A New Berlin Wall?

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By Captain Olutunde A. Oladimeji, Nigerian Navy

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Many African countries cannot feed their People, let alone spend even modest amounts on fisheries-control ships. Yet, such ships are required to prevent loss of resources to foreign fishing fleets. Many African navies need help.

The end of the Cold War, the collapse of commu­nism, the packing up of the Warsaw Pact, the refor­mation of NATO, the reduction of U.S. forces in Europe, the economic unification of Europe in 1992, the democratization in Latin America, the peaceful solution to conflicts in Southern Africa and other parts of the world, and the end to communist rhetoric in Africa—all these events have instigated global protests against all forms of

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"Any attempt by Northern navies to cocoon themselves may lead to 'a wall between North and South, replacing the wall between the two Berlins/"

cooperate in order to shed some bur­dens that can be shared."

defense spending. These protests do not seem to be a pass­ing fad. They are symptoms of far-reaching dislocation of the bedrock of world order.

No one knows what effects this era of rapid, kaleido­scopic political change will have on the future of sea power. The changes may wreak havoc on emerging sea powers, stunting their growth. It may be that the super­power navies, which contribute considerably to the main­tenance of balance of power and consequently the balance of peace, will be replaced by a league of peaceful, polic­ing, or humanitarian regional navies. Regional navies from Brazil, India, and perhaps Nigeria, may become heg­emonic if the superpower navies stay at home. Or the su­perpower navies may be replaced by a constellation of small national navies, all armed with lethal weapons with no one navy attacking the other in a climate of “porcupine peace”—you sting me, I sting you.

The enemy of NATO may have walked away, but the developing countries of the South are hardly good substi­tutes. And yet the First World’s scrambles to help Eastern Europe cause the developing countries to perceive a fusion of the First and the Second Worlds. The Third World would then be promoted to the status of the new enemy or new competitor.

Rather than promote enmity with the South, French writer and presidential adviser Jacques Attali appealed to the rich countries of the North to pursue the cooperative option. He warns that any attempt by Northern navies to cocoon themselves may lead to “a wall between North and South, replacing the wall between the two Berlins.”

As Charles W. Maynes says about “America’s Third World Hang-ups” (Foreign Policy, Summer 1988), “The United States has a major stake in the prosperity and growth of the Third World countries.” Perhaps the poten­tial for cooperation is greater than the possibilities of con­flict between the rich North and these developing coun­tries. The term “Third World” is not homogeneous; the countries cannot be packaged into one parcel labeled “enemy.”

Africa

The present conditions of African navies suggest that without cooperation among themselves and with navies of the North, hope hardly exists for the survival of even basic maritime surveillance operations in developing countries.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, most African nations, espe­cially those with petro-dollars and those with allies in the West or the East, acquired by purchase or by transfer rela­tively massive amounts of military hardware. There was a commensurate expansion in the number of military per­sonnel. But because of the rapid obsolescence of weapon

systems, much of this hardware is now in need of refur­bishment, retrofitting, or replacement. Then came the eco­nomic crunch. Exacerbating the rising costs of new equip­ment, the values of African currencies in foreign exchange reached their lowest ebb.

Defense allocations in some African countries are I barely enough to pay the salaries of military personnel- Foreign military aid, where it has not been frozen, comes I in trickles. Few African countries can maintain basic mari­time and air surveillance without outside assistance. Since

"To [African countries], a one-nation/ one-navy concept has become intoler­ably expensive. They must learn to

about 1985, the United States has sponsored an African Coastline Security Program that aims at assisting littoral African states police their waters, especially their fishing grounds against poaching and uncontrolled exploitation.

