panafrican: This is the only way Africa can thwart the destabilizing actions of countries like France.
It would for sure protect millions of lives, spare us from devastating coup d'état and civil wars engineered by foreign powers.

Horus: Instead of having all of the separate "powers" that do not seem to be accomplishing much, they should join together. If Africans can unite militarily they will have one of the largest Army in the world. Every single African country will be protected by this large African Army

thoth: Language is not an issue with military cordination. linguistic problems has long been solved and techniques that relies less on language has been in use for decades.

My problem however is that such military might end up being used against africa on africans just as AU has been hijakced and used as a tool against africans.

Orpelin: The skills and machinery are lacking, so it can't happen this century.
Also,if Africa should make use of its mineral resources for economic empowerment for all without depending on the "so call foreign aid" then I can say we can get there soonest.

panafrican: This is the only way Africa can thwart the destabilizing actions of countries like France.
It would for sure protect millions of lives, spare us from devastating coup d'état and civil wars engineered by foreign powers.

Horus:

We need few nuclear missiles to be used as deterrent for self defence.

Horus:

We need fews nuclear missiles to be used as deterrent for self defence.

Orpelin: thoth,if the REAL skills & machinery to match & even contend with these "people" are there, though I don't believe they exit then we should not be talking about tech transfer because I am very certain that the "G5+1",G8 even some non-African G20 countries will not want to release/transfer their highly classified & closely guided military skills,technology, inventions or weaponry development process.
they can only sell selected few arsenal out to ripe about times two worth in exchange.

bookface:
Misplaced Priorities.

You don't build a strong military on nothing, stoopid! If there's ever any need for African countries to unite, it should be towards building new infrastructures/maintaining existing ones, tackling endemic corruption in individual countries, battling the ever raging poverty and disease, solving economic decadence and improving multilateral trade ties.

panafrican: Misplaced priorities and big mistakes too. Just learn from the History or at least from what went on recently in Libya. There, Gaddafi built ultra modern infrastructure, gave free health care to the people and fed his people. What happened? his country was invaded, destroyed and he was killed.

panafrican: Misplaced priorities and big mistakes too. Just learn from at least what went on recently in Libya. There, Gaddafi built ultra modern infrastructure, gave free health care to the people and fed his people. What happened? his country was invaded, destroyed and he was killed.

bookface:

Still a misplaced priority, regardless!

Again, people here must understand that you don't just wake up one morning and say "Hey, let's build an army"

1) Such goals must be tied towards an objective - a common enemy - which by all counts, Africa doesn't have one! Feel free to cite Libya all you want, but there are good chances that Africa will not need to defend itself in a major external conflict against a major player, requiring the use of such an Army in the next one or two decades. why spend trillions over the next decade or so on a farce which no one really needs - while the economies of individual countries continue to be untapped, under developed and languishing? Why spend such huge sums propping up an army when more than three quarters of Africans continue to live well below the poverty threshold? What is the threat and why is such a move even Justified? The only objective I read here seems to border on braggadocio!


2) Such goals must have willing and able partners - of which there aren't many! You need partners you can trust and who have existing means - financial and technology - of which there aren't any, and a common threat - of which, again there aren't any! Not many countries in Africa has the financial muscle to contribute anything meaningful to such an alliance, the funding of such will eventually fall on the shoulders of countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Algeria and Angola. - So explain to me, how much exactly should Nigerian taxpayers be paying to fund the security of say Rwanda for instance, when we can't even afford to light our own homes for the past 60 years and our children go to school in pitiable conditions?

3) Military alliance don't work because "We all love each other so much and we live in the same continent" - The questions really is, "what's in it for me ?" For instance, NATO only admitted Iceland as a member of the alliance because of its strategic position on the world map, not because of its military. Figure out why there's no EU army yet? or even on the cards? It's quite simple really, Nigeria has very little to gain from forming alliance with a bunch of African countries who can hardly pull their pants together when we can simply pitch our tents with a Superpower and then use the resources we could have spent on such an adventure, developing our own infrastructures instead.

4) Some ret@rd here thinks Nigeria made a mistake to have refused North Korea's offer of nuclear missiles. We are a country who after decades of independence, haven't developed the will to maintain basic infrastructures. Our roads are in shambles, our airport premises stink..and even public schools across the country are a shame to even look at! How the f*ck is a country who can't manage it's own telecommunications (NITEL) manage a nuclear weapons program? Hang on a sec, bragging rights asides, why does anyone, rational enough think we need such destructive weapons in our homeland? India has an enemy - Pakistan, so they both seek means to deter each other. North Korea vs USA. China vs USA. Russia Vs NATO. Israel vs Rest of the middle east. Much of these countries have experienced actual or near military conflicts in the past and they believe they face an existential terminal threat should they not have such military deterrence. Unless someone can explain to me why Nigeria needs to own such dirty weapons on its own soil, i would assume the initial argument/reasoning came from a senile individual.
There is a reason why most countries are moving far away from hoisting nuclear missiles on their own soil and instead opt for submarine based weapons. Nuclear weapons on your own soil, is an existential threat against your own people too, you idi0ts! Nigeria does not and has not had any need for such offensive weapons. What we need is an agile well trained force that responds quickly and intelligently to internal challenges such as Boko Haram and insidious kidnappings.

