How Destabilization of South Sudan Would Effect U.S. Foreign Policy
In 2011, after nearly 50 years of conflict, citizens of the southern half of Sudan voted to secede and form their own country. On 9 July 2011, South Sudan was created amidst the uphill battle of legitimacy, governance, and economic stability in an already volatile region. Widespread poverty and an underdeveloped infrastructure plague the chances of South Sudan’s success.
As the newest member of the United Nations, South Sudan receives military assistance from 55 countries and police assistance from 39 countries (UN, 2014). Despite the perception of the proper steps towards long-term success, South Sudan has great potential to destabilize the entire region. This perception is based largely on the success of its economy and its ability to provide security and governance to its citizens. We will examine the potential South Sudan has to destabilize North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Central Africa, and South Africa if South Sudan becomes a failed state.
Oil Industry of South Sudan
First, we will look at the economy of South Sudan, as it is a focal point of its success. After South Sudan gained independence from Sudan, one of the noticeable challenges they faced was that they became a landlocked country. With enormous oil deposits within its borders, South Sudan relies on other countries to export their oil; mainly their rival, Sudan. A series of pipelines exist through Sudan to Port Sudan along the Red Sea. These pipelines are remnants of pre-Independence Sudan. Because of the pipelines within their borders, Sudan wants the revenue of 245,000 barrels per day, and increasing, production of South Sudanese oil passing through its borders (Rose & Aizhu, ...
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...e, South Sudan’s crisis matters to its customers. The Washington Post. Retrieved on 23 May 2014 from http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/with-oil-at-stake-the-war-in-south-sudan-matters-to-its-customers/2014/01/20/dcca9432-7d25-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html
Rose, A. & Aizhu, C. (20 December 2013). China to evacuate South Sudan oil workers to capital. Reuters. Retrieved on 23 May 2014 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-southsudan-unrest-china-idUSBRE9BJ0FV20131220
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In spite of various failed attempts of secession in many African countries, Eritrea and South Sudan were successful in getting independence, with international and regional actors’ recognition. But the question remains whether these countries are on the right track to address the main challenges that emerge in the aftermath of secession, in the process of peacebuilding and state building in particular with issues of human rights, political stability and development for their people who voted for secession during referendums.
It is due this circumstance that the fight in Darfur, which originated from conflict over land, water and additional capitals amongst black farmers and Arab nomads, has transformed into a gory tragedy. The Darfur crisis has exposed the racial issues in Sudan which had been ready to burst into flames for a long period time. What makes it a racial conflict is that the Muslim Arab Janjaweed militia, are attacking black African Muslims. Both sides share the same Muslim beliefs but cannot live in harmony. If the southerners are not awarded the same rights as the northerners, they will continue to fight.
After the withdraw of Egypt and Britain, Sudan has been run by a number rickety / unstable government groups and milit...
Like most eastern countries that rely on one source of income Nigeria has had major
SUMMARY: The Syrian Civil War between the Syrian government, and the insurgents, as well as the Free Syrian Army has been escalating since early 2011. The United States, and our allies have faced difficulty in sending aid to Syria, and continue to deal with obstacles in sending even basic medications to Syrian civilians. However, the United States and its allies have also contributed to the lack of organization and the disparity in Syria by sending aid and artillery to individuals based only on political connection, and ignoring organization, local alliances, and without a true understanding of the reality of the Syrian localities to best protect the Syrian protestors. The question addressed in this memo will be defining the viable options to be pursued in Syria, how to pursue them, and assessing the most beneficial path of least resistance when offering aid, funds, and artillery to specific groups in the country. The recommendation will be that although the best alternative action item would be to choose a Syrian group with the least oppositional values comparative to the United States to fund, supply with arms, and train; that the United States should do nothing for the time being. Given the physical and financial risk involved with the Syrian Civil War, it would be prudent for the United States to simply observe how the war progresses over the next several months, as well as complete some research to truly understand the state of affairs in local areas of Syria to determine the extent to which the United States could identify a group to provide aid to, as well as the extent to which the United States involvement would be within Syria.
Tadesse, Debay. Post-independence South Sudan: the challenges ahead. ISPI-ISTITUTO PER GU STUDI DI POLITICA INTERNAZIONALE. February 2012.no.46.
The newest country in the world is South Sudan, which gained its independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, as a result of a referendum that passed with 98.83% of the vote. South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in Africa, although it has the third largest oil reserves in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though it is currently a sovereign state, South Sudan still faces issues that can disrupt its stability and eventually lead into the new nation’s first civil war.
The United Nations Special Task Force of South Sudan would be highly privileged to grant their recommendations in an attempt to try truly understand South Sudan struggles that they have been battling ever since 1899. With all due to the respect of the South Sudanese civilians, our task force will genuinely ponder on what we believe would best suit the nation's current status. As well as provide a proposal that allows for the country to not only continue to grow but thrive and prosper. With the previous issues, Sudan has faced we only wish what is best for the country. With close observation and deep analysis the United Nations Special Task Force of South Sudan believes that we can combat the issues with proper tactics. What we
The largest petroleum-producing nation in Africa is Nigeria. The petroleum company is the main contributing factor of the GDP in the West African nation, which is also the continents, most noticeable and populous reserves. Since Nigeria was under British control it has suffered socio-economic and political adversities for decades. Corrupt domestic militias and complicity of multinational corporations have rid the nation of its natural resources. The same corporations that are ridding the land and exploring the resources have hypocritically identified Nigeria as a major concern with regard to human rights and environmental degradation. The petroleum business in Nigeria dynamically impacts its economy so much that “oil and gas exports accounted for more than 98% of export earnings and about 83% of federal government revenue, as well as generating more than 40% of its GDP.” Just to be reminiscent on this fact, the petroleum business accounts for almost the entire exporting business of a country so it raises the question of, where is the income going and how is it bring redistributed?
The question to be answered in this paper is to what extent has the resource curse affected the Nigerian economy and government? Resource curse is a term that states the observation that countries that have a plethora of natural resources (e.g. oil, coal, diamonds etc.). usually have unstable political and economic structures (Sachs, 827). Nigeria is categorized as a nation that has succumbed to the resource curse as it has an abundance of, and an overdependence on, oil, and a decreasing gross domestic product (GDP) (Samuels, 321-322). Nigeria is known for its specialization and overdependence on oil and according to Ross, nations of such nature tend to have high levels of poverty, large class gaps, weak educational systems, more corruption within the government, and are less likely to become democracies (Ross, 356).
government. An example of these interests is gaining territory which is under the control of
... (Karlsrud, 2015). Despite the UN’s involvement in peacekeeping and mediation, the concept of stabilization is actually conflicting to what the UN peacekeeping operations are intended to accomplish. In most cases, these UN missions were not given a specific mandate endowed with peace-enforcement, but rather a general mission to ‘neutralize’ the intended state, and protect the civilians using all indispensable means.
UN. Department of Public Information (1995). United Nations peace-keeping: Information notes. Update, December 1994. Retrieved from UN website: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unikom/background.html