United States–Ghana Defense Cooperation Under Ghana’s Fourth Republic: Its Implications on National Security.

Abstract

This thesis critically examines the defense cooperation relationship between the United States and Ghana, with particular focus on the 2018 Ghana-U.S. Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) and its implications for Ghana's national security and sovereignty within the Fourth Republic. Employing Critical Security Studies complemented by realist perspectives, this research interrogates the dynamics, motivations, and consequences of this bilateral security partnership. It situates the agreement within broader debates about asymmetric power relations, state autonomy, and contemporary security governance in West Africa, addressing a significant gap in scholarship regarding how defense agreements between major powers and smaller states affect sovereignty, security autonomy, and national interests. The U.S.-Ghana relationship has grown significantly, encompassing arms sales, intelligence sharing, joint military exercises, and training. Ghana's strategic importance in U.S. efforts to counterbalance rising powers like Russia and China, combined with regional counter-terrorism imperatives, has intensified these ties. However, the 2018 DCA has sparked considerable controversy, raising critical questions about balancing security enhancement with sovereignty preservation. The study adopts a qualitative methodology, drawing on in-depth interviews with military personnel, defense analysts, policymakers, and academics, alongside critical analysis of the DCA text and related policy documents. This approach enables comprehensive examination of the agreement's impacts on sovereignty, strategic benefits in combating terrorism, and challenges posed by information sensitivity and territorial access concerns. The findings reveal that the DCA embodies complex power asymmetries that challenge traditional notions of state sovereignty and security autonomy. The agreement erodes Ghana's sovereignty across multiple interconnected dimensions. The judicial incapacitation renders Ghanaian courts powerless to address violations by U.S. military personnel, establishing a parallel legal system that undermines Westphalian sovereignty. Diplomatic immunity granted to U.S. personnel blurs boundaries between legitimate privileges and military operations, normalizing exceptional treatment aligned with securitization concepts. The DCA profoundly impacts territorial sovereignty. The requirement that Ghana's President seek permission to enter U.S.-designated areas within national borders represents a striking reversal of sovereignty principles. These areas function as "sovereignty enclaves" extraterritorial zones where Ghanaian law and oversight are suspended, effectively ceding national territory to foreign control. Deliberate ambiguities in clauses regarding entry procedures, operational scope, and jurisdictional boundaries provide interpretive flexibility favoring the United States while limiting Ghana's oversight capacity. Information asymmetry created by the DCA grants the United States access to Ghana's defense infrastructure, communications networks, radio spectrum, and strategic vulnerabilities, rendering Ghana transparent to U.S. intelligence while limiting its understanding of U.S. activities domestically. From a Critical Security Studies perspective, this constitutes epistemic violence, systematically undermining Ghana's ability to know and secure itself. U.S. ability to utilize and potentially monitor Ghana's communications infrastructure transforms the agreement into a surveillance mechanism. Paradoxically, while designed to enhance Ghana's security through capacity building and intelligence sharing, the DCA generates significant vulnerabilities. U.S. forces' presence may transform Ghana into a target for anti-American actors, including terrorist organizations, shifting its role from neutral regional player to potential battleground for conflicts in which it has no direct stake. Ghana's inability to monitor armaments and materials brought by U.S. forces creates security blind spots, representing fundamental abdication of border control. COVID-19 pandemic exemptions allowing untested U.S. personnel entry further illustrate how permissive terms introduce unforeseen risks. These findings highlight profound power asymmetries embedded in the DCA through provisions like legal immunities, unrestricted territorial access, and customs waivers. Such arrangements reflect structural violence—systemic frameworks privileging powerful states while constraining weaker ones. The DCA represents not merely a technical security arrangement but a reconfiguration of sovereignty, authority, and autonomy fundamentally altering Ghana's position as an independent state. The study contributes to scholarly debates about contemporary sovereignty, demonstrating how it operates as a continuum incrementally eroded through legal, spatial, epistemological, and discursive mechanisms. Critical Security Studies provides essential tools for understanding how defense cooperation can serve hegemonic interests while constraining partner state autonomy. For Ghana and similar states, the research underscores the need to balance security benefits against risks of dependency and vulnerability, offering pathways for Global South states to pursue beneficial defense cooperation while preserving sovereignty, autonomy, and national dignity in an increasingly complex international security environment.