Chapter 2: American Foreign Policy and Secession Abroad

The United States experienced its own damaging attempt at secession between 1861 and 1865, and one would expect the US Government to condemn all secession attempts at home and abroad. This paper examines four cases of secession in sub-Saharan Africa and the US policy toward those independence movements: Katanga, Biafra, Eritrea, and South Sudan. The finding is that the American Government's policy toward fragmentation in other countries has surprisingly not been characterized by a condemnation of the secessionist movements. The US response has most often been tacit support or reluctant opposition to nascent independence movements, which always stopped short of full diplomatic recognition prior to 1991. Anticommunism also played a role in US foreign policy decisions regarding secession abroad during the Cold War but did not lead in any case examined to open political or military intervention.