The African Union (AU) and its African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) were conceived at the end of the Cold War, designed and built for a unipolar, liberal constructivist international order. However, the world is experiencing a dangerous interregnum between the dying post-World War II order and the new global order yet to emerge. Global interregnums reveal an inherent tension between commitments to multilateral cooperation on the one hand, and the security dilemmas and national interest imperatives of states on the other. Such periods of intensified security dilemmas create mutually assured distrust and precipitate a “race to the bottom” that undermines international law while generating instability and volatility in international cooperation. It is during such periods of uncertainty and transitional disorder that multilateral frameworks face their greatest tests, precisely when they are most critically needed.
In Africa, conflict-driven fatalities, displacement and economic destruction have reached staggering levels – and are surging. States are at the centre of the conflicts, deaths, displacement and destruction.
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