For centuries, Africa’s vast wealth fuelled the ambitions of foreign empires. Colonial powers plundered gold, diamonds, cocoa, and minerals, enslaving millions and impoverishing entire populations. In the post-independence era, exploitative contracts and lopsided trade deals perpetuated this plunder, enriching foreign corporations while leaving hundreds of millions in poverty. Today, a monumental shift is sweeping the continent. African leaders are rewriting the rules of global trade, scaling back ties with foreign powers and embracing resource sovereignty.

Ghana, for instance, has rejected Western aid tied to political conditions that historically forced development paths serving foreign interests over national priorities, instead asserting its right to chart an independent development path. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have expelled French troops, ending decades of military presence that served Paris’s geopolitical goals while undermining the stability and welfare of local communities. Zambia is cracking down on foreign mining companies, enforcing stricter regulations to curb worker exploitation and environmental degradation, Senegal is pushing back against trade agreements with Europe, that favour foreign producers and suppress the growth of local businesses and farmers, advocating for policies that enable homegrown economic resilience.

Adding to these efforts, Algeria is focusing on African-led security and economic initiatives, such as mediating Sahel conflicts and boosting intra-African energy trade, while limiting engagement with NATO to the Mediterranean Dialogue to safeguard its non-aligned stance and promote Global South solidarity. Zimbabwe is moving to ban the export of lithium concentrates from 2027, Kenya is reviewing infrastructure and energy contracts with Chinese and Western companies suspected of imposing unsustainable debt burdens and compromising national control. Similarly, Nigeria is tightening oversight of foreign oil and gas companies revising production-sharing contracts to increase local revenue and ensure greater equity in partnerships with multinationals like Shell and ExxonMobil.

Their project is as urgent as it is ambitious, grounded in self-determination, regional integration, and the development of homegrown institutions capable of managing and defending Africa’s wealth on its own terms: Africa’s wealth must serve Africa first.

At its centre lie Africa’s premier strategic frameworks: the African Union (AU), which champions solidarity-driven economic cooperation; the African Mining Vision (AMV), which promotes value addition, regional beneficiation, and sovereign control over mineral wealth; and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), envisioned as the world’s largest single market. The AfCFTA is particularly important as it aims to radically transform intra-African trade by dismantling tariff barriers and harmonising regulatory frameworks, thereby reducing the continent’s dependence on foreign powers. In the process, it lays the foundation for a continental economic front defined by unity and strategic coherence, strengthening collective bargaining power and allowing African nations to engage the global economy not as disjointed, dependent clients, but as coordinated actors – a single bloc – capable of asserting their interests as equals on the world stage.

The DRC Makes a Different Deal

Meanwhile the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is going in a strikingly different direction. Its government is currently negotiating a high-stakes bilateral agreement to hand over operational control of an estimated $24 trillion worth of critical minerals to the USA in exchange for military equipment, tactical training, and on-the-ground security assistance against the March 23 (M23) insurgency that has destabilised its eastern provinces for over a decade.

The DRC holds over 70% of the world’s known cobalt reserves, in addition to vast deposits of copper, lithium, and rare earth elements, essential to the functioning of electric vehicles, high-capacity batteries, solar and wind infrastructure, semiconductors, drones, precision-guided weapons, and emerging artificial intelligence hardware systems. Whoever commands access to these materials will have control over the direction of global civilisation, wielding decisive economic and strategic power especially in the global clean energy future. Global powers are acutely aware of this, and, as expected, have been aggressively courting the DRC for years.

The DRC holds over 70% of the world’s known cobalt reserves, in addition to vast deposits of copper, lithium, and rare earth elements.

China has already entrenched itself in the DRC’s mineral economy through a dense network of state-owned enterprises and infrastructure-for-minerals swap deals, controlling nearly 40% of Congo’s cobalt output by 2024. The European Union (EU) is playing catch-up through its Global Gateway initiative, offering infrastructure funding and “strategic partnerships” to avoid total dependence on Chinese and Russian inputs.

Now, it appears, the USA is set to overtake both, not through a competitive bidding process or multilateral consensus, but because the DRC itself is voluntarily advancing a deal granting Big Tech giants Apple, Tesla, and Google, alongside major defence contractors, direct and guaranteed access to its critical minerals. The proposed terms include below-market extraction rates, long-term supply guarantees, and state-backed logistics coordination. If finalised, the deal will hardwire American dominance into both the global clean energy economy and the next-generation military-industrial complex.

