MIDDLE POWER/SUPERPOWER RELATIONS: THE CASE OF NIGERIAN RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES

As the conflict between East and West decreasingly dominates international politics, the small and middle powers have come to demand a role of greater independence within the international system. Prominent among these roles, discoverable in the literature on middle powers, are conflict mediation; attempts by the middle powers to influence world politics through economic and diplomatic means and through mutlilateral and regional organizations; and policies of nonalignment; and resisting to a greater or lesser degree the preponderance of the military and economic might of the two superpowers, thereby allowing themselves some latitude or room to maneuver vis-a-vis the superpowers.;Nigeria has traditionally, since independence, maintained close and friendly relations with the West, especially with the United States. Nigeria's growing sense of destiny andher economic and military power have greatly enhanced her determination to maintain her growing preeminence as a regional power. This study assesses the salient features of Nigerian foreign policy in the principal issue-areas identified as significant by the major students of middle power behavior vis-a-vis Nigeria's relations with the United States. It includes a discussion of Nigeria's role as a mediator in the subordinate regional system which has been concerned with, among other things, the status of African frontiers. The Congo (now Zaire) and the Ethiopia-Somali conflicts, among others, typify such disputes that have arisen from allegedly unfair colonial borders in Africa. The dissertation assesses Nigeria's attempts to influence world politics via such multilateral and regional organizations as the United Nations Organization, and particularly Nigeria's success in using the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to exert influence on world and regional politics by influencing OAU decisions in African and world affairs in furtherance of the objectives of the Nigerian foreign policy. There is a discussion of Nigeria's southern African policy and Nigeria's success in extracting desired policy changes from Britain and the United States through economic and diplomatic means. Such methods include Nigeria's use of economic power to effect or extract desired policy changes from other African countries through threats of the oil weapon and through other kinds of economic aid. An attempt was also made to discuss Nigeria's role in the UN peacemaking operations in the Congo (Zaire) and the Middle East.;Nigeria's foreign policy stance shows that even while valuing its friendship with the United States and the West, it has no desire to be merely a passive client state of any of the two superpowers. The power and influence of the middle powers have been greatly enhance because of the increasing economic interdependence among the various nations of the world. Nigeria's increased freedom of political maneuverability has been due to its economic strength as an oil producing and exporting nation. In essence, this suggests that as the middle powers achieve greater and stronger economic growth and economic independence, they will also tend to achieve greater freedom to maneuver politically and diplomatically in the international area.;A middle power may be defined as a state which, by reason of its population, territorial extension, material resources, geopolitical and strategic status, institutional organization and leadership, influence and stability, has broad but usually not global interests and the capacity and willingness to meet its commitments. Thus a middle power will have primarily regional interests to preserve and defend, as opposed to contemporary superpowers which maintain global interests. A middle power, therefore, may be defined as a regional great power.