Speakers: John Siko & Jonah Victor

Chair: Professor Jack Spence OBE

The world's fastest growing continent demographically, Africa displays nearly all the features of today's global security challenges: armed conflict, terrorism, irregular migration, organized crime, great power competition, public discontent, and economic turbulence. John Siko and Jonah Victor -- who between them have decades of experience in the US Government and private sector working on African security issues, and have also developed and taught courses on African security -- now present their unique lessons and pedagogical approach  in a concise guidebook that leads students and general readers through the most important issues, dynamics, challenges, and considerations for analysing and planning responses to security developments in Africa.

This book provides issue-by-issue primers on the causes and consequences of Africa's security challenges that include:

-how to anticipate security problems across current political and economic events
-how to analyse African security institutions and military capabilities
-how to understand historical trends across the African continent and appreciate unique variations among countries.
-how to identify key drivers of future trends
-how to connect security analysis to policy planning

John Siko is a director of Burnham Global, a firm that trains and mentors security forces around the globe. He previously worked for the Risk Advisory Group as the head of Business Intelligence for Africa, managing the company's investigations across the continent. John joined Risk Advisory after 15 years in the US diplomatic and intelligence communities. There, he dealt exclusively with African political, security, and economic issues, with a particular focus on the confluence of political and business interests.

John holds a doctorate in African Politics from the University of South Africa; he has authored several academic and media articles, and he is author of 2014's Inside South Africa's Foreign Policy: Diplomacy in Africa from Smuts to Mbeki. He is a visiting research fellow at King's and previously taught African politics and security at Georgetown and George Washington University in Washington DC.

 

Jonah Victor, based in Washington DC, served as a US Government adviser on African affairs including at the National Security Council, the National Intelligence Council, and the Department of Defense. He has travelled professionally to 20 African countries and taught African security issues as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Victor holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Pennsylvania State University.