The Importance of Africa to The World System After 9/11 Attacks: War on Terrorism or Integration for Sustainable Development

4.2.4 The impact to the other regions in the world as a blessing; In Norway oil resources has been a boon. The discovery of the North Sea oil in the 1960s took European back water with an economy based on fish, trees, and ships, and gave it one of the world’s highest standards of living and an economic diversity spanning green energy and cancer research. Following the drilling accident in the Gulf of Mexico, the Norway government has suspended any further drilling in the north sea until the causes of the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico is known. With war in the Gulf of Persia, the Gulf of Mexico oil explosion and spill suffering in perils, has seen the US senate voting for immediate social security to the affected population, this leaves the gulf of Guinea as an open heaven for rivalry between major powers. This lead to the situation with the new American energy strategy after 9/11 2001, where the outbreak of war in the middle east with American dependence on middle east oil with Saudi Arabia providing 15% of crude oil importation. This heighten the need for policy revision in Washington, the importance of the gulf of guinea to the security of the US and the advantage the gulf of guinea crude oil offers⁵¹

Europe developed to the level it is after experiencing two world wars with capital from abroad, the US through the marshal plan loan several billions of dollars to Europe especially to Britain and France and Germany amounting to eighty eight billion by 1943, with the US directing production facilities located in several places which according to Melman after the war, was adopted to run a series of foreign affiliates. Vatter 1985 22; Melman 1970 in Strange 1994 75 supply of raw materials from the colony. Furthermore, it led to a support for a common defence capability for the EU gained additional momentum during the Iraqi war as Belgium invited other EU states to a summit to discuss a fast track approach to a common European defence policy (The Economists 2003a). However, the effort in unlikely to yield much without substantial resource commitment, commitment which are not forth coming (The economist 2003b)

The period after 9/11 has nevertheless been a period of memorandum of understanding between the major powers in matters of security with regards to the Gulf of Guinea such as the AFRICOM and EUCOM , satisfied with status quo politics in the direction of affairs in international politics, critical for the G7 to work in concert with a similarity of preferences through the identification of alliance portfolios and through similar voting patterns in the General assembly of the UN(Signorino and Ritter 1999), although voting resolution may not well captured the full array of activities occurring in the international environment as to define policy preference of G77 such as Russia and China who might wish to seek a position of leadership within the G77(Volgy et al 2003)