International records / Foreign Relations of the United States

3. Memorandum From Samuel Huntington of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs ( Brzezinski )

h in Africa. For the next few years, South Africa will be one such bastion, but it clearly will not remain that unless it can make progress toward a peaceful resolution of its racial problem. The second most powerful country in sub-Saharan Africa is Nigeria. Nigeria has the people (in numbers and education), oil, a tradition of reasonably effective political authority, and a lingering British residue, which could make it the Brazil of Africa in the coming decade. The factors that favor the Soviets in Africa are generally weaker in Nigeria than elsewhere in the continent. It should become a pri…