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

Definition of relevant concepts

Many of the concepts we resort to in this paper need definition. Notions such as ally, policy, post-9/11, shall be specified so that that further usage will be clearer and less polemical. We will begin by defining the region under study; CA, Cameroon and the United States of America (US).

Central Africa as a region under study represents one of the most difficult areas whose definition is neither granted nor easily understandable. This area could be defined either as a concept (of regional science with a hybrid, blur and split identity), an economic entity (integrative) or a historical creation (historical reduplication of a colonial pan African project).^51(*)

As a geopolitical entity, Central Africa preoccupied German minds during the Scramble for Africa that culminated in the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference. As architects of geopolitics, the German «Mittelafrica» project considered Central Africa to run from Malawi and Mozambique, passing through Angola, the Congo Basin, CAR, the Northern Cameroon Savannah right to Sao Tome and Principe and Equatorial Guinea.^52(*) Other authors noted by Chouala^53(*) have made a further distinction between an Eastern Central Africa and a Western Central Africa. West Central Africa refers to Angola, the two Congo, Cameroon, CAR and Gabon, while East Central Africa regroups Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda and Burundi. At the same time one can talk of French and British Central Africa, the one constituting of Afrique Équatoriale Française (AEF) and the other of the British colonies of Kenya, Uganda, Malawi and Tanzania. It appears from the above that CA refers to former AEF to which Cameroon and former Belgian Congo are grafted.^54(*) Cameroon's entry came in after the Germans were defeated during the First World War, while the former Belgian colonies came in after independence when the Cold War was ragging on.

In this work, we will adopt the 1983 Lagos Plan definition of Central Africa with the creation of Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). According to this Plan, ECCAS members are Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, CAR, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola and Sao Tome and Principe. We should note that the UN Economic Community for Africa's Central African sub-regional representation also defines Central Africa to include these countries. As a regional science with a hybrid, blur and split identity, CA has certain geographic, human, economic and socio-political components. In this respect, CA covers about 5 391 953 km2 comprising equatorial, sub-equatorial and tropical temperatures, with the largest forest in the continent and the second largest ecosystem in the world. With a total population estimate of about 100 million inhabitants and eleven countries, CA has a vast opening to the sea, with important water storage and reserves such as the Congo Basin. The population displays a variety of ethnic groups, languages, religions (mostly Christian, traditional religions and Islam) and practices.

Map 1. Cameroon in Central Africa

Cameroon. The earliest inhabitants of the country called Cameroon probably were the Pygmies, who still inhabit the southern and eastern forests. However, Bantu speakers were among the first groups that invaded Cameroon from equatorial Africa, settling in the south and later in the west. On the other hand, The Muslim Fulani from the Niger basin arrived in the 11th and 19th centuries and settled in the northern part of the country, the present day three provinces of Far North, North and Adamawa. Contact with Europeans began in the 1500s. During the next 3 centuries, Spanish, Dutch, and British traders and explorers visited the area, and engaged in costal slave trading and other forms of remote trading. Christian missions appeared in the mid-1800s with outstanding missionaries as Alfred Saker and Joseph Merricks. Formerly a German colony, Cameroon was handed over to Britain and France as a mandate after WWI, to be later made a Trusteeship territory before independence in 1960.

Though Cameroon achieved independence in an insurrectional environment, Chouala, asserts that «Cameroon has gone from an insurrectional past to a situation today of relative stability of political institutions and social peace.»^55(*) This passage is observable from the peaceful transition at the helm of the state between Presidents Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya, as well as the 1990 introduction of multi-party politics. The introduction to democracy provoked socio-political unrest accompanied by violence, repression and international criticism, but the situation was «progressively pacified.»^56(*) Cameroon has pursued a relatively calm political environment through economic crisis and Structural Adjustment Programs to present-day post Completion Point of the Heavily Poor and Indebted Countries initiative situation. With a population estimate of about 17.3 million,^57(*) Cameroon's border countries are Central African Republic 797 km, Chad 1,094 km, Republic of the Congo 523 km, Equatorial Guinea 189 km, Gabon 298 km, and Nigeria 1,690 km.

