Congo & Rwanda Sign U.S.–Brokered “Washington Accords” in D.C.

Like the 1995 Dayton Accords that paused Bosnia’s war yet left NATO troops policing the peace, this deal illustrates how external guarantors can freeze but rarely resolve deeply rooted conflicts. It sits at the junction of two longer arcs: (1) the century-long pattern of great-power competition for Central Africa’s resources—Belgium’s 1908 annexation for rubber and copper echoes today’s U.S.–China cobalt race—and (2) the post-1994 cycle in which Rwanda’s security doctrine spills over its borders. Whether the pact endures will shape both humanitarian outcomes and the strategic supply of battery metals that could define industrial power for the next 100 years; if it fails, it may be remembered less as a turning point than as another photo-op that paused nothing but confirmed the mineral logic of modern diplomacy.