The Role of the United States in World Affairs After September 9/11: a Case Study of African Politics
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of Study
This study investigates who initiated the post-9/11 change in US Africa policy and foreign affairs, why and how they did so, and who legitimated the claims. Taken together, these answers help explain why post 9/11 changes in US Africa policy and global affairs took place.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Process of Securitization
Securitisation theory can be traced back to criticism, most notably first developed by Barry Buzan (1983), that security no longer could be “defined as the threat, use and control of military force” in the hands of states.3 If security includes non-military sectors and non-state actors, security agendas however did not consist of a traditional set of issues and sectors but were chosen, constructed or created. Securitisation theory wants to analyse why, by whom and how a non-security issue became a security issue.
Within this ambit, the approach of Critical Security Studies is known to be more cultural in nature, using ideas and habits to explain securitisation.4 In the Copenhagen School that emerged in the mid-1990s, one finds, by contrast, a powerful combination of a broad approach to security and Ole Waever’s focus on the politics of security.5 The Copenhagen School branch of securitisation theory is often used because of its more political approach6 to analysing security agenda- setting: the focus is on the choices made and actions taken by actors in an attempt to shape and manipulate the security agenda.7
For the Copenhagen School, the securitising interaction of an actor and an audience is necessary to move an issue from the normal political agenda to the security agenda. This process consists of (1) a securitising claim made by an actor and (2) legitimation by an audience.
The securitisation process begins with an actor claiming that the existence of an object is threatened. The given issue must be portrayed as an existential threat, meaning that if it is not addressed, the referent object is literally destroyed or it is conquered.8 To avoid death or domination, measures must be taken and they must be taken immediately, thus moving the issue outside the normal realm of politics and into the extraordinary realm of security. The Copenhagen School conceptualises security, in the first instance, as a speech act: verbal and textual material transmits a threat from actor to audience.
The audience toward which this claim is directed either rejects the claim, thus preventing securitisation, or takes on the argument by echoing the same security language about the issue in question. For legitimation or successful securitisation to occur, a claim must become sufficiently important for an audience. This may be because the claim has been presented as “an existential threat, point of no return, or necessity.”10 Legitimation is further dependent upon context; that is, the conditions that heighten the probability that claims are going to be accepted. Ideological attitudes, trends and views can all help an audience accept a claim. Successful securitisation requires that the claim resonate with the audience in which it resides.
Critics have pointed out that the Copenhagen School does not capture the full complexity of the agenda-setting process. One area of weakness is the simplification of processes of communication. Another weakness lies in the relative indifference to complex institutional interactions and the underplaying of social and political context.12 To better capture complexity in the agenda-setting process, we stress agency and context.
CHAPTER THREE
UNITED STATES’ SECURITY GOVERNANCE AND AFRICA: A CASE OF NIGERIA
Introduction
Nigeria is, relatively speaking, a super-power – the largest economy, the largest producer of oil, and the most populated country in Africa (Blanchard and Husted, 2016). Nigeria is ‘probably the most strategically important country in Sub-Saharan Africa,’ and ‘one of our [US] most important partners in Africa.’1 Economically, Nigeria runs a trade surplus with the USA, importing over $5.5 billion in US goods annually (Ademola-Adelehin and Smith, 2017). Nigeria’s long-term stability and success are not only inextricably linked to the continent’s future, but also critically important to the USA (Duncan, 2018). In addition to the strategic role Nigeria plays in the region and in global forums, Nigerians compose the largest African diaspora group in the USA. The USA has been supportive of Nigerian reform initiatives, including anti-corruption efforts, economic and electoral reforms, energy sector privatization, programs to promote peace and development in the Niger Delta (Blanchard and Husted, 2016), and the counterterrorism war against Boko Haram.
However, the increasing lethality and sophistication of Boko Haram’s attacks on local targets have nevertheless raised its profile in US national security analysis. The US intelligence officials estimate that the Islamist militant group has about 4000–6000 ‘hardcore’ militants (Felter, 2018; Hosenball, 2015). Many of the group’s activities are those typically linked with terrorism, includ- ing suicide bombings, use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car bombs, massacre, kidnap- pings, and destruction of property. In recent years, it has increased attacks on soft targets, or relatively unprotected places, and used more women and children as suicide bombers (Campbell, 2016; Thurston, 2018).