US 9/11 policy. This terminology refers to the strategy adopted in the US after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On this memorable day, Islamist terrorists belonging to Al Qeada took several US planes hostage. Two were driven into the twin World Trade Towers, one into part of Pentagon and the other to crash in Pennsylvania. Authors such as William J. Dobson have had a rather contradictory reading of 9/11. According to him, 9/11 is «The day nothing much changed», for he questions, «Did 9/11 actually alter the state of world affairs?»^58(*) This he says is because 9/11 did not alter the balance of power but rather aggravated the imbalance. He then concludes that «American policy has changed only at the margins.»^59(*) Some others, and a majority, have read a somewhat «new shape» of US policy after 9/11. Among these is Gaddis. In Surprise, Security, and the American Experience^60(*) he gives a brief account of what happened on September 11, before analyzing what it means for American history and diplomacy. In the opening pages, Gaddis compares the impact of 9/11 to that of «the Challenger disaster of 1986, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the death of Princess Diana in 1997, or the Columbia disaster of 2003^.»^61(*) In the same way, he likens the impacts of that day to the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The real question to Gaddis^62(*) is this «what would it mean, for Americans, to have to live henceforth in a world of insecurity in which this separation of the personal from the historical could no longer be assumed?»^63(*) The richest assessment, and probably the most vital contribution Gaddis provides for our paper is his analysis of the historical pattern of surprise attacks and the consequent grand strategy developed by American governments. In 1812 (August 12) the British surprisingly set the Capitol on fire, in the same way the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, just as terrorists exploded the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11. After the treaty of Ghent in 1814,^64(*) it was US Secretary of State, Quincy Adams who devised the first grand strategy made up of three elements: preemption, unilateralism and hegemony. The post 1941 and 9/11 grand strategies also had the very components. Our work studies how this preemption, unilateralism and hegemony have modified Cameroon - US relations since 9/11. The events on 9/11 were a sequestration^65(*) not only for Americans but also for the rest of the world. This rest of the world includes Cameroon and the CA Sub-region. The 9/11 attacks plunge into the history of ideas, strategies and foreign policy in the United States. We will look at that a little closely.

Since the founding of the US, three central debates have shaped the country's internationalism and the grand strategy that had followed from it: whether realism or idealism should guide statecraft, how to reconcile the competing cultures and interests of the country's different regions in formulating grand strategy; and how to manage partisan politics and limit its effect on the conduct of foreign policy.^66(*)

The northern states, by virtue of the religious fishing communities that settled there, favored a foreign policy governed more by law and reason than by might [or realism]. The North's idealism gave rise to a liberal strain of isolationism, one that opposed on principled grounds both westward expansion and America's engagement in great power rivalry. In contrast, the more agrarian and mercantilist South tilted in the direction of realpolitik though, Jefferson preached a more rural republican idealism and southerners were more comfortable with the use of force as a tool of statecraft, especially to protect the free flow of trade. At the same time, a popular individualism took root in the South, giving rise to a libertarian strain of isolationism based on opposition to an ambitious foreign policy and the strong central government that it would require.

Populism would also mix with elements of American idealism, giving rise to the notion of U.S. exceptionalism. The supposition that the United States was a unique nation with a unique calling in the world would further strike unilaterialism and encourage the country to chart its own course when it eventually engaged in efforts to reshape the international system. Hence the complementary, even if paradoxical, nature of America's simultaneous attraction to isolationist and unilateralist extremes.^67(*)

The United States had to avoid too much interdependence with Europe lest it be lured into the geopolitical rivalries of the Old World.^68(*) «Any submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and quarrels,» the essayist and champion of independence, Thomas Paine, proclaimed.^69(*) Representing the realist camp, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay took a different approach. In Federalist 6, Hamilton acknowledged that

There are still to be found visionary or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace. The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into wars.^70(*)

But he exhibited little patience for the notion of either a democratic or a commercial peace. «Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities?» Hamilton asked. He posed equally sharp questions about the alleged link between trade and peace. «Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the object of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power and glory?»^71(*) Jay agreed with Hamilton's more pessimistic realism, noting in Federalist 4 that «it is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations will generally make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it.»^72(*) As far as Hamilton and Jay were concerned, America should be guided by sober self-interest just like any other country. It is likely that this same sober self-interest guides America today, as far as CA is concerned.

