This book offers a new look at the oil industry in West Africa, proposing to examine the entire region that has been viewed through the lens of Nigeria, Ghana and Gabon. The author argues that, in order to address peace and stability in the region, it is important to understand the transformative powers of petroleum revenue. The project also includes the author’s analysis of the problem on multiple levels: international oil companies, states, and local communities. Also, it takes a deeper look at the effects and importance of local communities in the above countries and discusses adequately the strategic challenges that petro-capitalism poses for West Africa’s regional stability and human security.

This book examines the extent to which Russia’s strategic behavior is the product of its imperial strategic culture and Putin’s own operational code. The work argues that, by conflating personalistic regime survival with national security, Putin ensures that contemporary Russian national interest, as expressed through strategic behavior, is the synthesis of a peculiar troika: a long-standing imperial strategic culture, rooted in a partially imagined past; the operational code of a counter-intelligence president and decision-making elite; and the realities of Russia as a hybrid state. The book first examines the role of structure and agency in shaping contemporary Russian strategic behavior. It then provides a conceptual understanding of strategic culture, and applies this to Tsarist and Soviet historical developments. The book’s analysis of the operational code, however, demonstrates that Putinism is more than the sum of the past. At the end, the book assesses Putin’s statecraft and stress-tests our assumptions about the exercise of contemporary power in Russia and the structure of Putin’s agency. This book will be of interest to students of Russian politics and foreign policy, strategic studies and international relations.

This book offers a new look at the oil industry in West Africa, proposing to examine the entire region that has been viewed through the lens of Nigeria, Ghana and Gabon. The author argues that, in order to address peace and stability in the region, it is important to understand the transformative powers of petroleum revenue. The project also includes the author’s analysis of the problem on multiple levels: international oil companies, states, and local communities. Also, it takes a deeper look at the effects and importance of local communities in the above countries and discusses adequately the strategic challenges that petro-capitalism poses for West Africa’s regional stability and human security.

An evenhanded and insightful picture of the obstacles, fiscal incentives, and growing potential for Western oil companies to ameliorate or even prevent conflict in the areas where they operate.

The political economy problems of Nigeria, the root cause for ethnic, religious, political and economic strife, can be in part addressed indirectly through focused contributions by the U.S. military, especially if regionally aligned units are more thoroughly employed.

Attempts to Import Weapons

Oil to Cash explores one option to help countries with new oil revenue avoid the so-called resource curse: just give the money directly to citizens. A universal, transparent, and regular cash transfer would not only provide a concrete benefit to regular people, but would also create powerful incentives for citizens to hold their government accountable. Oil to Cash details how and where this idea could work and how policymakers can learn from the experiences with cash transfers in places like Mexico, Mongolia, and Alaska.