Many African countries, however, especially the sub­Saharan African nations, are undergoing serious economic and social restructuring. In such reallocations, defense is­sues tend to be perceived as residual. A 1989 World Bank report titled Sub-Saharan Africa—From Crisis to Sustain­able Growth establishes a linkage between defense spend­ing and the success of economic structural adjustment. The report argues that in sub-Saharan Africa, “defence expenditure as a ratio of total expenditure is relatively high.” Countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Senegal, and Sudan are described as having “inordinately high ratios. On the other hand, the report observes that most countries with good economic performance (such as Botswana, Ghana, and Mauritius) spend little on defense. The situation in Africa again demonstrates that during a period of serious economic and social dislocation, such as many countries are now going through, people naturally want to talk about butter more than bullets, about rice more than rockets, and about shelter more than warships.

Naval forces have tremendous although indirect eco­nomic benefits that those arguing against defense spending never take into account. Maritime surveillance is so im­portant to African security that Chester A. Crocker, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Af­fairs (1981-89), in an article in USIS magazine Topic No. 182, 1989, regarded helping African nations to achieve the ability to “defend their vital maritime and fisheries interests against pilferage by distant nations” as a future challenge of U.S. African foreign policy. This is espe­cially true in the face of reduction in military aid to Africa, which is down to only about $25 million per annum.

It is sad that the economic, social, and political condi­tions in most sub-Saharan African countries have rendered navies almost superfluous. Most African countries take unacceptable risks, thinking of national security primarily in terms of land. They thus leave their offshore security to

The South Zone Movement

The warming of the West toward the East in response to democratic change and economic reform is generating panic in the countries of the Southern Hemi­sphere, which have borne the brunt of economic woes, small wars, and insurgencies since 1945. Southerners want to forge new patterns of relationship of their own in response to devel­opments in the North.

In the South Atlantic, for ex­ample, there were renewed ef­forts to bring to fruition the long-held dream of a counterpart organization to NATO. Many ideas have been floated since the 1970s by academics and policy­makers in the region. If not a “SATO” (South Atlantic Treaty Organization), it could be a “South Atlantic Council,” a “Nigeria-Angola-Brazil Axis,” or some form of ocean-based alliance. What eventually emerged was the United Nations Resolution 41/11 of 27 October 1986, which “solemnly declares the Atlantic Ocean, in the region between Africa and South Amer­ica, a Zone of Peace and Coop­eration of the South Atlantic.”

As part of the activity follow­ing this declaration, representa­tives from the 23 states fronting the South Atlantic, excluding South Africa, had their second meeting in June 1990 in Nige­ria’s new capital, Abuja. During this conference, Namibia, which became independent on 21 March 1990, was admitted as the 23rd member of the Zone. The meeting in Nigeria was a follow-up to an initial meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 1988 and a consolidation of the massive support the idea had received at the United Nations General Assembly in 1989.

In contrast to the hustle and bustle of the North Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, the South Atlantic had been rela­tively remote and quiet. How­ever, the Falklands/Malvinas Conflict between Britain and Argentina in 1982 cast the area into the limelight, destroyed its innocence, and sensitized the states fronting the South Atlantic to the potential of being en­meshed in East-West conflicts.

The fears of the South Atlan­tic states were further aroused when Northern naval analysts eyed the South Atlantic for dan­gers to NATO and prescribed a form of South Atlantic alliance, sympathetic to NATO. The at­tractiveness of South Africa was often articulated, but that coun­try remained a pariah because of its apartheid policy.

These scenarios have receded. Today, the South feels genuine fear—indeed, panic—that the two parts of the North may, in their new-found love, gang up against the South—that the fallen Berlin Wall may be re­placed by another wall, dividing the North and the South. These developments give the declara­tion of the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlan­tic an added significance.

In other words, the South Zone movement should be taken as part of the global political, economic, and geostrategic change. Apart from seeking to sidestep East-West conflicts, the architects of the South Zone movement are relating peace to security, to cooperation, and to development.

