1 August 2007
analysis
Washington, DC — "Like its predecessor, anti-communism, the GWOT (Global War on Terrorism) is a timeless, borderless geopolitical strategy whose presumptions lead to defining all conflicts, insurrections and civil wars as terrorist threats, regardless of the facts on the ground." Lubeck, Watts, and Lipschutz in report from Center for International Policy.
This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from an extensive critique of AFRICOM from the Center for International Policy, with particular emphasis on U.S.-Nigerian relations. The analysis, by Nigeria specialists Paul Lubeck and Michael Watts, and security specialist Ronnie Lipschutz, analyzes the background of the AFRICOM initiative, in terms of shifts in both energy and military strategies.
Another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today contains critique of AFRICOM by Emira Woods and Ezekiel Pajibo for Foreign Policy in Focus, countering earlier positive comments by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. It also contains a press release on General Ward's nomination and excerpts from an analysis written for the Brenthurst Foundation in South Africa.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on African security and U.S.involvement, see http://www.africafocus.org/peaceexp.php
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on Nigeria, see http://www.africafocus.org/country/nigeria.php
Convergent Interests: U.S. Energy Security and the "Securing" of Nigerian Democracy
By Paul M. Lubeck, Michael J. Watts and Ronnie Lipschutz
A Publication of the Center for International Policy
February 2007
[excerpts only. For full report visit http://www.ciponline.org]
Over the past 15 years, amidst a deepening crisis in the Middle East and tightening petroleum markets, the U.S. has quietly institutionalized a West African-based oil supply strategy.
Nigeria, currently providing 10-12 percent of U.S. imports, serves as the cornerstone of this Gulf of Guinea strategy. But since the end of 2005, the on- and off-shore oilfields of the Niger Delta the major source of Nigerian oil and gas have essentially become ungovernable. Political instability and violent conflict have deepened to the point that some of the oil and oil-service companies working there, including Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon-Mobil, and Julius Berger, feel that their "social license to operate" is rapidly eroding. In 2003 and 2004, armed insurgencies and attacks on oil installations cut national oil output by forty percent.
More recently, the emergence of a shadowy group of insurgents in the western Delta in late 2005 the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) marked a major escalation of insurgent activity. In the first three months of 2006, $1 billion in oil revenues were lost and national output was cut by one third. The escalating political crisis in the Delta threatens American energy security, the security of Nigeria's fledgling democracy and, indeed, the entire West African region as a source of reliable energy.
...
Not long after the attacks of September 11, 2001, citing energy security and terrorist concerns, the U.S. military radically revised its strategic vision for the West African region; strategy shifted primarily from training for peacekeeping missions in Africa to training for counter terrorism and energy security. Nigeria has been a particular target of this shift in energy security policy, not only as a strategic ally in the region but also as a "front line" state in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Like its predecessor, anti-communism, the GWOT is a timeless, borderless geopolitical strategy whose presumptions lead to defining all conflicts, insurrections and civil wars as terrorist threats, regardless of the facts on the ground.
Today, American energy security concerns and the GWOT have spearheaded a Department of Defense campaign to create a unified and separate African Command AFRICOM a long time objective of neoconservative lobbyists. In August 2006, Time magazine published an exclusive story saying then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was close to announcing the formation of AFRICOM and that a four star general, William "Kip" Ward, currently second in command at EUCOM and the highest ranking African-American officer, was to be appointed head of AFRICOM. By 2 December, Secretary Rumsfeld announced that AFRICOM "should happen in a matter of a month or two but it's important that we do that, and that this department recognizes the importance of Africa."3 In a Reuters interview Ward "acknowledged a U.S. interest in safeguarding oil supplies" and stated, "The protection of critical infrastructure and energy infrastructure is a concern all sovereign nations have. We clearly have a concern about that."
In this policy brief, we lay out the developing situation in the "African Oil Triangle" centered on the Gulf of Guinea ... We begin with an overview of the United States' "petroleum problem" and its relentless search for new sources of oil. We then address oil and turmoil, as the two have intertwined in Nigeria to generate both corruption and political instability. In the third section, we discuss U.S. security strategy in the West African region and why it is misguided in the northern states and severely constrained in the Niger Delta.
...
U.S. Energy Security and the Petroleum Problem
[not included here: see full report]
The Niger Delta: Oil and Turmoil in Nigeria17
[not included here: see full report]
U.S.-Nigerian Security Interests: Searching for Solutions
The growing insecurity of U.S. oil supplies reflects what Michael Klare has called the "economization of security," an important strand of U.S. foreign policy since the 1930s, which has focused on global oil acquisition policy.51 After 9/11, American energy security was overtaken by and slowly merged with the amorphous, borderless GWOT. Active counter terrorism displaced earlier emphasis on training for peacekeeping and human rights. Fears that China is gaining control over African energy resources, e.g.
Angola, are important to the new emphasis on securitization of energy policy, as well as bureaucratic competition for control over resources among the regional commands of the U.S. military.52
Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's strategic doctrine Force Transformation which emphasized mobile, lean, flexible forces rotating through a network of "lillypads" located close to conflict centers (e.g. Sao Tome and Principe), rather than the large, static bases like Stuttgart (Germany) so typical of Cold War strategy, also reinforced the strategic shift to counter-terrorism in Africa.
With the end of the Cold War, the European Command's (EUCOM) strategic worth withered dramatically and troop strengths declined by roughly two-thirds. Because promotions depend overwhelmingly on combat experience, it is not surprising that ambitious EUCOM officers searched for a new mission. The GWOT offered EUCOM strategists an attractive opportunity to reclaim lost relevance and resources by looking southward to North and West Africa, where they repositioned some of their forces to the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea.53 To fund this shift, the Pentagon has marketed several West African initiatives to Congress: the Gulf of Guinea Guard, the Pan- Sahel Initiative, the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) and the Gulf of Guinea Energy Security Strategy (GGESS). Finally, as documented in the "tool kit" box (text box 3 [in full report]), the strategic shift was nurtured by an unlikely coalition of neoconservative "fixers," energy lobbyists, politicians, former diplomats and Africanist humanitarians committed to raising the strategic profile of West Africa in American foreign policy, all embracing the GWOT discourse of counter-terrorism as they and climbed on the energy security bandwagon.
...
Building on the foundation laid by neoconservative promoters and opportunistic Washington players like Wihbey and Congressman Jefferson, strategists at the Pentagon have invented a new security threat to increase funding for EUCOM's footprint in West Africa.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
