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The Bush administration & African oil: the security implications of US energy policy

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  • Daniel Volman

Abstract

'It's been reliably reported,' former US Ambassador to Chad Donald R. Norland announced during a House Africa Subcommittee hearing in April 2002, 'that, for the first time, the two concepts-'Africa' and 'U.S national security'-have been used in the same sentence in Pentagon documents.' When US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Michael A. Westphal held a press briefing that same month, he noted that 'fifteen per cent of the US's imported oil supply comes from sub-Saharan Africa' and that 'this is also a number which has the potential for increasing significantly in the next decade.' This, Westphal explained, is the main reason that Africa matters to the United States and why 'we do follow it very closely,' at the Pentagon. And during his July 2002 visit to Nigeria, US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner declared that 'African oil is of strategic national interest to us' and 'it will increase and become more important as we go forward.' While American interest in oil and other strategic raw materials from Africa is not new, the Bush Administration's decision to define African oil as a 'strategic national interest' and thus, a resource that the United States might choose to use military force to control is completely unprecedented and deeply disturbing.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Volman, 2003. "The Bush administration & African oil: the security implications of US energy policy," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(98), pages 573-584, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:30:y:2003:i:98:p:573-584
    DOI: 10.1080/04
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    Cited by:

    1. Schritt Jannik, 2016. "The petro-political configuration: entanglements of Western and Chinese oil zones in Niger," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 60(1-2), pages 40-56, June.
    2. Andrew, Jane & Baker, Max, 2020. "The radical potential of leaks in the shadow accounting project: The case of US oil interests in Nigeria," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

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