In the 2010s, Japan gradually increased economic connections with the Indian Ocean region (IOR) through trade, foreign direct investment, and official development assistance (ODA).

In recent years, Germany’s Africa politics have been characterized by proactive international initiatives and the claim for a "partnership at eye level". However, a look at the power constellations of its cooperation indicates that inequalities are – contrary to Germany’s own claims – rather reproduced than reduced.

In Kenya, corruption results from a confusion of public and private interests that is specific to the neo-patrimonial logic in place since British colonization. The strong moral and political ethnicity that characterizes the country fuels an ambiguous relationship between the population and the elite.

The Biden administration’s geopolitics is beginning to be noticed. It aims to build on a reconciled nation willing to see its foreign policy objectives as a defense of its own interests. 

Twenty years after 9/11, the assessment of the “War on Terror” is mixed: heavy financial and human costs, weakening of Al-Qaeda central and the Islamic State in the Levant, but creation of affiliates in different locations, fatigue of endless wars, etc. 

Edward Snowden’s revelations, the Cambridge Analytica affair and the digital transformation accelerated by the Covid-19 crisis have all shown Europe's technological dependence on foreign powers. 

Underneath the rhetoric of commitment to a multilateral order, Germany's policy seems to be mainly structured around its national interests. 

Is Joe Biden’s United States (US) returning to multilateral, traditional diplomacy? This more open stance does not eliminate either its domestic problems or the divergence in interests separating the US from the Europeans: how will open diplomacy fit in with the priority of defending US interests? Will Washington organize a broad anti-Chinese coalition that the Europeans are opposed to? Will sanctions with their resulting effects remain at the heart of US strategy? Will the Europeans be able to assert their sovereignty in the key area of new technologies against the US giants?