Multi-alignment is not neutrality

When African governments decline to take sides in other people's disputes, they are often described as neutral, or worse, as evasive. The charge misreads what is happening. Choosing partners according to national interest is not the absence of a position; it is a position, and a long-standing one.

A tradition, not a pause

The Non-Aligned Movement was built, in part, by African leaders who refused to turn newly won independence into dependence on one bloc. The vocabulary has changed, and the partners are more numerous, but the logic is familiar: keep options open, and use competition between partners to improve the terms.

The obligations of choice

Multi-alignment is demanding. It requires governments to know what they want before they negotiate, to coordinate with neighbours so that partners cannot play one against another, and to be consistent enough that principles do not look like convenience.

A strategy of many partners needs a very clear idea of one's own interests.

It also requires honesty at home. A government that signs a loan or a port agreement should be able to explain its terms to its own citizens, and to its own parliament. Transparency is what turns a partnership into a policy.

Regional bodies can help. A group of countries negotiating together has more leverage than any member alone, and shared standards, from procurement rules to environmental safeguards, make it harder for a partner to offer one capital terms it would refuse another. Multi-alignment works best when it is a collective habit and not a series of private deals.

What to ask

Readers should judge their governments not by which capital they visit, but by what they bring home: better terms, new jobs, technology that stays. By that test, multi-alignment can be a serious strategy. By the other test, a pleasant meeting is only a photograph.