The Place of Cameroon in US Policy toward Central Africa after the Events of September 11 2001

Central question

From the literature above, one can identify a real problem, a dysfunction between academic theory and what is practiced. We would have expected the US to shy away from engagements in Cameroon due to its Middle East and Asian commitments. The real question then comes up; why should the US pay [relative] attention to Cameroon in the post-9/11 era in spite of American commitment in the Middle East, with all the financial and military consequences that entails? In other words, what explains US interests in Cameroon in spite of their engagement in other parts of the world? A subsidiary question is this; how does the US policy maker see Cameroon while considering the Central African sub region?

Hypotheses

We provide tentative answers to the questions posed above. Our first hypothesis is that changes within Cameroon during this period have been attractive to the US government. The second is that there are geopolitical characteristics that attract the US policy maker, and that these traits are both within Cameroon and related to the entire sub-region. Cameroon exhibits particular geopolitical and geostrategic qualities that attract the US in its efforts to secure the Gulf of Guinea. Our main argument being that since 2001, Cameroon is growing into a strategic U.S. partner in the region, and that for Cameroon to benefit extensively from this state of affairs, the policy - makers must construct a proactive strategy of foreign interests vis-à-vis the US.

Methodology

By methodology here, we refer to prevailing theories, principles and analytical methods in a given discipline. We present here the methods we will resort to in studying our topic, as well as collecting, assembling, classifying, and analyzing data.

Our work will be structured such as to reveal the most important questions surrounding the penetration of the United States in the Central African sub-region. To come out with this we have divided our work into four chapters. Chapter one examines issues related to the internal factors for US interest in Cameroon. This is logical for the fact that our hypotheses above advances that the reasons for US interest in Cameroon are both internal (to Cameroon) and external. Chapter two examines the external factors, that is, US interest in the sub-region. With the factors explained, the third chapter then presents instances of US interest and intensification in Cameroon and in the sub-region. Chapter four focuses on the geopolitical implications of a greater US presence in Cameroon and in Central Africa. A preliminary chapter dealing with methodological issues introduces these four chapters; and a concluding chapter that evaluates our work, provides policy options, give recommendations and suggestions for further studies.

Data shall be collected from four sources, policy documents, libraries, interviews and observation. Reviewing policy documents will provide primary sources of data. But data will principally be collected through the secondary source, i.e. library (especially wed library, webliography). To the library shall be associated other sources. One of these shall be interviews with academic experts, policy makers (US embassy in Yaoundé and MINREX), keen observers, etc. We will rely equally on personal observations on national and international events and politics.

Our method of assembling data will be comparative. Classification here is considered from a political and a historical perspective. Historically, we will compare relations before and after 2001 and see the changes and continuities. Relations before 2001 are considered from about the 1996 and even back to the 1990s, while relations after 2001 span from 2002 to 2006. Political classification refers to assembling data according to the two political entities under study (the US and Cameroon).

In terms of data analysis, we have adopted three approaches, geopolitics, constructivism and foreign policy analysis. Our first Approach is geopolitical. Our geopolitical approach US - Cameroon - CA relations as an expression of strategic purposes expressed through different ideologies and analytical frames. By geopolitics, we allude to the concept describing the influence of political, ideological, geographical, economic and socio-cultural environment on a state's policy and the nature of its relations with its surrounding nations^26(*). With the goal of analyzing in the must exact possible way the environment in which political decisions are taken, geopolitics takes into account the preoccupations of all the actors present on an international scene, be it statesmen, diplomacy, the army, NGOs or public opinion; that is merging the domestic and the foreign scene in the politics of nations. This geopolitical study will lead us into the concept of alliances so dear to realists, only that alliances are not built now on traditional realist lines, but in a constructivist perspective.

