:54] Well, I joined the Navy principally because the Air Force didn't answer their phone that day. I was a farm kid in Iowa and I was intent on going to medical school. I wanted to be that country doctor, and my brother convinced me, he was a hot rock pilot in the Navy. And he said, Hey, you know, why do you want to do that? Spend another six years in school. Why don't you join the Navy, goof off for a few years and see the world, and then go to medical school at the age of 28? And I said, Well, I don't want to be in the Navy because you are. The Air Force didn't answer. So I reluctantly called the Navy and they sent me into an education program that completely set aside any kind of biochemistry and made me an engineer. But the diplomatic side of the Navy, I think, is very unique because we swim closest to diplomacy were that tip of the spear, but the tip of the spear in a diplomatic area as well. You know, the first time I was in Djibouti was in 1983, where the restaurant we went to had neither electricity or running water. They wash the dishes in the sand out back. And we struck deals, as in agreements with mail and all those things. And we did that on the cuff, sitting there with a machine gun around the back of the chair. This is what we do. And it was perfectly natural. I thought, you know what? If I wasn't a naval officer, I'd be what she is.

Amb. Pasi: [00:41:03] In fact, we worked so closely with the Djboutians because there was a base renegotiation going on and would we renew our lease? And this is a very, very complicated process with a very intense discussions. And I remember at one point the foreign minister said that Mike should be named ambassador and he proposed a few very difficult countries where he would send him.

Adm. Franken: [00:41:25] I would be accepting of that, actually give me the hardest job and I'm happy to do it. A matter of fact, I was the acting J5 at US Central Command when I was afforded. Hey, do you want to go to a battle group and be the ship with a bunch of ships and be the task force commander in San Diego, you know, live up on the hill and live that great life? Or do you want to relieve the SEALs in Djibouti? And I said, hands down, send me to Djibouti. And they said, Are you sure about that? I said, Absolutely. I can't think of anything more interesting than that. That's the future of US engagement worldwide. And sign me up for that.

Amb. Pasi: [00:41:55] When I was seeking an ambassadorship, our boss, our principal deputy assistant secretary, who's appeared on podcasts here, Don Yamamoto. Let us take a quick peek at which countries were open. And I said, "Can I go to Djibouti?" He said, "Are you sure?" He had been in Djibouti as ambassador. He said, "Are you really sure you want to go there? It's yours." I look back now and I met the foreign minister in various venues when I was serving afterward in Washington. And Djibouti has come so far, and I feel really honored that we were there at a time where we were able to influence it, to influence the relationship and and to make it even better than it was. I mean, you always want to be in a place where you make it better. It's better when you leave than when you arrived.

Adm. Franken: [00:42:37] And I'm glad you did.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:42:38] Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Geeta. This has been a great podcast. It's clear that you developed a close partnership during your time, and most importantly, we're proud to serve. So thank you. This has been a new episode in the series The General and the Ambassador, A Conversation. Thank you for listening. The series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast was produced with the support of the Fletcher School Global Master of Arts Program. It allows career executives to earn an executive master of leadership in global affairs in one year without leaving the workforce. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites as well as on our website general.ambassador.org. We welcome all input and suggestions. You can mail us directly at general.ambassador.podcast@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.