As it struggles with separatist unrest, Nigeria is “a place that we’re going to be hearing a lot about in a year,” he said Nov. 16 during a colloquium at the university.

“The situation in Nigeria is literally coming apart,” Vlahos told the audience. “It’s a country that makes Iraq look simple and doable.” As Nigeria falls apart, people in the United States are going to become increasingly aware of its role as a U.S. oil supplier, he said.

“And the place is just unspeakable,” he said. “And how we go in there and what we do there . . . it won’t work unless we have special capabilities.”

Secret assessments prepared for oil companies have concluded the companies will not be able to operate in Nigeria after about two years because they have “screwed things up so bad,” he said.

Fighting is affecting several parts of Nigeria, including the very poor Niger delta oil region, the Associated Press reported last week. Corruption is also a major problem for the Nigerian government.

“Attacks by militants claiming the region does not get its fair share of Nigeria’s oil wealth have cut more than a quarter of Nigeria’s oil production this year,” the AP reported.

A recent report issued by the International Crisis Group think tank, which cites the same statistic, warns the rising violence threatens to destabilize Nigeria. The report faults deep flaws in Nigeria’s federal system and politics. These problems fuel the fighting by failing to encourage genuine sharing of power and wealth, the study says.

“The government has been quick to brand many of the symptoms, especially the rise of militancy, as simple criminality to be dealt with by more police and more troops,” the report warns. “But unless it engages with the underlying issues of resource control, equal rights, power sharing and accountability, Nigeria will face an internal crisis of increasing proportions.”

Oil theft in the northern reaches of the Gulf of Guinea is estimated at 70,000 barrels a day, meaning a loss of “at least” $1.5 billion per year, Naval Forces Europe Commander Adm. Harry Ulrich said this month in Benin at a ministerial-level conference hosted by the U.S. Navy, the State Department and the Pentagon’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

At this month’s conference, 11 West African nations, brought together by the U.S. military and the State Department, approved a plan to improve maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea.

Asked about the situation in Nigeria, Rear Adm. Philip Greene, head of strategy and policy for Naval Forces Europe, told ITN the conference did not focus on any specific assessments of the security situation in the Gulf of Guinea. But he said there was “a sense of urgency” from regional actors to “move out on solutions.”

Engagement with Alternative Communities

Vlahos predicted the Navy will play a key role supporting new kinds of U.S. engagement around the world in places where U.S. national security interests intersect with alternative communities of impoverished people seeking legitimacy.

Many of these communities exist in vast slums, outside of Western notions of modernity, globalization and nation states, he said. Piety is growing in these regions, he said. But this is a global phenomena that is not merely confined to Muslim areas, he said.

These communities, formed by residents in specific regions, should not be confused with outsider groups such as al Qaeda.

“It’s alternative in the true sense of the word,” said Vlahos. “It isn’t a fictive community like al Qaeda is. Al Qaeda is really more of a fraternity. It may be on its way to being a true community, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Referring to militias in such areas as non-state actors, as the U.S. government often does, misses the point that these are non-state communities, he said. Vlahos called for greater engagement in these areas. Forging relationships with leaders of such communities is necessary, he said.

“We can’t escape these places,” he said. “These places are now . . . where our national security problems are.”

The people in these places “know how to fight us,” he said. Using military force against such people can turn them into hardened enemies by creating a shared experience of struggle that forges a collective identity and leadership, he said.

Unfortunately, he said, the Bush administration’s policies -- including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation -- have “militarized” the United States’ relationship with people around the world who have been “left behind.” This sets up a dramatic narrative of counter-resistance, in which fighting the United States becomes the means of achieving legitimacy, he said.

Seen from this perspective, he said, Iraq is about the United States “going into a place of alternative communities and unsuccessfully engaging in combat with several of them, just as we did in Mogadishu, just as we’re doing in Afghanistan.”

Vlahos urged the U.S. government to “make people and our relationship with them” the focus of U.S. national security. U.S. officials need relationships with the leaders of alternative communities, particularly in the regions where U.S. forces may be engaged, he said. These are the sort of relationships that U.S. officials never developed in Iraq, except in a few cases, he said.

By taking the initiative to confer legitimacy on such people, the United States can curtail their incentive to fight, he argued. The greatest leverage the United States has is its ability to confer legitimacy, he said. “But you have to change how you look at these people,” he said. “You have to change how you approach them. And you have to understand how you approach them.”

The United States should also seek to reclaim “some modest measure” of American altruism, he added.

Seabasing Touted

The U.S. government must be able to enter and conduct engagement in these troubled parts of the world, he said, citing not only military capabilities, but also the Central Intelligence Agency’s role of recruiting and directing agents.

He urged the Pentagon to embrace a culture-driven, rather than technology-driven, military ethos. Beyond mere language training, the U.S. military needs many people with cultural empathy who have the capability to develop relationships, as well as fight, he said. That is difficult to achieve, if it is achievable at all, he added.

Vlahos also sees the importance of the Navy increasing.

“When things unravel in the Arab world, say in Pakistan, when the U.S. is not in a position to occupy the same sort of strategic positions that it has for a long time, we’re going to need the Navy in ways that we haven’t,” he said. The Navy has been a “heavy lift, supply” service, he said.

“But my sense is the Navy will once again have a central position in terms of our military presence,” he said. “And as such, the celebrated phrase ‘from the sea’ takes on a real meaning. . . . The need to go in and operate at whatever level we’re capable of is going to be based at sea.”

The Navy’s seabasing initiative is all about giving the Pentagon the means to operate in areas abroad where it otherwise might be denied access. To enable this vision, the Navy wants to build new maritime prepositioning ships that provide the capability to stage troops and equipment at sea. This is supposed to diminish the Pentagon’s reliance on foreign ports and airfields.

Seabasing is no longer merely a nice catchphrase or slogan, or simply an internal Navy effort, said Vlahos.

“It is a real, living necessity to develop it,” he said. “And the Navy is going to have to be able to be part of this support for new kinds of engagement. So the Navy is going to have to develop some new skills too.”

An offshoot of the seabasing concept is the sea service’s new initiative to establish global fleet stations by deploying shallow-draft Navy ships and support vessels to operate around rivers and littoral waters in key regions of the world.

Speaking in June at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen said each station would be “a hub where all manner of joint, interagency, international organizations, navies, coast guards and non-governmental organizations could partner together as a force for good”.

In September, Rear Adm. Phil Cullom, the Navy’s director for strategy and policy, noted the possibility of establishing such a station in the Gulf of Guinea.

“If for instance the country of Nigeria or any of the countries in Western Africa decide that they are not comfortable with where they’re at for the skill sets that they have . . . the global fleet station would be a ship, a couple of ships, that would go down in the Gulf of Guinea to provide persistent presence,” he said.