The constructivist approach. Constructivism is the distinctive approach to international relations that emphasizes the social or inter-subjective dimension of world politics.^27(*) It is an approach of international relations that emphasizes how ideas, norms, and institutions shape state identity and interests, based on the idea that identities and interests are constructed through dialogue and exchange. Constructivists insist that international relations cannot be reduced to rational action and interaction within material constraints (as some realists claim) or within institutional constraints at the international and national levels (as argued by some liberal internationalists). For constructivists, state interaction is not among fixed national interests, but must be understood as a pattern of action that shapes and is shaped by identities over time. In contrast to other theoretical approaches, social constructivism presents a model of international interaction that explores the normative influence [the influence of norms or preferred values] of fundamental institutional structures and the connection between normative changes and state identities and interests. At the same time, however, institutions themselves are constantly reproduced and, potentially, changed by activities or states and other actors. In constructivists thought, institutions and actors are mutually conditioned entities.^28(*)
Constructivism's most famous scholar, Alexander Wendt, noted that "anarchy is what states make of it", that is, anarchy is a condition of the system of states because states in some sense 'choose' to make it so.^29(*) By this he means that the anarchical structure that neorealists claim governs state interaction is in fact a phenomenon that is socially constructed and reproduced by states. For example, if the system is dominated by states that see anarchy as a life or death situation (what Wendt terms a "Hobbesian" anarchy) then the system will be characterized by warfare. If on the other hand anarchy is seen as restricted (a "Lockean" anarchy) then a more peaceful system will exist. In this sense, constructivism, as an approach, could either be realist or idealist or both. According to constructivists, international institutions have both regulative and constitutive functions. Regulative norms set basic rules for standards of conduct by prescribing or proscribing certain behaviors. Constitutive norms define a behavior and assign meaning to that behavior. Without constitutive norms, actions would be unintelligible. The familiar analogy that constructivists use to explain constitutive norms is that of the rules of a game, such as chess. Constitutive norms [agreed upon rules] enable the actors to play the game and provide the actors with the knowledge necessary to respond to each other's moves in a meaningful way.^30(*)
Our methodological frame therefore acknowledges the fact that the US foreign policy is characterized by the geopolitics of globalism. This tendency to control strategic zones operates on an indirect rule ideology, whereby a `strategic ally' serves as an entry point into a zone of interest. But the strategic ally needs to be treated as a `good friend', protected and valorized. In Cameroon US relations, we will read constructivism from the different theories that could be used to explain changes and choices. In this sense, the construction of relations is complex. Here, actors are not only states, but also resources, governmental and non-governmental institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, constructed and supposedly common enemies or values (such as international terrorism, poverty, HIV/AIDS, democracy, the rule of law, etc.), such that no single actor or factor explains what states call national interest. Institutions, resources and states therefore mutually constitute entities. In the same way, several theories of IR will be employed to understand the construction of Cameroon US relations since 2001 as seen below.

We will also use the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) approach. FPA is defined by Jackson and Sorenson as «a means-end way of thinking about goals and actions of government; it is an instrumental question», asking the «best method or course of action for reaching a target or destination».^31(*) Policy analysis does not only account for what is practiced, but gives correct or good advice on particular decisions taken with respect to certain interests. As Jackson and Sorenson put it,

It puts the IR scholar into the mind-set of the foreign policy-maker. It therefore reduces the distance between the theorist who is involved in thinking about foreign policy and the policy-maker or practitioner who is involved in framing and carrying out foreign policy.^32(*)

In this sense, policy analysis is directly linked to decision-making analysis. This is because, according to White, «it focuses the attention of the analyst on behavior of the human `decision-makers' who are involved in the formulation and execution of foreign policy».^33(*) We will not as much be interested in the processes of decision-making in post 9/11 US policy toward CA as in the outcome of the decisions. The influences of domestic actors, the processes and debates surrounding FP decisions are only considered in terms of relevance in the perception of what Cameroon and the region represents in the post 9/11 grand strategy.

As all other domains of policy know their highs and lows, we will focus principally on high politics on the high - low continuum of approaches to the study of politics. This is because the decisions made commit the US vis-à-vis Cameroon or vice versa. Our analysis therefore goes beyond the simple routine in daily management of international issues. Our reading of Cameroon - US relations since 2001 will principally be in this domain of high politics, at least as far as Cameroon is concerned. High politics in Cameroon could be considered low politics for China or South Africa. To study our topic systematically, we will rely on FPA as described above, in which decision-making models, analytical frames in the behaviorist tradition will be explored.

From another perspective, on the hard-power/ soft-power continuum, we will read the US policy toward Cameroon as being more soft than hard, inscribed in cooperation and interdependence. This involves diplomacy, treaties, negotiations, law making, collective bargaining, economic, social, cultural and scientific cooperation and even the politics of vigorous (legitimate) competition.^34(*) Though the relations could be read sometimes as a hybrid of hard and soft, and though the neo-Marxist will talk of the obedience of small satellite nations to the dictates of their great-power protectors, we will focus on the predominant soft-power policy of the US towards Central Africa.

On the two epistemological camps: "positivist" and "post-positivist", we inscribe our paper on a positivist perspective. In this regard, we use methods of the natural sciences by analyzing the impact of material forces such as state interactions, size of military forces, balance of powers, etc. This explains our use of IR theories such realism, idealism, interdependence, etc., as described below.

* ²⁶ Yves Lacoste, Dictionnaire de géopolitique, Paris, PUF, 1993.

* ²⁷ Griffiths and O'Callaghan, International Relations: The Key Concepts, 2002, pp. 50-51.

* ²⁸ Ibid, 51.

* ²⁹ In a 1992 article in International Organization 2, Spring 1992 (later followed up by a book, Social Theory of International Politics (1999)), p. 46.

* ³⁰ Griffiths and O'Callaghan, op. cit, 51. It is important to state that this game could be played either as realist or idealists or both.

* ³¹ Jackson and Sorenson, Introduction to International Relations: Theories and Approaches 2^nd Ed. 2003 p. 241

* ³² Jackson and Sorenson, op. cit. p. 241.

* ³³ WhiteB.P., «Decision-Making Analysis» in Trevor Taylor (ed), Approaches and Theories in International Relations, London: Longman, 1984, p. 141.

* ³⁴ On an analysis of the `high - low' continuum in politics, and the hard-power soft-power dichotomy, see Theodore A. Couloumbis and James H. Wolfe (eds), Introduction to International Relations. Power and Justice. 1986, pp. 4-6.