In its anxious search for energy security, the United States has embarked on a risky strategy to arm and train the militaries of oil-producing West Africa, all as part of an expansion of the Global War on Terror. 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, closely focused on an "Oil Triangle," centered around the Gulf of Guinea. Nigeria, which currently provides 10-12 percent of U.S. oil imports, serves as the cornerstone of this strategy even though, since the end of 2005, the on- and offshore oilfields of the Niger Delta -- the major source of the country's oil and gas -- have essentially become ungovernable.
In a new International Policy Report published by the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., three University of California experts report on the motives, actions and potential consequences of this strategy, and argue that militarization policies are not only short-sighted but also deeply flawed.
The report, Convergent Interests: U.S. Energy Security and the 'Securing' of Nigerian Democracy, written by professors Paul M. Lubeck, Michael J. Watts and Ronnie D. Lipschutz, analyzes the intersection of present and future oil demand, the domestic politics of Nigeria, especially the Delta, and American military policies in Muslim Africa. According to the authors, the Department of Defense has decided to establish an African military command -- AFRICOM -- to spearhead an "oil and terrorism" policy, which will oversee the deployment of U.S. forces in the area and supervise distribution of money, materiel and military training to regional militaries and proxies. Given the internal security problems often found in resource rich countries, it is much more likely that the newly-acquired skills and equipment will be directed against domestic opponents than global terrorists.
Paradoxically, perhaps, this will serve to undermine America's energy security even as it breeds growing resentment and violence against U.S. economic and strategic interests.
Among the major points of the report are the following:
-- The United States is relying on increased oil production from
the African Oil Triangle to reduce its dependence on Middle East
petroleum, but this could involve replacing one set of insecurities
with another (pp. 3-5).
-- The Niger Delta, the source of the majority of the region's oil
and gas production, is a site of on-going and violent contestation
between local ethnic groups, oil corporations, and the Nigerian
government, resulting in repeated reductions and shutdowns in oil
flows. Moreover, reports the World Bank, some 80 percent of Nigeria's
oil monies flow to one percent of the population, which 75 percent of
the country's people live on roughly one dollar per day (pp. 5-10).
-- American military interest in the Gulf of Guinea has been stoked by
the energetic activities of an oil lobbyist whose connections
include a Jerusalem-based think tank, the Congressional Black
Caucus Foundation, and neoconservative institutes and
consultants (pp. 10-13).
-- Pentagon analysts and generals claim that vast "uncontrolled spaces"
in Saharan and Sahelian Africa are rife with terrorists seeking to
damage the United States, even though the evidence for such claims is
woefully thin. Nevertheless, a $500 million "Trans-Sahara Counter
Terrorism Initiative" (TSCTI), which will tie African militaries to
American policies, is in the works (pp. 16-20).
-- Militarization will exacerbate an already tense situation in Nigeria,
having nothing to do with terrorism, which has the potential to
destabilize the rest of the region. Only a concerted effort to support
Nigeria's democratic forces and its legislature's oversight of the
country's presidency can ensure American and Nigerian security
interests and quell wholesale theft of oil revenues as well as the
insurgencies, criminality and social banditry now rampant in the Delta
(p. 20).
The Center for International Policy is a non-profit, multi-issue research and advocacy organization that promotes a U.S. foreign policy based on international cooperation, demilitarization and respect for basic human rights.
Paul M. Lubeck, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is completing a book on the globalization of Islamic movements. Ronnie D. Lipschutz is professor of politics and co-director of the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Michael J. Watts is Class of 1963 professor and director of African Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The full-text version of this publication is available online at http://www.ciponline.org/NIGERIA_FINAL.pdf. To request a hard copy, please contact Abigail Poe at the Center for International Policy, (202) 232-3317 or abigail@ciponline.org.
