scholarly journals THE UNITED STATES, BRITAIN, AND MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO NIGERIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 1065-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCO WYSS

AbstractIn Nigeria, Britain asserted its post-colonial security role during and immediately after the transfer of power, and remained responsible for assisting the Nigerian armed forces. While the Americans recognized Nigeria's potential as an important partner in the Cold War, they preferred to focus on development aid. Washington was thus supposed to complement British assistance, while leaving the responsibility for the security sector to London. But with the escalation of the Cold War in Africa, the Nigerians’ efforts to reduce their dependency on the United Kingdom, and Nigeria's growing significance for the United States in African affairs, this Anglo-American burden-sharing was increasingly questioned in Washington. The United States thus eventually decided to militarize its aid policy towards Nigeria. In analysing the militarization of US aid policy towards Nigeria, this article will, first, assess the Anglo-American relationship in the early 1960s; secondly, position Nigeria in American Cold War policy towards Sub-Saharan Africa; thirdly, question the role of military assistance in Washington's policy towards Nigeria and Africa; and fourthly, discover the regional and local factors that influenced policy-makers in Washington and London.

2021 ◽  
pp. 229-259
Author(s):  
Marco Wyss

Washington was largely a bystander during the transfer of power in Nigeria. Yet London and Lagos saw a postcolonial role for the United States in Nigeria as a provider of development aid, and the Americans increasingly identified Nigeria as a key state in Africa. After independence, this led to an Anglo-American ‘burden-sharing’ in Nigeria, wherein London was responsible for defence and military assistance and Washington became the main provider of development aid. But following the abrogation of the Anglo-Nigerian defence agreement, and in search of alternative sources of military assistance, the Nigerians began to approach Washington with requests for military assistance. The Americans, who wanted to focus on development aid, were hesitant. But eventually, increasing domestic instability, regional tensions, and what was perceived as a communist offensive in West Africa convinced Washington to militarize its aid policy in close consultation with the British.


2019 ◽  
pp. 175-190
Author(s):  
Andrew Gamble

One of the distinctive features of the idea of an Anglosphere has been a particular view of world order, based on liberal principles of free movement of goods, capital and people, representative government, and the rule of law, which requires a powerful state or coalition of states to uphold and enforce them. This chapter charts the roots as well as the limits of this conception in the period of British ascendancy in the nineteenth century, and how significant elements of the political class in both Britain and the United States in the twentieth century came to see the desirability of cooperation between the English-speaking nations to preserve that order against challengers. This cooperation was most clearly realised in the Second World War. The post-war construction of a new liberal world order was achieved under the leadership of the United States, with Britain playing a largely supportive but secondary role. Cooperation between Britain and the US flourished during the Cold War, particularly in the military and intelligence fields, and this became the institutional core of the ‘special relationship’. The period since the end of the Cold War has seen new challenges emerge both externally and internally to the Anglo-American worldview.


Author(s):  
Jason C. Parker

The decolonization of the European overseas empires had its intellectual roots early in the modern era, but its culmination occurred during the Cold War that loomed large in post-1945 international history. This culmination thus coincided with the American rise to superpower status and presented the United States with a dilemma. While philosophically sympathetic to the aspirations of anticolonial nationalist movements abroad, the United States’ vastly greater postwar global security burdens made it averse to the instability that decolonization might bring and that communists might exploit. This fear, and the need to share those burdens with European allies who were themselves still colonial landlords, led Washington to proceed cautiously. The three “waves” of the decolonization process—medium-sized in the late 1940s, large in the half-decade around 1960, and small in the mid-1970s—prompted the American use of a variety of tools and techniques to influence how it unfolded. Prior to independence, this influence was usually channeled through the metropolitan authority then winding down. After independence, Washington continued and often expanded the use of these tools, in most cases on a bilateral basis. In some theaters, such as Korea, Vietnam, and the Congo, through the use of certain of these tools, notably covert espionage or overt military operations, Cold War dynamics enveloped, intensified, and repossessed local decolonization struggles. In most theaters, other tools, such as traditional or public diplomacy or economic or technical development aid, affixed the Cold War into the background as a local transition unfolded. In all cases, the overriding American imperative was to minimize instability and neutralize actors on the ground who could invite communist gains.


sjesr ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 282-288
Author(s):  
Dr. Murad Ali