Boko Haram has attracted international headlines with its brutal tactics and targeting of civil- ians, including the abduction of over 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. Amnesty International estimated in 2015 that Boko Haram had abducted more than 2000 women and girls in total, forcing some to participate in attacks. In 2014–2016 nearly 20% of Boko Haram suicide bombers were children under the age of 18, 75% of them girls. The violence has forced more than 2000 schools to close and disrupted the education of more than a million children in Nigeria’s northeast (UNICEF, 2015). With uncontrolled importation of illegal arms the threat from Boko Haram and its splinter groups remains critical, with ongoing suicide bombings against civilian and military targets, often in rural villages and displacement camps, particularly in northeast Nigeria (ACLED, 2017).
CHAPTER FOUR
THE ROLE OF THE U.S. IN WORLD AFFAIRS
Evaluation of the 9/11 and the core executive
A considerable amount of literature has shown how the Bush White House was shocked and surprised by the events of 9/11 but soon also developed considerable cynicism in its response. The moral integrity and sincerity of the actors in the process of securitisation are, however, not at issue here. The more relevant conceptualisation is that the Bush administration developed a set of ideas about 9/11 and how to prevent another 9/11. Why the Bush White House responded as it did has been explained in radically different ways.
One type of explanation stressed impersonal, or structural, factors about the nature of power. Having supposedly bested the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the US inevitably became triumphalist and complacent. Shaken by 9/11, the US overreacted.26 Other scholars focused on how the end of the Cold War destabilised America’s security paradigms. The War on Terror provided an opportunity to return to old paradigmatic comforts: enemies were everywhere; they could strike at any moment; they could strike with devastating effect, etc.
For many other scholars the claim making of the Bush administration centred on the beliefs of its core members, the Vulcans. They were bound together by similar experiences in their rise to power. Among others, they had been opponents of the Vietnam Syndrome, and would subsequently argue for a more active, executive-driven foreign policy that included the use of war. The events of 9/11 merely provided them with public justification for why this should be so.
Other scholars argue that the Vulcans’ personalities mattered more than their beliefs. Much attention was devoted to Vice-President Cheney’s authoritarian personality: he saw the nature of executive power as a monarchist and had a history of aggressive attempts at creating that royal power in the US.29 Others saw Vice- President Cheney’s assertions not as so self-motivated. He became important because of another personality: President George W Bush. Already for reasons of an oedipal conflict believing he needed a crusade comparable to the “greatest”
American generation’s accomplishments in World War II, President Bush manufactured such a mission out of 9/11.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
How was Africa securitized after 9/11? We considered only the executive and the legislature in our investigation. Who initiated claims, how and why? And who legitimated the claims, how and why? The US core executive initiated the process after 9/11, claiming that African underdevelopment represented an existential threat to Americans. Unable to provide for the basic needs of their people and lacking full control of their borders, weak states provide both a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorist organizations. Congress legitimated these claims by creating programmes or funding programmes for a War on Terror in Africa.
However complex the interaction between the claimant (the core executive) and the legitimiser (the legislature) became, the political advantage clearly belonged to the core executive. The core executive defined the threat and how they did so was determined by key individuals in an epistemic community. This epistemic community’s views of the causes of terror were not necessarily valid but the core executive’s claim had acquired political ballast through the executive’s early and privileged access to information. The core executive also had rewards, like money and status, to attach to those who accepted their claims. When the claims reached the audience, the US Congress, the legislators were reacting to the core executive’s claims: the legitimiser was not an entity capable of interaction with the core executive on an equal footing. Although we have examined one case only, it is likely that the unequal interaction is structural in nature and therefore probably present in other comparable cases.
The attacks of 9/11 created a context. In the light of their constituents’ heightened fears, the congressional legitimisers were keen to display an awareness of security, mentioning it wherever they could. Some legislators were quite vocal in repeating the reasoning of the core executive. And with great regularity the legislators deferred to – legitimated – the core executive’s requests. The majority of American voters remain opposed to foreign aid, regardless of how it is dressed up, and greater public involvement probably would result in failed securitization. Why legislators endorse the core executive’s claims in all likelihood derived from being intimidated by the core executive or from their fear of losing political capital with their constituents.
