GLOBAL POWER POLITICS AND THE IRAN CONFLICT: STRATEGIC LESSONS FOR AFRICAN SOVEREIGNTY AND CONTINENTAL AUTONOMY

Abstract

Power disparities characterize the global order and great powers seek hegemony through military power, strategic alliances and information domination. The escalation of tensions between the US, Israel and Iran has sparked off a revival of questions about agency, imperialism and the developing world as pieces in a grand game. This paper seeks to assess the geostrategic consequences of the War on Iran and its potential implications for the autonomy of African states. The conflict in Iran is far from confined to the Middle East, and demonstrates how regional conflicts have become sites of global power struggles, producing economic and political reverberations across the world. This paper shows how qualitative analysis of academic articles, policy reports and geopolitical analysis from 2020 to 2026, analyze how Realist and Dependency Theories account for Africa's vulnerability to power dynamics. The analysis will reveal how nominal independence is rendered meaningless in the absence of functional infrastructure, how security partners threaten national sovereignty, how dependence on external import economies makes states fragile and how the continent's disunity ensures Africa has no significant say in global decision making. Ultimately, the paper makes a case for restructuring Africa's role in the world through strengthening its institutions, internal capacity building, concentrated development investment and non-alignment so as to ensure genuine security.