CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research significance
The significance of the present study is to be found in its background, research question and main argument.
1.1.1 Background of the study
Thanks to its natural wealth and geographical position, the Gulf of Guinea appears to be of strategic importance for the U.S. Geographically, it is referred to as the long Atlantic coast along Angola to Senegal in West and Central Africa regions, including several coastal countries. It is comprised of about 16 states which represent about six thousand kilometres of continuous coastline. These states consist of Senegal, Sierra Leone, Gabon, Liberia, Ghana, C?te d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sao-Tome and Principe, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon and Angola1. But according to a larger conceptions the Gulf of Guinea, it is comprised of 25 countries of West and Central Africa2. The latter will be the reference for this research.
The importance of the region has been pointed out by Ricardo M.S. Soares de Oliveira: ”The eight oil States in West Africa around the Gulf of Guinea together produce some five million barrels of oil a day and may hold as much as a tenth of the world’s oil reserves” (Oil and politics in the Gulf of Guinea, Columbia University Press, 2007).
In 2004, in his opening statement, Senator Chuck Hagel clearly underscored the importance of the area: “Today the U.S. imports 12 to 15 percent of its oil from West and Central Africa. This Region will grow in strategic importance for the US energy security interests. The Gulf of Guinea has several strategic advantages for the United States in terms of geography, market access conditions, and the quantity of its crude oil. By 2020 the United States is expected to import almost 25 percent of its crude oil needs from this region.”
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1.2 Literature review
The topic on which our research focuses is not unknown in International Relations literature. Much has already been written about maritime security dynamics in the Gulf of Guinea. Those literatures approach this subject from different angles as compared to this work. This section tries to review a few relevant readings. ?
One important work related to our research topic is the James J. F. Forest, and Mathew V. Sousa’s masterpiece entitled Oil and terrorism in the New Gulf: Framing US energy and Security policies for the Gulf of Guinea, published by Lexington Books, New-York, in 2006. This book focuses on examining the future of US foreign policy towards Africa with an emphasis on the US strategy to combat terrorism in the Gulf of Guinea. Once again, this work limits itself in analysing only US engagement in the region, and does not extend its enquiry on China’s presence. Moreover, it privileges only security threat, terrorism. This study envisages studying other security threats, and most importantly those menacing states’ activities at sea, how and why China as well as the United Stated engages in those challenges.
On the same issue Dr Charles Ukeje and Prof. Wullson Mvomo Ela conducted a useful research whose title is African approaches to maritime security. The Gulf of Guinea, published by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in 2013. In their book, the authors make a critical assessment of the initiatives undertaken by various state and non-state actors engaged in maritime security dynamics in the Gulf of Guinea, but they do not attempt to understand the contributions of the two world competitors in those processes. This is precis