Recommendations
By any measure, the atrocity of 11 September 2001 was an extraordinary event, if for no other reason than that it was the first direct attack on US space since the British burned the White House in 1812, an event which occurred in the context of a much larger war. However, it was not just the collapse of the Twin Towers and the partial destruction of the Pentagon that made the attack internationally significant. It was what followed – first in terms of the US response to the attack and second in terms of the attack’s impact upon the larger international system – that lent the event such importance.[1] Certainly, any two-hour attack that had the capacity to accelerate a peace process in one part of the world (Northern Ireland), undermine it almost completely in another (Israel), bring about important modifications to US relations with enemy and friend alike, and lead to one of the biggest US military buildups for over 20 years has to be regarded as being of more than just passing interest to students of international relations (IR).[2] Indeed, the subject is likely to be the source of numerous discussions, conferences, edited volumes and special issues of academic journals in the future. It already has been.[3]
On the role of the US in world affairs and politics, there has been debates among scholars. One of the more developed responses has been provided by Barry Buzan.[4] He tries to answer the question by first looking at four of the principal theoretical perspectives that helped shape IR as a subject after the end of the Cold War: neorealism, globalism, regionalism and constructivism. Admittedly, his summing up of each one is spare; he leaves out the postmodernists, not to mention the feminists; and he agrees that many things could still happen to throw everything back into the melting pot. Yet there is no hiding his main argument: none of these four approaches should have too much difficulty in coping with 11 September. Each in fact, to use Buzan’s words, ‘can claim a piece of the action’. Certainly, none of the main theoretical perspectives will be fatally or even significantly challenged by what has happened. Indeed, many pre-existing debates within IR will hardly be affected at all. We should not reach for our revolver just yet. Our conceptual world has not gone into free fall because of what happened. In fact, what happened, he insists, might turn out to be far less significant than many are now claiming. We should not, in other words, overstate the historical significance of 11 September. It was not a Pearl Harbor, an end to the Cold War or even an oil crisis. If anything, it was more like the Cuban Missile Crisis, that is to say ‘a relatively short sharp, event’ that will not be without its consequences but that will not in the end be transformative. Hence, we should be careful not to overstate things. Obviously, 11 September should be seen as being important, possibly very important.
Finally, as Buzan points out, there is need to clearly think about regions. That is self-evident. And there is little doubt which two regions are currently at the top of the intellectual agenda: the Middle East, which is now never out of the news, and South Asia, because of the knock-on impact of 9/11 on India and Pakistan and relations between those two nuclear states. This is all perfectly legitimate. The danger, though, is that we will all become so fixated on one of these two areas that we might just forget about the rest. There is nothing wrong with riding a wave of interest. We have all done it at one point or another in the past, and we are doing it now in the wake of 9/11. But there is a difference between following a trend and being trendy. There is also a danger that we could ignore the security implications of problems emerging in other regions: Latin America, Asia-Pacific and, of course, sub-Saharan Africa, which in human terms at least is by far the most disastrous (and deserving) area in the modern international system. In short, in the rush to understand one or two very unstable and important areas in the world, one should be careful not to let the rest of the globe fall off the radar screens.
REFERENCES
- ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project) (2017) Nigeria: November 2017 Update. Available at: https://www.acleddata.com/2017/12/27/nigeria-november-2017-update/ (accessed 4 July 2019).
- Ademola-Adelehin O and Smith K (2017) Problem or partner? Why Nigeria matters to the US. The Hill,
- 18 February. Available at: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/320177-problem-or- partner-why-nigeria-matters-to-the-us (accessed 2 August 2018).
- Agbiboa D (2014) Peace at daggers drawn? Boko Haram and the state of emergency in Nigeria. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 37(1): 41–67.
- Aigbokhan B (2010) Poverty, growth and inequality in Nigeria: A case study. African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). Available at: http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/IDEP/ UNPAN003895.pdf (accessed 22 March 2019).
- Akinola O (2015) Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria: Between Islamic fundamentalism, politics, and pov- erty. African Security 8(1): 1–29.
- Amnesty International (2015) Nigeria: Stars on their shoulders: Blood on their hands: War crimes commit- ted by the Nigerian military. Available at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr44/1657/2015/en/ (accessed 12 July 2018).
