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as a self-critical entrepreneur in post-Apartheid South Africa, Mbeki was in a position to use the controversial platform to test his persuasive prowess, exhorting them to consider a more humanitarian and developmental AFRICOM, that would link not only to African governments, but also to ‘society’. It is this link to society and Mbeki’s development thesis that piques curiosity about Mbeki’s opening remarks – that South Africa was the lead capital exporter into Africa, ahead of traditional rivals the UK and France, as well as the US. The common interest between the US and South Africa, said Mbeki, was to provide security for their mutual investments in the region. The ‘truths’ Mbeki espoused may not be convincing to critically engaged Africans; they seem tailored to the sensitive palate of his audience.

Mbeki said he tried to show that the challenge facing sub-Saharan Africa, based on ‘the deep roots of Africa's security and development crises’, is ‘not state building as many analysts believe. The immediate challenge most of Africa faces is society building.’ In short, this is the role he recommended for AFRICOM.

‘Building a viable, sustainable and stable society requires the establishment and development of legitimate, socially hegemonic group or groups that can then build a viable state,‘ he said, which the European colonial powers failed to do. They left behind a semblance of a state that had no social anchors, which ‘led to Africa's instability during the last half a century‘ and continues to this day in many countries.

African states therefore suffer from a number of important handicaps. They suffer from weak allegiance by their citizens to these states and vice versa. This explains why African countries during the past 50 years have been centres of many conflicts, in particular civil wars, inter-tribal wars, violent communal conflicts and pogroms, wars of secession, and more recently in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, attempts at genocide. These great conflicts have been accompanied by vast population movements in and out of different national boundaries. Africa, not surprisingly, is host to the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.

One of the most disgraceful but under-reported scandals in Africa is the extent to which African elites export capital from the continent. According to the United Nations, nearly 40% of Africa's private wealth is kept outside Africa compared to only 3% of South Asia's private wealth and 6% of East Asia's. The small economic surplus that remains, goes to finance elite consumption and to pay for the running of the largely unaccountable state.

Notwithstanding what I have said about the undesirability of focusing on the military option to solve Africa's challenges, use of force to solve Africa's problems must however not be ruled out. This is why in my view the creation of the African Command by the US government was an important initiative. Africom however must not just confine itself to working with African governments only. It must also engage with non-state actors in its effort to assist in re-constructing societies which, I have argued, is a pre-condition to achieving long term security in Africa. Clearly we have a long road ahead of us, so we need to pace ourselves accordingly.