The paper explores bilateral ties between Turkey and the United States (US) following the end of World War II to the recent era of Trump-Erdogan. Due to its immense geostrategic significance and a strong military, throughout the Cold War period and also in the post-Cold War era, Tukey has mostly remained a key US ally. The methodology adopted for this study is based on both qualitative data available in the form of policy documents and existing literature about the subject as well as utilizing quantitative data comprising US economic and military aid and arms' sales to Turkey obtained from databases of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) respectively. Like numerous developing countries in other parts of the world, Turkey also became one of the biggest recipients of US economic and military assistance and Washington also provided huge arms to Ankara during the Cold War years. The US has provided Turkey an aggregate of US$ 70 billion in civilian and military assistance and has delivered its arms worth US$ 34 billion. However, it has not been a smooth journey as their bilateral relationship experienced some upheavals not only during the Cold War period but ties have been strained by various thorny matters in recent years. These include Turkey's dispute with Greece on Cyprus, targeting Kurdish fighters in Syria, purchase of S-400 defense systems from Russia, and human rights violations at home. By examining these vital points of concern, the paper concludes that although both countries have historically maintained warm bilateral ties, several divergent issues have marred the relationship between the two countries in recent years.


Author(s):  
Richard Mason

Indonesia, the Cold War and Non-alignment: Relations of the Early Indonesian Cabinets with the United States, 1950-1952. The Cold War initially focused on Europe but promptly spread to encompass the entire globe. By the early 1950s, the Cold War belligerents began to compete for the allegiance of the newly independent nations. Many of the newly independent nations, however, had from the outset, preferred not to choose sides in the Cold War. India, Burma and Indonesia had all purported to pursue a policy of neutralism and non-alignment in the Cold War. This paper discusses the attempts of the newly independent Republic of Indonesia to steer a policy of nonalignment in the Cold War and the challenges thereto posed by the United States' Cold War policies during the early 1950s. It traces the experiences of the Hatta, Natsir and Sukiman cabinets, 1950-1952. The central theme of the paper is the interplay between the Indonesian policy of non-alignment in the Cold War and the US policy of containment. The paper argues that despite their profession to non-alignment, the early Indonesian cabinets had leaned towards the United States. Indonesia fell with the Anglo-American economic and military orbit. Desirous of American aid, Indonesia increasingly compromised on its stance of nonalignment in the Cold War. The dilemma of dependence proved to be a major stumbling block in Indonesia's attempt to pursue non-alignment.  


1999 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bolade M. Eyinla

The end of the Cold War freed donors' aid policies from the co-ordinate system of East/West competition around the world. As a result, it was no longer necessary for the United States and its allies to continue providing aid on ideological grounds and/or geo-strategic needs. In the post-Cold War era, it became necessary for donor countries to evolve new rationales to convince their sceptical publics of the continued necessity for aid. One such new rationale was the imperative of promoting democracy and good governance as a way of guaranteeing international peace and security. This article examines the Japanese response to this development by identifying the factors that led to the inauguration of the ODA Charter. Thereafter, the content and intent of the Charter is examined and its application in Sub-Saharan Africa is analysed to highlight the changing objectives of Japanese aid policy in the continent.


2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Miller

The Cold War brought forth an unprecedented level of global interactions, creating relationships that not only brought states together but altered the trajectories of societies. To explore the impact of the Cold War on postwar Japan, this article examines the negotiations between the United States and Japan over Japanese membership in the Mutual Security Program, the United States’ postwar military assistance program. It considers debates over Japanese rearmament and their effect on Japan’s economy and democracy, both within Japan and between Japan and the United States, the negotiations that resulted in Japan’s membership in the program, and Japanese reactions to this membership. It argues that Japanese rearmament both brought the United States and Japan together, and created tensions between them, highlighting the complicated Cold War dynamics between domestic and international politics. Further, it asserts that the Cold War altered the nature of the state by fostering a multilayered relationship between government policy-making, international negotiations, institutional developments, and socio-political mobilizations, creating a new political relationship that it calls the Cold War State.


Author(s):  
Marcia E. Holmes

From the end of World War II until roughly 1989, global leaders feared that cataclysmic war would break out between the world’s two superpower states, the Soviet Union and the United States. Though such a confrontation did not occur, the stalemate between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the United States—with its simmering fears, proxy battles, and psychological warfare—became known as the Cold War. Psychological expertise played an important role in the Cold War, especially within Western democracies like the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. In these countries, citizens tended to view the Cold War as a “battle for minds”: a fight against communist political ideology, totalitarianism, social conformity, and other threats to individual mental freedom. Anglo-American psychology flourished within this intellectual environment by finding new topics and applications for research, new sources of funding, and a new image as essential to the functioning of healthy democracy. Historians continue to debate how the Cold War influenced the field of psychology. Overall, the strategic partnership between psychology and the “military-industrial complex” was limited to certain initiatives. In some cases, Anglo-American psychologists who used their expertise to fight the Cold War were led into questionable pursuits, resulting in greater public scrutiny and even scandals for themselves and their profession. Nonetheless, the Cold War had a significant impact on Anglo-American psychology by making the relationship between psychological knowledge and democratic values a continual subject of public concern.


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