In return, the government of the DRC anticipates an American arsenal. This includes advanced military equipment, elite tactical training, and real-time counterinsurgency support to significantly degrade or dismantle the M23 insurgency.

M23’s Devastating Hold on the DRC

M23, emerging from the collapse of the 2009 Goma Peace Agreement, ranks among Central Africa’s most lethal and resilient non-state armed groups: transnationally networked, financially fortified through illicit mineral revenues, and sophisticated. The group currently controls vast swathes of the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, which hold some of the world’s most lucrative coltan and gold mines, effectively hijacking the region’s critical resource flows. This has led to instability in the region, fuelling a cascading humanitarian disaster.

M23’s offensives displaced nearly 2.8 million in 2024 alone, accounting for 73% of all internal displacements in the DRC that year. In North Kivu,  Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treated nearly 40,000 survivors of sexual violence attributed to M23 operations, marking the highest figure recorded in a single year. In rebel-held territories, food insecurity has surged, leaving millions at risk of starvation.

The environmental toll has also been catastrophic, with nearly half of the animal life in these same territories reportedly wiped out. Since January 2025, the group has killed an estimated 7,000 civilians. And its forced recruitment of child soldiers has become a chilling fixture of its operational strategy, entrenching trauma across generations. There is no mistaking the scale of the crisis.

DRC’s pursuit of a minerals-for-security deal with the USA reads, at least on the surface, as a desperate but straightforwardly pragmatic, technocratic, commercial exchange.

The government is not equipped to respond. The national army is structurally incapable of mounting an effective counter to M23 as a result of decades of structural adjustment and austerity programmes imposed by the IMF and World Bank in the DRC. These programmes prioritised debt repayment, fiscal restraint, and market liberalisation over the essential tasks of state-building and national security. Military infrastructure has crumbled, procurement systems are plagued by corruption and mismanagement, and troop morale remains dangerously low due to inconsistent salaries, inadequate training, and insufficient equipment.

Efforts to fill this security vacuum through regional cooperation have largely failed. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) have offered inconsistent and undercoordinated interventions. Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission has lost credibility, widely viewed by the Congolese as either ineffectual, unable to protect civilians or repel rebel advances, or complicit in maintaining the violent status quo in which instability and resource extraction coexist as tolerated norms. The cost of continued inaction grows heavier by the day, threatening to tip the crisis into irreversible collapse.

Against this backdrop, the DRC’s pursuit of a minerals-for-security deal with the USA reads, at least on the surface, as a desperate but straightforwardly pragmatic, technocratic, commercial exchange – a necessary, if radical, attempt to reclaim sovereign control over its eastern provinces, safeguard its critical mineral wealth, and restore a semblance of order in a region held hostage by M23. In this light, it is difficult to dispute the legitimacy of its demand for support from a superpower with overwhelming military capacity.

A Betrayal of Africa’s Future

At its core, however, this deal is a geopolitical earthquake in the emerging architecture of African political economy – a betrayal not of intent or incompetence, but of principle. For, as it prioritises immediate transactional benefit, it also severs the moral and strategic thread that binds Africa’s wealth to Africa’s people, cutting to the very heart of the collective aspiration that Africa’s wealth must serve Africa first. This is not just a Congolese issue – at stake is nothing less than the entire trajectory of African resource politics and, by extension, the continent’s future.

While the deal is presented as a solution to the M23 insurgency, it does not address its root causes, making it no more than a superficial fix on a wounded nation – a sedative rather than a cure, like a temporary quelling of symptoms while the disease festers beneath. Equally troubling is that the deal offers militarisation without any meaningful diplomatic framework or peacebuilding vision. There are no provisions for local reconciliation, no community-led demobilisation, no engagement with civil society and regional actors who might sustain peace – just more weapons in an already volatile landscape.

At stake is nothing less than the entire trajectory of African resource politics and, by extension, the continent’s future.

Worse still, the deal sidesteps state-building entirely. It does not repair institutions, strengthen governance, or develop long-term administrative capacity, leaving the DRC politically fragile and dependent on foreign intervention – a broken leg hobbling Africa’s collective ascent.

More grievously, the deal openly bypasses African-led security frameworks and sidelines regional bodies like the SADC and the AU, outsourcing the DRC’s crisis response to a global superpower. Arguably, this choice is a quiet admission that the DRC lacks confidence in Africa’s ability to manage its own challenges; that African nations cannot depend on African help. They must look outward.