The ret@rd also thinks you need nuclear weapons to protect your rights to progress. what a tool! After the world war, Japan rose to become the second biggest economy in the world (now the third biggest) and it did so even while keeping its agreement never to have an offensive military strike capability. As usual, ret@rds are quick to blame an "invisible" enemy on their own shortfalls. The most hilarious bit is that this dude even went on to say this:


"Do you know that as far as 1968 Biafrans almost built a nuclear weapon and if not by the efforts of CIA and MI6 the Nigerian civil war would have been a Nuclear war ?"

Let's ignore that this statement must be false - anyone with a quarter brain knows that you need to either have a nuclear reactor or have someone sell you high grade nuclear enriched materials to pull off such - what i wanted to focus on is the fact that this ret@rd thinks in his head that even though we somehow require foreign intervention to prevent us from nuking each other, we still have the maturity it takes to keep such weapons in our arsenal.

Without doubt, Africa has everything it needs. Talented and hard working people - and rich natural resources/ agro lands. A strong alliance should be formed with an objective to develop such talents/resources, improve infrastructures, promote economic ties, reduce barriers to trade, combat ethic wars/divisions, combat raging disease,poverty and malnutrition, combat corruption & human rights violation, combat use of child soldiers and provide a true home/future for Africa's children. - These are the wars that we need to fight, not some imagined foreign enemy and certainly no need for a pointless military adventure.

thoth:

I am shocked. that's all i will say.

bookface:

1. Such goals must be tied towards an objective - a common enemy - which by all counts, Africa doesn't have one!

Thickson: If we cannot organize our country into a progressive developed society, how are we going to organize the continent into anything at all.

andrewza: The AU is trying to put together a African Standby brigade and each region should have one. But they don't work.

Has for a unfied African Milttary. Not going to happen. Do you think a milltary would stand to be run by a forghner. Africa is far from unfied with many holding grudges against ne another.


Has for nukes. There is a resone SA got rid of the in the 1990s. They expensve to keep, of littel use in most wars(they were only used in WW2), atgonise other countries, and if somthing goes wrong it will really ruin a lot of peoples day. Nukes for the most part are of zero value to a african milltary.



Any case let's say africa does some how turn in to the uniteid states of africa and gets nukes and then nukes say france. What do you think the west would do surrenda? Or destroy africa.

thoth:

The skills are there , the machinery are there, the men are there, the will is unfortunately not there.
what you should understand that is that as you pointed out that if Africa uses its resources for empowerment... you will see those skills drawn from other continents down to ours, you will see our great intellectuals being proud of their own and coming home, you will even see those broke ass European nations that has no resources or anything of their own willing to sell us technology.
in fact if Africa unites we can threaten any nation we want, we can decided that Germany would not have any African resources(oil,steel,etc) for one month and Germany would go on its knees. we can do it to any European country or even the west. and when we negotiate contracts we pull the technology transfer into it and believe me if you look hard enough you will that those nations really have no option, not even one.

People should keep in mind while reading the above that oil is not the only thing africa has, we have many minerals that is more important than oil.

thoth: Nigeria is a strategic African nation just like Iran, you can not just go bombing a nation like Nigeria, there are heavy consequences to that which the USA will not want to face. Iraq and Libya does not posses the strategic attributes that defines nations like Iran,Nigeria and Egypt.

Under what pretense would they bomb Nigeria ?
If the whole nation had a consensus on building up our defense systems they will not intervene rather they would initiate same policies that they used during the Abacha regime. Nigeria is strategically a super power and many Nigerians don't know this, it is only left for Nigeria to rise up to its responsibilities and claim it.

There is more to this analysis and i know you have questions but there are certain discussions that the internet is not meant for.

Take a map, bearing in mind the Nigerian population, then start asking yourself this question.. if XX do this to Nigeria what can Nigeria do ? ...if YY did this to Nigeria what can Nigeria do ?
it is a very simple exercise but will open your mind to a lot of realities.

You should have in mind that i had my calculations with the assumption that we had a focused leader and a united nation with a nationalistic mindset.

Nigeria is strategically a super power and many Nigerians don't know this, it is only left for Nigeria to rise up to its responsibilities and claim it.

igbo2011:

Nigeria is nt a super power, we import almost everything. Do we even make our own military equipment? It is probably equipped by America. I am very Pan Africanist and love Africa and Nigeria but we have to be real. If America invaded us what would we do about it? If America stops importing weapons who would make them for us? If I am wrong please correct me.