The United States could most effectively safeguard its security by isolating itself from Europe's geopolitical rivalries. Idealists and realists found this common ground for such reasons as natural security by virtue of its distance from Europe. President George Washington succinctly made the case in his farewell address to the nation in 1796:

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course... Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand on foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition...?^73(*)

Away from these beliefs and debates about the real choices and nature of policy after major crisis, a few months after 9/11, the US went to war in Afghanistan along side NATO, as well as regional partners such as Pakistan. In 2003, the US went to war against Iraq in an environment of a divided Security Council and world wide protest. In both wars, the US achieved rapid success - toppling the regime in Afghanistan and Iraq (the Taliban and Saddam Hussein respectively). However, continued violence in both countries, and the exacerbation of security issues in Iran and North Korea have minded this initial US success. Yet September 11 went deeper even than a casual impact on US minds. The US had long been invulnerable: never conquered, never occupied, and never invaded (apart from the brief foray by British troops in 1812 as stated above). The terrorist actions were a violation, the rape of a country, and Americans reacted with horror, anger, and determination. Much of the world responded. The US won its sympathy and admiration.^74(*)

But that does not mean that the whole world read 9/11 in the same way. Though the events drew for the best sympathy and for the worst empathy around the world (partly because of the foreign nationals among the victims), several criticisms have been raised as to how the US interpreted and/or acted upon the events. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or to show any link between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein has raised world wide criticism. Baroness Williams criticizes the US in the following way,

The administration of George W. Bush uses a harsh, moralistic and sometimes bullying language that grates on allies' ears. Allies are presented as sometimes useful, never essential. International treaties, protocols, codes of conduct and all the rest of it are seen as so many petty encumbrances threaded by Lilliputians around a purposeful and upright Gulliver with much work to do.^75(*)

Baroness is not the only one to view 9/11 as a means for the US to sideline allies, discard international institutions and assume hegemony. In most parts of the world, 9/11 was differently perceived.^76(*)

Policy (foreign). Public policy could be described as a sum-total of factors that contribute to state decision, and how this is influenced. It is any process by which the state apparatus comes to a certain number of actions or non-actions with a specific political program.^77(*) The sector here is foreign policy and the action is that of optimizing bilateral or multi-lateral relations with a foreign political entity. Wikipedia Free Online Encyclopedia defines Foreign Policy (FP) as «a set of political goals that seeks to outline how a particular country will interact with other countries of the world and, to a lesser extent, non-state actors». Foreign policies generally are designed to help protect a country's national interests, national security, ideological goals, and economic prosperity. This can occur as a result of peaceful cooperation with other nations, or through aggression, war, and exploitation. «Foreign policies are the strategies used by governments to guide their actions in the international arena.»^78(*) In this sense, it should spell out the objectives and means state leaders such as the Head of State (presidents, prime ministers, kings, ministers of foreign affairs) want to accomplish. A country's foreign policy can be influenced by many different variables, including its historical alliances with other nations, its culture, and type of government, its size, geographic location, economic ties, and military power. A country's foreign policy is usually aimed at preserving or promoting its economic and political interests abroad and its position in the world.

The making policy is understood and practiced differently in the United States and Cameroon. Under the Constitution of the United States, both Congress and the president have the responsibility of setting U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. Constitution also dictates that some of that power be shared between the two. In general, the president shapes foreign policy, with the advice of the Secretary of State and the Department of State. Congress approves the funding needed to carry out that policy. The U.S. Senate must also approve any treaties initiated by the president by a two-thirds vote. In addition, Congress can criticize actions the president and administration have carried out. In reality, the most influential players in the development of U.S. foreign policy are the President and the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor to the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and, of course, the Director of Central Intelligence, who provides the other key members of the foreign policy team with the latest information on world events.

