African History and AI Insight Daily

Global Power Struggles, Local Catastrophes, and the Militarization of Dependency Conceptualizing Proxy War in International Relations Proxy wars are among the most destructive yet understudied mechanisms of global power politics. In international relations theory, a proxy war is typically defined as an armed conflict in which external powers pursue strategic objectives indirectly by supporting local actors—states, militias, or insurgent groups—rather than engaging in direct military confrontation. As political scientist Karl Deutsch famously described it, proxy wars are conflicts in which “the powers involved do not fight each other directly but use the territory and populations of third countries as substitutes” (Deutsch, 1964). Africa has been the most sustained theater of proxy warfare in modern history . From the Cold War through the post-9/11 era, African societies have repeatedly served as battlegrounds for ideological, strategic, and economic rivalries among global pow...

  The Sahara, far from being a barren wasteland, was historically one of the most dynamic theaters of commerce and statecraft in the pre‑modern world. For centuries, long before the onset of European maritime dominance, the vast desert served as a continental bridge that linked sub‑Saharan Africa with North Africa, the Mediterranean, and ultimately Eurasia. The material wealth that moved across its sands — especially gold and salt — constituted not only the economic foundation of powerful empires but also the central axis around which African political identities, social structures, and diplomatic systems were configured. In this essay, I examine how control of Trans‑Saharan trade routes was a decisive factor in the rise and endurance of African polities from the 8th through the 16th centuries CE. I argue that economic interests were inseparable from political and military strategies, and that mastery of trade infrastructure enabled several empires — including Ghana, Mali, Songh...