Nigerian Civil War

===United States===
The civil war began while the United States was under the presidency of [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], who was officially neutral in regard to the civil war,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e5/c15646.htm|title=Nigerian Civil War|first=Bureau of Public Affairs|last=[[United States Department of State]]: The Office of Electronic Information|date=25 October 2005|website=2001-2009.state.gov}}</ref> with U.S. Secretary of State [[Dean Rusk]] stating that "America is not in a position to take action as Nigeria is an area under British influence".<ref name="shellbpinflu"/> Strategically, U.S. interests aligned with the Federal Military Government, although there was considerable popular public sentiment in support of Biafra. The U.S. also saw value in its alliance with Lagos, and sought to protect $800&nbsp;million (in the assessment of the State Department) worth of private investment.<ref>Pierri, "A New Entry into the World Oil Market" (2013), pp. 105–106.</ref>

The neutrality was not universally popular, and a pro-Biafra lobby emerged within the United States to pressure the U.S. government to take a more active role in assisting Biafra.<ref name="lefever"/> The American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive was an organization founded by American activists to inform the American public of the war and sway popular opinion towards Biafra.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McNeil |first1=Brian |title='And starvation is the grim reaper': the American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive and the genocide question during the Nigerian civil war, 1968–70 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=3 July 2014 |volume=16 |issue=2–3 |pages=317–336 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2014.936723 |s2cid=70911056 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14623528.2014.936723 |issn=1462-3528}}</ref> Biafra became a topic in the [[1968 United States presidential election]] and on 9 September 1968, future Republican president [[Richard Nixon]] called for Lyndon B. Johnson to take action in helping Biafra, stating:
<blockquote>Until now, efforts to relieve the Biafran people have been thwarted by the desire of central government of Nigeria to pursue total and unconditional victory and by the fear of the Ibo people that surrender means wholesale atrocities and genocide. But genocide is what is taking place right now—and starvation is the grim reaper.<ref name="Olawoyin1971pages137to139"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e5/54841.htm |title=Technical Difficulties }}</ref></blockquote>

Both Biafran officials and the U.S. pro-Biafra lobby hoped the election of Richard Nixon would change U.S. foreign policy regarding the war. However, when Nixon became president in 1969, he found there was little he could do to change the established stance aside from calling for another round of peace talks. According to American political theorist [[Ernest W. Lefever]], the U.S. providing official support to Biafra would have resulted in hostility from not only Nigeria, but also other African nations who supported Nigeria in the war, who had successfully argued to the [[United Nations]] that the war was an internal affair that the U.N. should not be involved with.<ref name="lefever">{{cite journal |last1=Lefever |first1=Ernest W. |title=The "Biafra Lobby" and U.S. Foreign Policy |journal=Worldview |date=February 1969 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=6–7 |doi=10.1017/S0084255900013395 |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0084255900013395 |language=en |issn=0084-2559}}</ref> The [[Vietnam War]] served as another obstacle to a possible U.S. intervention in Biafra. Despite this, Nixon continued to personally support Biafra.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://notevenpast.org/foreign-policy-from-candidate-to-president-richard-nixon-and-the-lesson-of-biafra/|title=Foreign Policy from Candidate to President: Richard Nixon and the Lesson of Biafra – Not Even Past|date=5 December 2016|website=notevenpast.org}}</ref>

Himself a Jew who escaped persecution from [[Nazi Germany]], U.S. Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]] compared the Igbo people to Jews in a memoriam written to U.S. President [[Richard Nixon]], stating:
{{blockquote|The Ibos are the wandering Jews of West Africa – gifted, aggressive, Westernized; at best envied and resented, but mostly despised by the mass of their neighbors in the Federation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chiluwa |first1=Innocent |last2=Chiluwa |first2=Isioma M. |title=Separatists or terrorists? Jews or Nigerians?: Media and cyber discourses on the complex identity of the "Biafrans" |journal=Journal of Language and Politics |date=8 June 2020 |volume=19 |issue=4 |pages=583–603 |doi=10.1075/jlp.19041.chi |s2cid=214072392 |url=https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.19041.chi |language=en |issn=1569-2159}}</ref>}}

[[Gulf Oil]] Nigeria, the third major player in Nigerian oil, was producing 9% of the oil coming out of Nigeria before the war began.<ref name="Uche2008pages120to124"/> Its operations were all located offshore of the federally controlled Mid-Western territory; therefore it continued to pay royalties to the federal government and its operations were mostly undisrupted.<ref name="Uche2008pages125to127"/>