In this episode of Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Murithi Mutiga, Crisis Group’s Africa program director, to discuss the DR Congo-Rwanda deal, U.S. peacemaking in Africa and elsewhere, and how revisionist leadership could impact the continent. They unpack the U.S. and Qatar-brokered peace deal, its minerals component and the pitfalls in the Trump administration’s mediation style, also looking at diplomacy in other hotspots. They also discuss Sudan’s civil war and whether Trump’s illiberal dealmaking might offer a way out. They examine simmering tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and what renewed war between them would mean for an already tumultuous region. Finally, they look at how revisionist leaders in Africa may be emboldened by a broader global trend of achieving goals through force, how Africans view Trump’s second term policy so far and how it compares to Chinese engagement in Africa.
More content from this blog
- Terra Invicta: Ukrainian Wartime Reimaginings for a Habitable Earth, edited by Adrian Ivakhiv – 11 November 2025
- SWERF and TERF: The Red-Brown Alliance in Policing Gender, by Daphne Lawless – 26 August 2019
- Colonial – And Counter-colonial: The Israel/Gaza War through Multiple Critical Perspectives, by Oren Yiftachel – 1 April 2024
- The Trans Movement of Buenos Aires takes on Milei, by Jon Weman – 26 February 2025
- The Last Safe Space? Taiwan’s Fragile Role in Asia’s Shrinking Civic Space, by Antonio Prokscha – 29 October 2025
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