No surprise under the Trump military regime that the wars in Africa are being significantly ramped up. It started in March and by June Trump’s military had 3-4 times as many soldiers on the ground in Africa and was conducting ten times as many drone strikes in any given period as during the Obama administration.

So. How’s it going?

We might take some relief that a general is running Trump’s White House instead of a lackie, a nephew or some alt-right goon. But you know, generals aren’t the only alternative.

The wars in Africa are slipping out of control, once again. This is because – repeating what a thousand scholars and diplomats have told us time and again – these political conflicts can’t be won by war.

The human spirit is too strong. It may be wholly stupid, frivolous, cocky even insane, but it will not be threatened by destruction. The human spirit is collective – it’s not a single warlord or terrorist, and I think that’s America’s biggest problem. Americans think too individualistically. We believe (stupidly) that the individual is greater than the community.

It’s not true. So take out one individual, take out a hundred with a drone attack, and twice as many will take their places. The human spirit is a hydra that no arsenal can destroy.

So what we have now in the Horn of Africa is instability as hasn’t been seen since before this decade.

Piracy is on the rise.

Nearly gone under the Obama administration, the al-Shabaab are back in full force causing new and unbelievable destruction, reaching into Puntland for the first time.

Yemen may be the most catastrophic war zone on earth.

Alliances which under the Obama administration were painstakingly put together are collapsing. This includes a Houti rebel alliance with a former Yemen president that America got Iran (!) to orchestrate, and a masterful attempt to bring together the semi-autonomous and peaceful sections of Somalia.

Why has diplomacy crashed?

Well in part because the war has ramped up, of course. But almost as important is the fact that Trump has no diplomats out there, anymore! Most of the African negotiators were not reappointed. We have no one talking to anyone, only teenagers pushing buttons in Florida thinking the bomb they’re shooting into a village is a video game.

It’s no surprise.

But then nothing seems to be a surprise, anymore. Why did we kill his family? What are we becoming?