Specifically, the countries seek to:

• Preserve international peace and security in the region
• Stem the spread of Northern conflicts into the zone
• Prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to the region (which is why the nuclear capabilities of South Africa are a matter of concern.)
• Encourage the peaceful uses of the ocean in the region
• Maintain economic and cul­tural contacts, thus exploiting the demographic link that the slave trade of 1450-1870 cre­ated, when an estimated 20 mil­lion West Africans were shipped across the South Atlantic to the Americas
• Seek an end to colonialism and the present regime of South Africa

The countries of the South Atlantic should realize, however, that the sea-inspired movement they are trying to solidity re­quires credible sea power to propel it into a successful experiment in South-South coop­eration. Nigeria’s sea-power ambitions are based on this logic, and tally well with the Brazilian hemispheric ambition, which has been seen in regular naval diplomacy, pressing for influence in the West and East African regions.

But what chance do the navies of the South Atlantic have in carrying out intensive naval di­plomacy, called for by the new South Zone enterprise? Latin American navies are in reces­sion; their sub-Sahara African counterparts are suffering from retarded growth.

These ailing navies are likely to relapse into offshore coastal defense forces, in view of global strategic change and the clamor by the people in the region for economic reforms and reduction in defense spending. The option open to the South Atlantic is to engage in intensive negotiation to obtain concessions from the North. This endeavor also calls for a war of rhetoric, which is continuing.

O. A. Oladimeji

the benevolence” of the international community—a community that has bred smugglers, pirates, drug ped­dlers, irresponsible and greedy fishermen, toxic-waste dumpers, international terrorists, as well as exponents and practitioners of gunboat diplomacy. There are also natural calamities at sea with which to contend.

Take the South Atlantic as a case study. The South At­lantic is a gateway to endangered Antarctica. There are various forms of scientific cooperation in the ocean zone. Most important to the sub-Saharan African nations, how­ever, is the need to cooperate in mounting effective mari­time surveillance of the subregion to prevent toxic-waste dumping and to cooperate in hydrography and weather research, erosion control, search and rescue, prevention of drug trafficking at sea, joint exercises, naval training, and peacekeeping.

In the climate of global protests against defense spend­ing, fledgling navies may have difficulties growing. The older navies may also be stretched even to survive. The developed nations of the North should render assistance to the sub-Saharan navies, however modest the assistance may be. If the world is interested in peace, it should invest in it. That includes sponsoring international naval cooper­ation and assisting small navies to exist, at least for na­tional or maritime regional policing.

In no other region is this international naval cooperative effort more urgent than in the West-Central African subre­gion. Nothing is more threatening to world peace than poverty. To countries in this area, a one-nation/one-navy concept has become intolerably expensive. They must learn to cooperate in order to shed some burdens that can be shared.

Substantial naval cooperation among nations of this subregion may take time to evolve. Obstacles exist: petty sovereignty, differences in language arising out of differ­ent colonial experience, unresolved land/maritime border disputes that result from jigsaw colonial map-making, and political turmoil and leadership tussles. But some form of naval cooperation should not be difficult to forge, in view of many existing bilateral and multilateral contacts in mar­itime affairs. Notable examples are the Ministerial Confer­ence of West and Central African States on Maritime Transport, the Port Management Association of West Af­rica, Continental-West African (Shipping) Conference, and the activities of the Economic Community of West African State on maritime issues.

The level of economic and naval development of many countries in this subregion presupposes that they should seek cooperation with developed countries besides their neighbors in their search to solve some of their naval prob­lems. But fear of domination and the needs of national pride mean that such cooperation should come under mul­tilateral naval agreements.

Historic waves are sweeping the world, threatening to carry navies in their wake. Members of the naval commu­nities must fight for the survival of sea power. Navies can be bridges of understanding, and can help solve such inter­national problems as drugs, pollution, toxic waste, and the spread of conventional and nuclear weapons. The North and South should explore these possibilities together.

The place of the so-called Third World in the U.S. mari­time strategy deserves another look. The current stress on possibilities of conflict should give way to the exploitation of the potential for cooperation to avoid conflict.

Captain Oladimeji is the director of information for the Nigerian Navy. He also has served as public relations officer for the eastern and western naval command headquarters. He is the founding managing editor of The Sailor, the magazine of the Nigerian Navy. He also has initiated and coordinated several publications for the Nigerian Navy.