If you’ve been anywhere near the internet lately, you’ve likely been barraged by links to the video by advocacy organization Invisible Children about the ongoing atrocities in Northern Uganda. The video has sparked debate about whether it oversimplifies or misrepresents the situation, but one thing is certain: the destruction the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) wreaked since the 1980s has not only had direct, personal costs for tens of thousands of people who live in Uganda, but also contributed to destabilizing the entire Central African region.
That’s why last fall, on the back of Congress’s overwhelming passage of the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, President Obama announced that the United States would send military advisors to help the Ugandan government find and stop the notorious LRA commander, Joseph Kony, because doing so “furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy.”
To many Americans, the connection between a conflict in a far corner of Africa and their own security may not have been immediately obvious. As the authors of a piece published in Foreign Affairs wrote, “Kony and the LRA have not targeted Americans or American interests and are not capable of overthrowing an allied government. It is worth noting that support for the Ugandan military does coincide with the broad thrust of the Obama administration’s African alliances and strategic agenda.”
Yet stability in Central Africa is important to the United States for many reasons, chief among them being that failed and weak states are a prime breeding and recruiting ground for extremist organizations. Going after Kony and the LRA militarily is but one important element in a larger effort to address the underlying problem of the region’s poor governance — and wiping them out is just one piece of the solution.
The long-term answer lies in investing in programs that bring stability and relative prosperity to the region. Today, USAID programs in Uganda are centered on advancing peaceful development in the northern region, strengthening democratic institutions, and increasing economic opportunities in industries like agribusiness. Combined with sustained diplomacy on this crisis and others like it, international development can help address the underlying weaknesses that allow the LRA and groups like it to operate. That makes the world a safer place – for everybody.
