AN EVALUATION OF THE DOMINANT HYPOTHESIS IN US FOREIGN RELATIONS. By M K ILYASU
AN EVALUATION OF THE DOMINANT HYPOTHESIS IN US FOREIGN RELATIONS.
By
M K ILYASU
INTRODUCTION
US might be thinking of bringing into being a new alliance linking North America and Europe to Japan and the Persian Gulf. Such a grand alliance would serve the objective of its dominance. “Monroe Doctrine” is where US dominance is clearly established to prevent threats which over time became the foundation of US influence in the Western Hemisphere.
NEW ALLIANCE: “Call for Behavioural Change”.
With new alliance being sought, the call for behavioural change becomes imminent.
Perhaps the pertinent question to address is how can the “New Alliance” being sought by the US generate truly global partnership based not on the bipolar and regional politics of the 19s, but on multinational politics that links the economic, energy, and security concerns of Nations, particularly, the entire Gulf states?
PRESENT PREDICAMENT
Presently, it seems, Pres Donald Trump (POTUS) statemanship appears to want to innovate a diplomatic framework in which mutual security trade-offs can compensate for economic forbearance by all partners in the Middle East.
What about us? What about Africa and Nigeria in particular? How do we fare in POTUS “Personal Diplomatic Estimation”? Are we willing to confer prestige and legitimacy on his idea of progress in his naming of Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern”? What happens after he leaves office on January 20, 2029?
Of course we have problems other than those of foreign policy and defense that deserve high priority and must be heeded and could hardly be deferred or regarded as a simple trade-off for more desirable welfare programs.
Nigeria has endured plague of problems since the return to civil rule in 1999. In voices of protest and most times of concern, Nigerians talk of Bad Governance, Unemployment, Insecurity as in Kidnappings, Banditry, Succession threats, Attempted coups, Enforced Sit-ins, Jihadist movements like the Boko Haram, ISWAP, LAKURAWA, ANSARU, Darul Salam, etc.
Security Agencies including the Military high command have warned the Nation that while clinging to some misguided demands, the political narratives that favours “Kid Gloves”approach to insecurity is damaging the image of the Nation.
The dialogue long initiated by various state governments which some of their supporters term “opportunity window for peace” initiative and promoted by state governments of Katsina, Zamfara and the likes, never provided “sustainable peaceful settlement of disputes” with Bandits. The Bandits remain recalcitrants, intimidating communities by walking freely with arms and in most cases enforcing compliance to their demands.
It would seem impossible NOW to persuade those States to stop negotiating with Bandits without a very SERIOUS FEDERAL SANCTIONS APPLIED.
Experiences have shown that State governments sponsored dialogue with Bandits never worked, and can never work.
This seems to be the view of the Military establishment when they openly warned State Governments to STOP negotiating with Bandits.
One can easily imagine the Military High Command frustrations with these so-called “state’s sponsored negotiations”, warning that negotiating with Bandits is inimical to Nigeria’s democratic well being. Our failure to take seriously the menace of these insurrections might have been responsible for some misguided military officers to think of staging a military change of government.
CONTEXTUAL GENESIS.
I am angry because we have said it times without number that the Human Rights Laws that Bandits apologists always invoked are only emerging trends in the development of jurisprudence. That script is not the best way to give Bandits legal cover for their atrocities, neither, of our nascent democracy long term endurance. The real test is whether our succeeding generations, not simply political apologists, will continue to accept the persuasive interventions to be just.
Justice for the vulnerable victims of crimes of Banditry and Kidnapping requires legitimacy. As you continue to appease Bandits with security grants, why such monetary interventions are not granted to the victims? Without widespread acceptance of interventions as part of a formal justice system, your new intervention will appear to be built on neither law nor justice, BUT ON POWER ALONE. But experience have shown that where Power is used to do Justice, Rule of Law will follow.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
(The Trajectory of Ideas)
In the US, as with other European democracies, the definition of the global legal system sees international legal rules fostering clear limits to permissible behaviour or operating as a system of restraint. Global rules according to Charles W Kegley in “Measuring the Growth and Decay of Transnational Norms of Relevant to the Control of Violence” are seen as contributing to the development of international political culture.
Political Foundations of International Law by Morton Kaplan and Nicholas DeB Katzenbach informs that the literature of historical sociology posits a strong correlation between the structure of a legal order and the underlying patterns of conflicting relationships among its members. This view emphasises the “central role of violence” in the formation of a legal system and postulates that the use of violence is the aspect of international relations that dominates.
Just as Aron urge that the most distinguishing feature of international politics is the legitimacy of violence with Kelsey in “The Principles of International Law” contending that “punishment plays a far more important role than reward”. This must be the underlying principle that brought President Nicholas Moduro of Venezuela under US custody.
Is the level of conflict within a social system in fact related to the generation of new norms, the decay of pre-existing ones and the continuity of prevailing legal rules? Or is social equilibrium a precondition for the development of legal norms and world order?
Let us for a while consider US foreign policy objectives in this decade.
Firstly, safeguarding the stability of the Persian Gulf theatre whose outlets run across the Indian Ocean owing to the geo-economics of energy.
Persian Gulf is portrayed as inseparable from the future of NATO and the destiny of Japan. For the foreseeable future, Middle East policy is US energy policy and energy policy is intimately linked to US domestic employment and to Economic and Defense policies.
Not even NATO is more important to US security than the Persian Gulf because in the belief, where the Gulf’s energy reserves is denied to the US, NATO would cease to be viable.
