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The Nigerian Civil War and the Angolan Civil War Linkages

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The Nigerian Civil War and the Angolan Civil War Linkages The Civil War Nigerian and the Civil War Angolan Linkages between Domestic Tensions and International Alignments J. ISAWA ELAIGWU Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria Introduction THE TWENTIETH CENTURY has witnessed many changes - changes which have also affected the structure of the International System. There has been a "communications revolution" which has not only made the world a smaller place, but which has also relatively diluted the rigidity of the boundaries of the modern "nation-state" or "state-nation".' The effect of such a communications revolution on the sovereignty of the territorial "nation-state" 2 has been extensively discussed by John Herz.2 Similarly, there has been a great population explosion which has caused much concern to some people. In fact, the question of family planning has become increasingly a crucial moot-point in international conferences. From the "balance of power" concept of the international system, there has been a move to a "bipolar" structure and then a "multipolar" structure. Also, the world has witnessed a new phenomenon. If the post-1945 global system wit- nessed alignments in the international system based on military capability, there has emerged a very important element - economic capability of new states. The effect of the recent Arab oil embargo on the West demonstrates the importance of economic capability as an instrument of international politics. Thus, it can be seen that military might alone is not enough of a criterion for international alignments. The new states which have oil have demonstrated 1 Sheldon Gellar makes a strong case about the development of Nation-States and State- Nations. In rejecting the tribe-tonation approach, Gellar shows that where a "Nation" precedes the "State", we have a "Nation-State". On the other hand, when a "State" precedes the development of a "Nation", it could be called a "State-Nation". Thus Nigeria may be regarded as a "State-Nation" while Guinea (Bissau) may be regarded as a "Nation-State". Refer to Sheldon Gellar, State-Buildingand Nation-Building in West Africa (Bloomington, Indiana: International Center, Indiana University, 1972) Occasional Paper, pp. 40-41. Also, Mostafa Rejai and Cynthia Enloe "Nation-States and State- Nations," InternationalStudies, 13, No. 2, (June, 1969), p. 143. 2 John Herz, "Rise and Demise of the Territorial State," World Politics, (July, 1957), p. 473. 216 their "might" in the international system. At least, Arab oil was able to dilute the strength of support of the United States for Israel. For new states, however, there are many problems of political develop- ment within the new international context. The relative isolation in which Britain, the United States and France, were able to resolve their problems of political development with little or no external interference is gone. The Congo (Zairean), Nigerian and Angolan experiences illustrate this point - not to mention experiences in Indo-China. Furthermore, there has been a struggle among the major world powers over spheres of influence. Such desires for spheres of influence take into consid- eration the political and economic capability of the new states. In a world in which the 1973 energy crisis affected the industries of some major powers and imposed on them the necessity to conserve energy, the presence of oil in a new State excites interests external to its borders. Often such interests form strong undercurrents of ostensible ideological conflict among major powers. Another important point, is that new states or developing nations face certain challenges of political development - state-building, nation-building, participation and distribution.3 Whereas older countries, such as Britain, had the chance of coping with these problems sequentially, new states have to deal with them simultaneously. Very often, as in the former Congo (Leopoldville) and Angola, these states hardly had the opportunity to establish themselves before becoming arenas of international conflicts. The Vietnamese experience shows that such conflicts punctuate, if not halt, the process of development within the state. In many cases, such international conflicts in new states have their domestic linkages. Domestic tensions get aggravated because of subtle or overt external intervention. In this paper, we shall be dealing with the linkages between domestic tensions (i.e. tensions among groups within a state) and international alignments among states. The Nigerian and Angolan Civil wars provide interesting case-studies. This paper attempts a discussion of these linkages in the Nigerian and Angolan cases, the similarities and differences between the two cases, and the role of post-civil war Nigeria in the Angolan crisis. 3 State-buildingrefers to the ability of the central government of a State to penetrate and control subnational groups. By Nation-building, we refer to the issue of creating unity among the various groups in a state. The challenge of Distribution deals with how to distribute allocatable resources relatively equitably among subnational groups. And the challenge of participationdeals with the extent to which the citizens of a state are allowed to feed an input into the policy and decision-making institutions of a state. Refer to� Gabriel Almond and B. Powell, ComparativePolitics: A DevelopmentalApproach (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966); L. Binder, L. Pye, J. Coleman, P. Verba, J. La Palombara and M. Weiner, Crises and Sequencesin Political Development(New Haven : Princeton University Press, 1971). .
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