13 May 2010 By Rick Rozoff Last year the commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM),
General William Ward, said the Pentagon had military
partnerships with 35 of the continent’s 53 nations,
“representing U.S. relationships that span the
continent.” [1] That number has increased in the interim. As the first overseas regional military command set
up by Washington in this century, the first since the
end of the Cold War, and the first in 25 years, the
activation of AFRICOM, initially under the wing of
U.S. European Command on October 1, 2007, then as an
independent entity a year later, emphasizes the
geostrategic importance of Africa in U.S.
international military, political and economic
planning. Africa Command’s area of responsibility includes
more nations – 53, all African states except Egypt,
which remains in U.S. Central Command, and the Sahrawi
Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara), which is a
member of the African Union but which the U.S. and its
NATO allies recognize as part of Morocco, which
conquered it in 1975 – than any of the Pentagon’s
other Unified Combatant Commands: European Command,
Central Command, Pacific Command, Southern Command and
Northern Command (founded in 2002). The U.S. is alone in maintaining regional
multi-service military commands in all parts of the
world, a process initiated after World War Two as
America arrogated to itself a 20th century manifest
destiny as history’s first worldwide military
superpower. Until October 1, 2008 Africa was overwhelmingly in
the European Command’s area of responsibility, with
all African nations assigned to it except for Egypt,
Seychelles and the Horn of Africa states (Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan) overseen
by Central Command, and three island nations and a
French possession off the continent’s eastern coast
(Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion) placed
under Pacific Command. The month before AFRICOM began its one-year
incubation under U.S. European Command in 2007,
Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Ryan Henry said, “Rather than three different
commanders who have Africa as a third or fourth
priority, there will be one commander that has it as a
top priority.” [2] The Pentagon official also revealed that Africa
Command “would involve one small headquarters plus
five ‘regional integration teams’ scattered around the
continent” and that “AFRICOM would work closely with
the European Union and NATO,” particularly France, a
member of both, which was “interested in developing
the Africa standby force”. [3] The Defense Department official identified all the
key components of Africa Command’s role and adumbrated
what has transpired in the almost three-year interim:
By subsuming nations formerly in the areas of
responsibility of three Pentagon commands under a
unified one, the U.S. will divide the world’s second
most populous continent into five military districts,
each with a multinational African Standby Force
trained by military forces from the United States,
NATO and the European Union. Later the same month, the Pentagon confirmed its
earlier disclosure that AFRICOM would deploy regional
integration teams “to the northern, eastern, southern,
central and western portions of the continent,
mirroring the African Union’s five regional economic
communities….” The Defense News website detailed the geographic
division described in Defense Department briefing
documents issued in that month: “One team will have responsibility for a northern
strip from Mauritania to Libya; another will operate
in a block of east African nations – Sudan, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar and Tanzania; and a
third will carry out activities in a large southern
block that includes South Africa, Zimbabwe and
Angola…. “A fourth team would concentrate on a group of
central African countries such as the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Chad and Congo [Brazzaville]; the
fifth regional team would focus on a western block
that would cover Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Niger
and Western Sahara, according to the briefing
documents.” [4] The five areas correspond to Africa’s main Regional
Economic Communities, starting in the north of the
continent: Arab Maghreb Union: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania,
Morocco and Tunisia. East African Community (EAC): Burundi, Kenya,
Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS):
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire,
Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria,
Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS):
Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic,
Chad, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic
Republic of Congo (Kinshasa), Equatorial Guinea,
Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe. Southern Africa Development Community: Angola,
Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia,
Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia
and Zimbabwe. Africa’s far northeast, in and near the Horn of
Africa, is in a category of its own, having long been
subordinated to the U.S.’s Combined Joint Task Force –
Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) based in Djibouti where the
Pentagon has approximately 2,000 personnel from all
four branches of the armed services. The Combined
Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa area of operations
takes in the African nations of Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania
and Uganda as well as Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.