This reconditions the political imagination of current and future African leaders, normalising dangerous ideas: the future belongs to those who sell it; survival, not sovereignty, is the highest aspiration; dependency is inevitable and perhaps even desirable; Africa’s salvation lies not in its own collective strength but in the whims and favours of foreign patrons. This mentality sets a precedent of external arbitration in intra-African affairs, rendering regional diplomacy obsolete and weakening the continent’s security architecture from within.

To transfer critical minerals without public consent or transparent debate is to rob the Congolese of their most powerful leverage. It is to deny them the power to influence how their wealth is used – and who benefits from it.

Perhaps most tragically, the Congolese people, the very communities battered by M23’s violence, are spoken for, negotiated over, and excluded from the decisions being made about their land and future. Their exclusion is deepened by the injustice of the deal. The minerals at stake are not mere economic assets but generational capital in a world increasingly driven by green technologies and the geopolitics of critical minerals. To transfer them without public consent or transparent debate is to rob the Congolese of their most powerful leverage. It is to deny them the power to influence how their wealth is used – and who benefits from it.

This denial extends beyond the borders of the DRC. By proceeding without meaningful consultation or coordination with neighbouring African countries, the deal risks fracturing continental unity and undermining Africa’s collective claim to its wealth and future. It opens the door for external powers to exploit Africa’s resources unilaterally, threatening to revitalise a dangerous dynamic akin to the Scramble for Africa. This is where strategic mineral wealth becomes a contested prize in superpower rivalries, and ordinary Africans bear the human and political costs.

The deal sends a clear and unsettling message, devastatingly out of step with the continent’s ambitions: Africa’s resources remain up for grabs.

The question looms large from here: will the DRC’s choice end Africa’s long march toward resource sovereignty, or will it serve as a cautionary tale that stimulates the continent to forge stronger, more united paths forward free from the shackles of foreign domination?

Moshumee Dewoo is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Political History at the University of Helsinki

Article image: A mining quarry in Mambanga in the Djugu territory, DRC. Alfani Franck / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Julkaisu The Democratic Republic of Congo’s $24 Trillion Betrayal of Africa ilmestyi ensimmäisenä Politiikasta.

Japan and the United States of America have maintained exceptionally intertwined relations since the Second World War. While their cooperation has greatly benefitted economic growth, security interests and regional stability are often referred to as the cornerstone of the US-Japan alliance. At first glance their contemporary relationship appears almost symbiotic.

Article 9 of the post-war constitution of Japan states that Japan, as a sovereign nation, has forever renounced the right to wage war, and the use of force as means of settling international disputes. Since the Japanese political leadership has been unable to spearhead constitutional change, the country has maintained relatively modest Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). In case of a possible armed attack, Japan is reliant on close military cooperation with the United States.

However, because of the developments in the East Asian security environment and in the American foreign politics stance, recently Japan has been promoting a more active role within the restrictions stipulated by its constitution.

Article 9 of the post-war constitution of Japan states that Japan, as a sovereign nation, has forever renounced the right to wage war, and the use of force as means of settling international disputes.

Despite relatively weak military prowess, Japan has managed to retain its position as a key ally to the US in the Asia Pacific. In exchange for fulfilling security agreement obligations, Japan provides the US with funding, military facilities and access to the region. For the US, post-Cold War developments such as the emerged threat of North Korea and China’s economic and military expansion have provided concrete purpose for further enhancing bilateral relations with Japan.

Initially this relationship might seem like an equal exchange of favors. However, a closer look at the bilateral relations between Japan and the US seems to reveal characteristics typical of great power imbalance and hegemonic influence. The US position as a hegemonic power has been a subject for academic debate internationally, but rarely is that influence as direct as in the case of Japan.

Long-laid foundations of bilateral relations

Despite earlier historical encounters between the two countries, it is arguable that the contemporary hegemonic American influence over Japan is rooted in the aftermath of the Second World War. To end the war, the US dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. After Japan’s unconditional surrender, US general Douglas MacArthur led Japan’s occupation as the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP).

Before the occupation ended in 1952, SCAP enacted widespread military, political, economic and social reforms that had lasting effects on shaping the Japan we know today. Debatably the most drastic changes, such as renouncing war as a sovereign right, were legitimated through American-drafted Constitution of Japan in 1947.

The contemporary hegemonic American influence over Japan is rooted in the aftermath of the Second World War.

