My Take on the Geopolitics of the Great Lakes

The geopolitics of the African Great Lakes cannot be understood through the narrow lens of ethnic conflict or local instability. It is fundamentally a regional power struggle shaped by historical injustices, contested borders, weak state sovereignty, and the international political economy of natural resources. Eastern Congo has become the epicenter of this crisis not because of internal failure alone, but because it sits at the intersection of neighboring states’ security doctrines, proxy warfare, and global demand for strategic minerals.

I argue that the persistence of conflict in the Great Lakes reflects a structural imbalance: a strong international discourse on peace and sovereignty coexists with a permissive tolerance for indirect aggression, militarized economic extraction, and selective enforcement of international law. Regional actors exploit militias as instruments of state policy, while global powers prioritize stability, access to resources, and geopolitical alliances over accountability.

Lasting peace in the Great Lakes will not emerge from technical agreements alone. It requires truth about aggression, enforcement of regional responsibility, restoration of Congolese state authority, and the inclusion of informal diplomacy, civil society, and diaspora actors who often succeed where formal mechanisms fail. The future of the region depends on replacing denial with accountability and transforming extraction-driven geopolitics into a framework centered on sovereignty, development, and human security.