By John Amoda
THE Wall Street Journal of Thursday-Monday April 5-9, 2012 highlights the relationship between the politics and process of regime change and insecurity. That relationship is structural. Why? Because insecurity is a feature of all transitions- the transition between an established regime changed by revolution or reform and the implementation of a substitute regime.

In that transition all that were secured within the changed regime become unsecured and all that was proscribed in the changed regime drive the process of regime substitution by which new interests can be secured.

In transitions, there is therefore a co-existence between endangered privileges and aspirations-privileges and it is this co-existence that features in security discourse as matters of insecurity. The Wall Street captioned its story thus: “For Foreigners in Afghanistan Security Comes at a High Price”

Dion Nissen writes the following from Kabul:

“As the U.S led military commitment winds down, one business is booming in Afghanistan: The construction of heavily fortified compounds where foreigners can take shelter. Across Afghanistan, investors are gambling tens of millions of dollars on an industry that is based on a feared rise in insurgent attacks in the post-American era.

“As the Americans leave it enhances our value” said Saheed Chandhry, the Pakistan manager of The Baron, a private compound with hotel rooms, office, conference rooms and bomb shelter near the Kabul airport that charges up to $350 a night. “People will need security more than ever before”.

For much of the 10 years Afghan war, private contractors and aid groups have worked out of rented Afghan homes and other lightly protected spaces. But over the past couple of years insurgent attacks on these sites have persuaded foreigners- including the United Nations and some contractors- to curb their travel and seek shelter at compounds like The Baron which resembles military camps.

Underlying the security risks a suicide bomber on a motorcycle plowed into a group of international forces at a market in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people, including three Americans according to Afghan and Western officials”.

The above observations are particularly pertinent in their revelance as the United States begin the transition between the transfer of their functions of internal security regime protection to their Afghan partners. There is appropriate appreciation of the security risks consequent upon American withdrawal from the military phase of their involvement in Regime Stabilisation in Afghanistan, that explain investments in the provision of interim structures of protected spaces like The Baron.

It is evident that building civilian militarist protected spaces in Afghanistan is a feature of the U.S led Afghan Transition of Regime Change stabilisation and of the Taliban-led Regime Change Insurgency. Thus it can be expected that the Taliban would as a matter of their Regime Change War make facilities like The Baron and its likes unsafe. And U.S withdrawal strategy must thus include Afghan regime change stabilisation consultations.

The importance of this analysis to Nigeria is evident in the mass media and government’s discourse on Nigeria internal security. In this discourse more attention has been given to increasing protection of governmental and international spaces without situating this security strategy in the causal politics and process of regime change stabilisation on the one hand and containment of insurgent regime change campaigns on the other.

In August 2009, the African Union held an Extraordinary Session of The Assembly of Heads of States and Governments in Tripoli, Libya. The subject of that session was on the management towards their resolution of sovereignty conflicts in Africa.

Plenary Discussions were based on the Report of the Chairman of the A.U Commission urging the strengthening of the A.U security Architecture within member states national security conflict resolution management. The Report provided details of the costs of conflicts in Africa so as to drive home the urgent necessity for member states to see that “Charity must begin at home”.

It is thus ironic that Libya, the host of that session has demonstrated the wisdom of the Tripoli Session. Pertinent as the concerns of the A.’U were and are, the point that is yet to be made still remains that Africa’s security planning is not situated within the causal politics and process of regime formation, regime change stabilisation and containment of insurgent regime change campaigns.

These triple strategic concerns have driven the United States and NATO regime formation and regime protection measures to defeat insurgent regime change campaigns. In Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, America leading the NATO Alliance has learnt lessons that have influenced its diplomacy on Syria.

The African Union and ECOWAS have also learnt some lessons in the electoral regime change politics of Cote D’lvoire. Perhaps, the starting place for Nigeria’s leadership in the ECOWAS Sub-region will be in leading serious appreciation of the Afghan, Iraqi, Libyan and Ivorian cases for designing the logics of regime formation, protection and change in the era of the Arab Spring.

The relevance of the above thesis is demonstrated by the recent Taliban orchestrated attacks on presumed safe havens in Afghanistan. The front page of The New York Times, April 16, 2012 carries the caption: “Complex Attack By Taliban Sends Message to the West- Provinces Also Targeted; U.S Official Hails Afghan Response”.

This article is by Alissa J. Rubin, Graham Bowley and Sangar Rahimi: “Kabul, Afghanistan-Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen barraged the diplomatic quarters and the Parliament in the Afghan capital for hours on Sunday and struck three eastern provinces as well in a complex attack clearly designed to undermine confidence in NATO and Afghan military gains.

Though the overall confirmed death toll was low, with six victims initially reported across four provinces, they were among the most audacious coordinated terrorist attacks here in recent years…

The attacks came near the peak of the American military troop “surge” in Afghanistan, some of it designed around ensuring the security of the capital. And they were an early test for the Afghan National Security Forces, who responded with only minimal help from NATO Western military officials said”.

This report of events in Afghanistan clearly portray the logics of regime formation, stabilisation and protection strategy. The Taliban had effected the defeat of the Soviet-backed regime only for its nascent regime to be overthrown in the wake of October 2009 by the U.S led NATO Alliance.

The Taliban were not routed and have emerged to confront the Afghan Post Taliban Regime in the course of the past 10 years of war. The Taliban have once run an Afghan Government and they presently seek to run Afghanistan following the departure of the U.S and their NATO Allies.

The U.S withdrew from Iraq after the overthrow of the Hussein Saddam Regime leaving the Iraqis to continue the regime change, stabilisation and protection war.

Libya is the latest case. Libya shows the difference between the toppling of a regime and the establishment of a substitute regime. The Post Gadaffi Transition may be decades long. Nigeria through ECOWAS will have its hands full if it must address its member states internal security politics in terms of issues raised in this analysis.