As stipulated in this new constitution, Japanese Emperor Hirohito became a symbolic head of state, agreeing to exercise power in a purely ceremonial role. Instead of the old regime, the new constitution set a parliamentary system of government that the newly formed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) successfully utilized and established their long-standing position as Japan’s leading political party. Furthermore, SCAP dismantled the Japanese army and forbade former military officers from ever taking positions as political leaders.

The occupation period was a period of pure American dominance, during which the Korean War (1950-1953) confirmed Japan’s place within the US defense perimeter. Japan was unable to regain sovereignty as a nation state before a bilateral security pact with the US was signed in 1951. These events sowed the seeds for the long-term US hegemony over Japan.

Division between leadership and the people of Japan

The end of the occupation did not diminish American influence and presence in Japan as the bilateral security pact that restored Japanese sovereignty allowed the US forces to remain on Japanese soil. Extraterritoriality clauses that protected US military personnel from e.g. local criminal prosecution, and the continued Japanese reliance on the US for guidance in domestic affairs, resulted in nationwide protests and resentment over the lack of independence of the judiciary.

Such was the case in the Sunagawa incident (1955), where the US Forces in Japan (USFJ) wished to extend the runway at Tachikawa airfield. When Japanese government began land expropriation procedures against local opposition, a district court ruled that stationing the US Forces in Japan violated the newly written constitution. After consulting with the US embassy in Japan, the Supreme Court of Japan overturned the ruling by invoking the so-called political question doctrine.

Questions about the constitutionality of the Japan-US Security Treaty and stationing of the US forces in Japan were circumvented by labeling them as highly political issues. This was the beginning of a practice that still continues today, where courts tend to invoke the political question doctrine, also to avoid deciding issues such as the constitutionality of the Japanese SDF itself.

While the dissenting opinions between Japanese government practices and the general public’s stance continued, post-war relations subsided and trade with the US expanded. Japanese self-confidence grew due to the country’s expanding economic prowess, resulting in growing desire for greater independence from the US. This was especially evident in the public protests towards US military bases on the four main islands of Japan and in Okinawa Prefecture.

Revelation of weaknesses

Ironically, the originally American-drafted constitution plays a central role in legitimizing Japanese participation limitations as a partner in US-led military endeavors overseas. For example, the US pressured Japan for further joint participation in international operations during the Gulf War (1990-1991) in the Middle East. However, restricted by its constitution, Japan was only able to participate in such operations financially, if at all. Japanese inability to participate raised concerns that the US might re-evaluate the benefits of its security relationship with Japan.

The public has cited the risk of being drawn into another war to be a more pressing concern even if constitutional change could give Japan the means to independently take care of its security.

Concerns over the possible downgrading of the American-Japanese alliance became acute when North Korea launched a ballistic missile into Japanese airspace for the first time in August 1998. Japan’s strategic military weaknesses suddenly became glaringly obvious and the necessity to strengthen military cooperation with the US gained momentum.

However, changing the military provisions of Japan’s constitution was – and still is – a politically wrought issue. Japanese leadership is aware that Japanese public’s attitude towards changing the constitution has never been overly positive. The public has cited the risk of being drawn into another war to be a more pressing concern even if constitutional change could give Japan the means to independently take care of its security.

Japan remains a sitting duck

Since self-sufficient self-defense is an obvious answer to the Japanese dilemma, what is it exactly that makes constitutional amendment so difficult?

Constitution Article 96 specifies amendment details. Technically the current supermajority of the Liberal Democratic party both in the House of Councilors and in the House of Representatives could assure that the proposition gets approved in the Diet. However, the amendment must then be ratified by a national referendum by a simple majority vote.

Judging by the opinion polls, it is rather unlikely a referendum would receive an overwhelmingly warm welcome.

What is it exactly that makes constitutional amendment so difficult?

However, American demands for Japan’s participation have resulted in finding new ways to circumvent Article 9. Most notably, after months of pressure from the US to participate in the second Iraq war, Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spearheaded legislation of war contingency bills in 2003.

War contingency bills stretched the interpretation of the constitution without amending it, which paved way for Japan’s non-combatant participation in Iraq War in 2004. This deployment was Japan’s largest since the Second World War. The deployment did not officially change Japan’s security policy, but opposition parties in Japan have argued that the laws marked a departure from the nation’s policy of pacifism enshrined in the constitution.

Regardless, without the possibility of constitutional amendment, Japanese leadership has no alternative but to rely on military cooperation with the US, even if that means submitting to hegemonic influence.