The settlement of the Palestinian issue is a key step to stability in the Gulf region. It is as vital to all sides today as at any time in history. It is the only step that can allow the US to minimise the risks of upheaval in the Gulf and of the loss of the West’s oil supplies. It is the only alternative to a constant escalation of the military buildup in the area and to tensions that are virtually certain to cause the loss of critical US security interests in the Gulf and force yet another Arab/Palestinian-Israel conflict. Painful and time consuming as they may be, US efforts to negotiate a valid peace settlement are the only step that can avoid another major war.
In contrast, if Israel eventually can reach a peace settlement with Palestine and the neighbouring states in the region, Israel relations with the US will eventually be transformed from a moral obligation to a strategic asset worth far more than the cost of any increases in US aid. It will enable Israel to deal with friendly states, creating hope, eventually bringing true strategic stability to the Gulf and freeing funds for development.
Secondly, maintaining and enhancing the credibility of its military presence in all of the Pacific. This is meant to translate increased trade with partners into building investment opportunities.
Thirdly, revision and preparation of military to control potential use of nuclear weapons. It is believed that as many as 14 countries (by 1978 estimates) might have possessed nuclear weapons.
There is growing evidence that a number of countries have concluded that Non-proliferation Treaty is dying if not already dead.
Fourthly, preventing the realignment of Russia and China by maintaining enough power in the Pacific to discourage Sino-Russian expansion and offering economic and military aid.
TESTING THE CURRENT HYPOTHESIS.
How can the “New Alliance” generate truly global partnership that links the economic, energy, and security concerns of the entire Global community?
Professor Micheal J Glennon offers an insight in his article “Search for a Just International Law”, saying as the 20th Century fades away, so too does the international consensus on when to get involved in ANOTHER state’s affairs. Henry Kissinger is wont of saying, “Dominance reflects Power; Leadership requires Building Consensus”.
New actors like President Donald Trump, new issues, new demands and new hopes enter the processes of international law making at an ever increasing rate. This is not just a quantitative growth of interacting elements and forces. We are witnessing not mere proliferation of law making factors but metamorphosis in the total process of world order.
One trend is the relative weakening in the power of the treaties and of modifiable customary rules as the chief pillars supporting the global system of order. Ever harder to make, and with ever shorter life spans, traditional treaties and general customary rules function less than effectively in the regulation of newly erupting international activities. Since international life cannot go without rules, the traditional processes of international law making are being supplemented and sometimes replaced by interplay of rising and falling norms of international behaviour.
New, abruptly arising issues and conflicts among nations and other global actors stimulate the search for swift, issue specific responses. These are found and shown to produce results. They become parts of the total repertoire of problem solving and resorting to them in other instances is likely favourable. Indeed, this is the pointer why the US leadership is always willing to go it alone without recourse to UN consensus.
US has effectively abandoned the UN Charter rules that strictly limit international intervention in local conflicts. It is done in favour of a vague new system that is much more tolerant of military intervention. This is because the UN Charter which premised the core threat to international security coming from Interstate that is no longer considered the most viable reason.
Reflecting the mindset of the Drafters of the Charter, its core prohibitions are directed at invasions, but the current problem today has a lot to do with intrastate violence, which is not addressed effectively by the Charter, as we witnessed with Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Kosovo, DRC etc to the extent that it was oblivious to state sponsored terrorism as exemplified by 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Recent Developments (2025–2026) suggest that as early in February this year, (2026) a new criminal trial is progressing in the United States against a third suspect Abu Agila Masud
It took extreme pressure and cooperation of the UK, Netherlands and the US to bring to justice the perpetrators of the act in spite of the compensation of US Dollars 2.7 Billion paid in 2003 to the families of the victims by the Libyan government.
How does this enrich jurisprudence?
COST BENEFITS ANALYSIS
Replacing a formal system with a set of vague, half formed, as-hoc principles can be dangerous. Untested rules have unexpected consequences. The legal quality of international order will be further dissipated with the consequent weakening of its legal stability. Expectations and understanding about the ways and means of changing them will grow increasingly soft and uncertain. The classic image of a universal system of international law as the foundation of global order will keep on losing its sharpness and its ability to serve.
RELATION OF TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY
Numerous studies including that of Arthur Bronwell in his “Science and Technology in the World of the Future”, examined the possible impact on the quality of life of various material technologies, and from this they postulated a new world order as the necessary and rational reaction to the world technological challenge.
Skills such as nuclear weaponry, supersonic transportation, remote sensing of earth resources, direct satellite broadcasting, weather modification or deep ocean technologies have all been recognised for their potential effect on the international calculus of power. They are seen to possess the greatest power of all, the power of evoking in men a higher, transnational level of rationality needed for reconstructing the system of world order along more effective, almost technologically reliable.
While noting the “erosion of traditional sphere of exclusive national authority as a consequence of technological developments and imperatives”, Richard Falk in his “The Future of International Legal Order: Trends and Patterns”, recognises that technological change is only one of the forces affecting the system of world order, not necessarily its prime determinant. He summed that structural framework of the international legal order has many other features, and is subject to too many dynamic forces for any of them to become dominant.
CONCLUDING THOUGHT
What happens to the balance of power where Moscow and Beijing axis is well established with the formation of BRICKS?
We leave this discussion for another day.
Mallam Mohammed Kabir ILYASU a retired foreign affairs officer, an author and public affairs commentator writes from Kaduna Nigeria
21st February 2026