The case in Cameroon is much more different because of the nature of the political regime. In deed, the regime in Cameroon being presidential, foreign policy decisions are concentrated on the president while the other government agencies are simply in charge of executing. However, some authors have witnessed that foreign policy decisions in Cameroon are both dispersed (between different actors) and concentrated (on the president). From tradition and the law, Biloa Tang states that the President is «the referential in matters of foreign policy.»^79(*) The same view is held by Atanga^80(*) whose study showed that the foreign policy decision-making process in Cameroon is both concentrated and dispersed. This he says is because it brings into the arena several actors, advisers, lobbyists, tools, each being able to influence one another and even the final decision. The National Assembly is hardly involved in foreign policy issues except with international treaties for ratification. In all, domestic policies and polity have more influence on foreign policy in the US than in Cameroon.

* ⁵¹ Chouala Y. A., Désordre et Ordre dans l'Afrique Centrale. Thèse de Doctorat en Relations internationales. Yaoundé, Institut des relations internationales du Cameroun, 1999, p. 2.

* ⁵² Birmingham D., Martin P.M., History of Central Africa, Vol I. New York: Longman, 1983, p.8.

* ⁵³ Chouala Y.A., op. cit, p.4.

* ⁵⁴ Chouala Y.A., op. cit, p.5.

* ⁵⁵ Chouala Y.A., Op cit., p.175.

* ⁵⁶ Chouala, op. cit. p. 176.

* ⁵⁷ See CIA Factbook, last updated on September 7, 2006.

* ⁵⁸ Dobson W. J., «The day nothing much changed», Foreign Policy, Sept/Oct, 2006 p. 22

* ⁵⁹ J. Dobson, op. cit. p. 25.

* ⁶⁰ Harvard University Press, 2004

* ⁶¹ Ibid, p. 2

* ⁶² This idea he borrows from Vann Woodward, an eminent student of American history who specialized in the relationship between security and American character in the height of the Cold War.

* ⁶³ ibid p. 9

* ⁶⁴ The treaty was negotiated under President James Madison, establishing peace between the US and the British forces

* ⁶⁵ While in the Middle East, people were saying `America has got what it deserves', in Africa, people were saying `They can now understand our suffering', while Europeans and Asians were murmuring `If that happens to America, how much of us?'. For further reading, consult US Social Science Research Council of articles on 9/11 at http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/index.htm

* ⁶⁶ Kupchan, The End of the American Era, 2003, p. 161.

* ⁶⁷ Idem.

* ⁶⁸ Though the US has really never been completely independent from Europe.

* ⁶⁹ Kupchan, op. cit, p.163.

* ⁷⁰ Kupchan, op, cit, 163

* ⁷¹ Ibid, citing Hamilton, Federalist 6, in James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, London: Penguin Books, 1989, p. 106.

* ⁷² Idem, p. 164, citing Jay, Federalist 4, in James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, op. cit. p. 97.

* ⁷³ Idem, p. 164, citing text in Felix Gilbert, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961, p. 145.

* ⁷⁴ See Baroness Crosby, The U.S. - the Role of World Leader: a decent respect to the opinions of mankind 2003, p. 3.

* ⁷⁵ Baroness Williams, op. cit. p.5. We must note that though Baroness is writing from America, he is of Latin American descent.

* ⁷⁶ See international affairs expert Owen Harries present the 2003 Boyer Lectures on «Benign or Imperial? Reflections on American Hegemony» at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/boyers

* ⁷⁷ See Biloa Tang, «Le MINREX dans la Politique Étrangère du Cameroun. Une analyse á la Lumière des Politique Publique», Mem de DESS, IRIC, Yaounde, 2000 p. 7.

* ⁷⁸ Goldstein, International Relations, 5^th Ed, Boston: Longman, 2003, p. 155.

* ⁷⁹Biloa Tang, op. cit. p.19

* ⁸⁰ See Atanga Simplice, Le Processus de Prise de Décision de Politique Étrangère au Cameroun, 1991, Th de 3e cycle, UYII, IRIC,