In addition to Seychelles, the CJTF-HOA is expanding
its purview to include Comoros, Mauritius and
Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. Three years ago it was reported that the Pentagon
had already “agreed on access to air bases and ports
in Africa and ‘bare-bones’ facilities maintained by
local security forces in Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco,
Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Tunisia,
Uganda and Zambia.” [5] That is, in northern, eastern,
western, central and southern Africa. The U.S. has maintained its military base in
Djibouti, Camp Lemonnier, since 2003, established a
naval surveillance facility in Seychelles last autumn,
and has access to base camps and forward sites in
Kenya, Ethiopia, Morocco, Mali, Rwanda and other
nations throughout the continent. AFRICOM, as noted above, plans a central
headquarters on the continent – its current
headquarters remains in Stuttgart, Germany, although
Djibouti’s Camp Lemonnier functions as a de facto one
in Africa – with five regional satellite outposts in
northern, southern, eastern, western and central
Africa. The African Standby Force is nominally under the
control of the African Union, but its troops are being
trained and directed by the U.S., NATO and the
military wing of the European Union. The website of the African Standby Force (ASF)
contains links to the following sites: ASF Headquarters (Addis Ababa) The African Union’s secretariat, the African Union
Commission, is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ethiopia is also one of the nations – Liberia and
Morocco are others – that has been discussed as a
potential site for AFRICOM main headquarters on the
continent. African Standby Force: Trained By U.S. Special
Forces, Modeled After NATO Strike Force Each of the five geographical units listed above is
to supply a contingent of up to brigade size
(4,000-5,000 troops by NATO standards) for the African
Standby Force that is projected to be launched this
year. Two days before U.S. Africa Command was established
on October 1, 2007, the American armed forces
newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that “The
command, scheduled to become operational this week,
will focus much of its activity on helping to build
the fledgling African Standby Force. “It is hoped the force, being organized by the
Ethiopia-based African Union, or AU, will be ready by
2010. It would consist of five multinational brigades
based in the giant continent. Each brigade would
perform missions in its given region, such as
peacekeeping when the need arose. “Gen. William E. Ward, nominated to become the
first AFRICOM commander, last week told the U.S.
Senate in writing that U.S. troops would help the
brigades come to life.” Ward, earlier head of NATO’s Stabilisation Force (SFOR)
in Bosnia in 1996, said in his own words, “AFRICOM
will assume sponsorship of ongoing command and control
infrastructure development and liaison officer
support. It would continue to resource military
mentors for peacekeeping training, and develop new
approaches to supporting the AU and African Standby
Forces.” [7] This February a NATO website detailed the North
Atlantic military bloc’s role in complementing AFRICOM
efforts to build the African Standby Force: “NATO began providing support to the AU Mission in
May 2005 based on specific requests from the AU. NATO
nations supported [the] AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) by
providing airlift for 32,300 personnel….NATO continues
to support the AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM) through
the provision of strategic sea- and air-lift for
AMISOM Troop Contributing Nations on request. The last
airlift support occurred in June 2008 when NATO
transported a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers to
Mogadishu. “Joint Command Lisbon is the operational lead for
NATO/AU engagement, and has a Senior Military Liaison
Officer at AU HQ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. NATO also
supports staff capacity building through the provision
of places on NATO training courses to AU staff
supporting AMISOM, and support to the
operationalisation of the African Standby Force – the
African Union’s vision for a continental, on-call
security apparatus similar to the NATO Response
Force.” [8] The NATO Response Force (NRF) completed what was
described at the time as its final validation in the
two-week, 7,000-troop Steadfast Jaguar military
exercises in the African island nation of Cape Verde
in 2006. Africa was the testing ground for the NRF and the
NRF is the model for the African Standby Force: “Since June 2007, NATO has assisted the AU Mission
in Somalia (AMISOM) by providing airlift support for
AU peacekeepers. This support was authorized until
February 2009 and the Alliance is ready to consider