Many faces of military cooperation

Japanese leadership agrees that in order to protect Japan from the possibility of an armed attack military cooperation with the US is a necessity. Furthermore, deployment of American soldiers on Japanese soil also ensures American retaliation against a joint enemy in case of such an attack. Therefore, much of the cooperation practicalities involve maintaining the troops and their capabilities to act together with the Japanese SDF.

Japanese cooperation works through the Host Nation Support (HNS) agreement with the US. This agreement provides finances and facilities for the US forces in Japan. According to public figures from 2002, Japan shouldered about 74.5% of the operating costs of the US forces in Japan with an investment of $4.4 billion. Later figures have not been made public.

While the US has not revealed changes in the ratio, the current five-year plan is expiring in March 2021. Negotiations for the new plan started in spring 2020, but much to the shock of the Japanese, the national security adviser to President Donald Trump requested Japan to pay more than five times as much per year than previously. Famous for his America-first policy, President Trump does not seem to shy away from exercising the American hegemonic influence to the fullest.

In spring 2020, much to the shock of the Japanese, the national security adviser to President Donald Trump requested Japan to pay more than five times as much per year than previously for operating costs of the US forces in Japan.

Japanese representatives have since rejected the plan and the following negotiations are expected to be difficult. However, this is an excellent example of the American awareness about their position as a hegemonic power.

In addition to Host Nation financial support, Japan and the US have also interlocked their militaries through joint military training as well as sharing information, equipment and facilities. To especially counter the threat of North Korea, the US and Japan are also closely cooperating through the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program.

Mutual benefits as joint-front

As Japan’s safety in an armed attack is guaranteed through the agreements it has with the US, cooperation through international organizations that work towards creating a peaceful international community is mutually beneficial.

Addressing security issues as a joint-front has been clearly visible on platforms such as the United Nations (UN), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To specifically tackle the threat of North Korea, both Japan and the US have jointly participated in Six-Party Talks since 2003.

US officials have acknowledged that North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of hitting targets anywhere on the American continent.

On these platforms, security issues are approached by making sure that the common strategic objectives of the multinational organizations are consistent and complementary with those of the common strategies of the US-Japan alliance.

However, the US does not only have to take a proactive role through international platforms to advance deterrence of security threats to avoid having to fulfill its security obligations to Japan. Additionally, US officials have acknowledged that North Korean intercontinental ballistic missiles are capable of hitting targets anywhere on the American continent.  Therefore, the US must also think about protecting its own mainland instead of simply safeguarding its security perimeter.

The future of the US-Japan alliance and Japan’s international relations

Without a constitutional amendment, Japan remains reliant on US military cooperation to protect its sovereignty. This reliance ensures continued American hegemonic influence over Japan.

Japan can expect to either sink more deeply under American influence or draw itself out of it.

For example, it is possible that the Japanese leadership will give into the exponentially growing demands of the Trump administration, because the American military cooperation is considered a necessity.

A more unlikely possibility is that the Japanese leadership succeeds in spearheading a constitutional amendment and passing the national referendum, giving Japan the means to take care of its security independently.

If Japan were to manage to shake off its dependence on the US military, it could have considerable effects on the current political situation and power balance in East Asia.

In the past, Japan has demonstrated its potential might as a military empire. While modern-day Japan would seem to prefer sweeping those memories under the rug, its neighbors are not willing to let that happen.

If Japan were to manage to shake off its dependence on the US military, it could have considerable effects on the current political situation and power balance in East Asia.

For example, the rearmament of Japan could give a new twist to the already shaky bilateral relations between Japan and South Korea. The two countries have continued to disagree over Japan’s atonement for its past transgressions ever since the Second World War. Relations are so strained that recently political disagreements spilled over to the economic sector, resulting in a trade war.

Additionally, while North Korea has loudly claimed its position as a major security threat, China is often referred to as the real concern, due to its massive economic and military expansion. Coupled with its close ties with the US, re-armed Japan could present a challenge to China.

In summary, abandoning the pacifist constitution could lead to seriously aggravating many of Japan’s neighboring countries. Given any indication that Japan was on a path to regain pre-war ideals, it would send alarm bells ringing around Asia.

VTM Saana Tuomi on yhteiskuntatieteiden maisteri Lapin yliopistosta, erikoistumisalanaan politiikkatieteet ja kansainväliset suhteet.

Julkaisu Long roots of American influence over Japan ilmestyi ensimmäisenä Politiikasta.