any new requests from the AU. NATO also continues to
work with the AU in identifying further areas where
NATO could support the African Standby Force.” [9] “NATO is also providing, at the AU’s request,
training opportunities and Since the Berlin Plus agreements between NATO and
the European Union in 2002, the military components of
both organizations not only overlap and complement
each other, but are being integrated at a
qualitatively higher level for overseas missions like
those in and off the coasts of Africa. Three years ago French General Henri Bentegeat,
then Chairman of the European Union Military
Committee, met with EU defense ministers in Germany
and an account of his comments included: “The European
Union’s drive for a stronger global military role
includes an upgrading of ties with the United Nations,
NATO and the African Union….In addition to last year’s
military mission in Congo and logistical help for
African Union forces in Darfur, Bentegeat said the EU
wanted to help an ambitious AU programme to create a
standby force for peacekeeping missions.” [11] Even before AFRICOM was activated as a separate
military command in the autumn of 2008, U.S. European
Command was conducting large-scale multinational
military maneuvers in various regions of Africa to
train units for the five regional brigades that will
form a unified, continental African Standby Force. Starting in 2006 U.S. European Command (and
subsequently Africa Command) has conducted annual
Africa Endeavor multinational communications
interoperability exercises – frequently in nations on
the strategic Gulf of Guinea – with the participation
of the armed forces of African, NATO and European
Union nations. Africa Endeavor 2007 was held in Ghana
and the contributing countries were the U.S., Algeria,
Angola, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso,
Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Lesotho,
Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South
Africa, Sweden, Uganda and Zambia. It was jointly run
by U.S. European Command, U.S. Central Command and the
nascent U.S. Africa Command. “AE [Africa Endeavor] fosters better collaboration
in the Global War on Terrorism and supports the
deployment of peacekeepers in Sudan and Somalia. “Furthermore, AE assists in establishing critical
communication links to enhance the African Standby
Forces’s developments in command, control,
communications and information systems (C3IS) and
strengthens national, regional, continental and
partner relationships….” [12] Africa Endeavor 2008 was held in Nigeria and
included military personnel from 22 African and
European nations as well as the U.S. “During the course of the exercise, participating
nations and organizations also continued their efforts
to develop standard practices and procedures for the
African Union and its African Standby Force.” [13] In 2005 the U.S. launched the first of regular
Flintlock multinational military exercises to initiate
and expand the Pentagon’s Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), formed in the
same year, to train the military forces of Algeria,
Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Morocco,
Nigeria and Tunisia. Washington’s NATO allies Britain,
France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain are also
involved in the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism
Initiative. The exercises are run by U.S. Special Operations
Command Europe. (In 2007 NATO announced that its
Special Operations Coordination Center would be
headquartered at the same Kelley barracks on the U.S.
base in Stuttgart where AFRICOM headquarters are
located.) An account of the initial 2005 operation divulged
that “The U.S. government reportedly plans to spend
$500 million over five years to make the Sahara Desert
a vast new front in its war on terrorism….During the
first phase of the program, dubbed Operation
Flintlock, 700 U.S. Special Forces troops and 2,100
soldiers from nine North and West African nations
[participated].” [14] This year’s 22-day Flintlock 2010, launched on May
2, includes 600 U.S. special forces and 150
counterparts from Britain, Belgium, France, the
Netherlands and Spain. “The objective of Flintlock 10 is to develop
military interoperability….Centered in Ouagadougou,
Burkina Faso, but with tactical training conducted in
Senegal, Mali, Mauritania and Nigeria, Flintlock 10
will begin 2 May and end 23 May, 2010….Flintlock 10
looks to build upon the successes and lessons learned
during previous Flintlock exercises, which were
conducted to establish and develop regional
relationships and synchronization of efforts among the
militaries of the Trans-Saharan region. “This exercise will take place in the context of
the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP).
Supported by the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM) and
the Special Operations Command (SOCAFRICA), the
exercise will provide military training
opportunities….” [15] AFRICOM recently announced that the Special
Operations Command Africa “will gain control over
Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara (JSOTF-TS)
and Special Operations Command and Control Element –
Horn of Africa (SOCCE-HOA),” [16] to centralize
special forces activities in Africa. Efforts to create the proposed African Standby
Force brigade in the north of Africa have floundered
for several reasons. Egypt is not member of the
Maghreb Union nor is it in AFRICOM’s area of
responsibility. Libya is one of the most vocal
opponents of AFRICOM. There is residual tension
between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara, which
Algeria recognizes as an independent nation. But
Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia are
all members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue
partnership program. AFRICOM’s plans for regional military intervention
contingents are proceeding more favorably in the east,
west and south. In June of 2008 the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS) conducted a military
exercise, Jigui 2008, in Mali with its fifteen member
states, and “for the first time, the regional force
exercise involved the African Union, the Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC), the multinational
Standby High Readiness Brigade based in Denmark (SHIRBRIG)
and the Ethiopia-based Eastern African Standby Force (EASTBRIG). “All the exercises were supported by the host
governments as well as France, Denmark, Canada,
Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the
United States of America and the European Union. “Jigui 2008 is consistent with previous training
programmes of ECOWAS and is within the framework of
the African Union (AU) Standby Force, which seeks to
have ready by 2010 one force by each of the Regional
Economic Communities (RECs) in Africa. “The ECOWAS target is to create a 2,770-man Task
Force of the 6,500 troops of the regional force which
will be available under the control of the AU [African
Union].” [17] A year before Senegal hosted military maneuvers
with several other West African nations – Burkina
Faso, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, the Republic of Guinea (Conraky)
and Mali – to “test the (troops’) deployment ability”
with military aircraft, vehicles and ships provided by
France “ahead of the planned creation of an ECOWAS
standby force.” The participating states were trained to “form the
western battalion of the 6,500-men intervention force
which ECOWAS wants to set up by 2010. “Army chiefs of ECOWAS member countries agreed in
June 2004 to create the permanent 6,500-man force,
including the 1,500-strong rapid reaction unit for
troubleshooting missions.” [18] Jigui 2009 was held in Burkina Faso with the
participation of U.S. Army Africa, the Vicenza,
Italy-based Army component of AFRICOM. Last month ECOWAS held a field training exercise in
Benin, Exercise Cohesion Benin 2010, which “aimed to
evaluate the operational and logistics readiness of
the Eastern Battalion of the ESF, which is part of the
overall preparation for the operationalisation of the
African Standby Force by December 2010.” [19] In October of last year the Kenyan press reported
on Western involvement in building the African Standby
Force brigade on the eastern end of Africa: “Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish officers
will assist the region in the ongoing establishment of
a united military force to deal with conflicts on the
continent. “Once functional, the East African Standby Brigade
(EASBRIG) will be deployed to trouble spots within 14
days after chaos erupts, to restore order….The brigade
will have troops from 14 countries. “The experts from the European countries…are based
at the EASBRIG headquarters, at the Defence Staff
College in Karen, Nairobi. “Vice-Chief of General Staff Julius Karangi said
the foreign experts would help fast-track the process
of setting up the standby brigade.” [20] EASBRIG consists of troops from Burundi, Comoros,
Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar,
Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan,
Tanzania and Uganda, and through the Eastern African
Standby Brigade Coordination Mechanism is moving
toward the consolidation of the eastern wing of the
African Standby Force. The East African Standby Brigade is to be
headquartered in Kenya, and last November a field
training exercise was held for it in Djibouti where
the U.S. has its main military base in Africa and
France has its largest anywhere abroad. A Rwandan news
source wrote of it months afterward: “The historical
exercise brought together approximately 1,500 troops,
police and civilian staff from 10 countries working
side-by-side for the first time.” [21] The most immediate site for the use of the East
African Standby Brigade is Somalia, where member
states Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Kenya are
already involved. EASBRIG will also be available for
operations in Sudan, Congo and the Central African
Republic as well as against Eritrea. In March of last
year AFRICOM chief General William Ward “cited three
areas of current conflict on the continent, including
border disputes between Eritrea and Djibouti on the
Horn of Africa and in North Africa [with] the Western
Sahara, and clashing in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.” Speaking of the command he heads, Ward added, “the
United States was able to lend assistance to Uganda,
Rwanda, Congo and to a lesser degree…the Central
African Republic.” [22] The European Union, already involved in the first
naval operation in its history, European Union Naval
Force Somalia – Operation Atalanta, in the Horn of
Africa, has deployed a military mission to Uganda to
train 2,000 Somali troops to defend the Western-backed
Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu. Africa Partnership Station: U.S. Warships Patrol
African Coasts In recent years U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa has
developed the Africa Partnership Station (APS) as a
naval component of AFRICOM. Its first deployment took
the APS to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Senegal,
Sao Tome and Principe, and Togo, all on the Gulf of
Guinea except for Senegal which lies to the north of
it. In the same year, 2007, NATO’s Standing Maritime
Group 1, with one warship each from Canada, Denmark,
Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the U.S.,
started a circumnavigation of Africa with stops in the
Gulf of Guinea and ending with “exercises in the
Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia….” [23] At the time Admiral Henry Ulrich, commander of U.S.
Naval Forces Europe, said, “The Global Fleet Station
concept is ‘closely aligned’ with the task to be
provided by the still-developing U.S. Africa Command,”
[24] and later announced the departure of the USS Fort
McHenry and the High Speed Vessel Swift for a
seven-month deployment to the Gulf of Guinea in
November of 2007 as part of the Navy’s Global Fleet
Station program. The Africa Partnership Station is one
of several Global Fleet Stations recently set up by
the U.S., others being assigned to the Caribbean Sea
and Oceania. “As a dock landing ship, the Fort McHenry
is designed to help get U.S. personnel onto ‘hostile
shores,’ according to the Navy.” [25] Phil Greene, director of Strategy and Policy,
Resources and Transformation for U.S. Naval Forces
Europe, added that the USS Fort McHenry would have a
multinational staff, “partnering with nations such as
France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and others
who have an interest in developing maritime security
in that region.” [26] In fact the USS Fort McHenry first arrived in Spain
“to take on passengers from several European partners
– Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Germany,
among them – before heading to the Gulf of Guinea,”
where it was joined by the High Speed Vessel Swift to
“transport students as well as trainers during visits
to Senegal, Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, Gabon, and Sao
Tome and Principe.” [27] In 2007 U.S. warships visited Mozambique for the
first time in 33 years and Tanzania for the first time
in 40. As part of Africa Partnership Station port visits
last year, an American guided-missile destroyer
traveled to Djibouti, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and
South Africa, in the last case holding a week of joint
exercises with one of the nation’s warships. In February of 2009 “for the first time the U.S.
Navy [had] warships on each side of the African
continent as part of Africa Partnership Station’s
ongoing teaching mission with African nations.” [28]
To wit, a frigate in Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania
and an amphibious transport dock in Senegal. The month before a U.S. frigate became the first
Navy warship to anchor off Equatorial Guinea’s
mainland city of Bata “as part of the Navy’s Africa
Partnership Station initiative,” after visits to Cape
Verde, Senegal, Benin and Sierra Leone on its way to
Tanzania and Kenya. The U.S. charge d’affaires in Equatorial Guinea was
quoted as offering one reason for the visit: “It’s the
third largest oil- and gas-producer in sub-Saharan
Africa, with a significant foreign investment
footprint….” [29] “The October 2007 initial deployment of the Africa
Partnership Station (APS) to the Gulf of Guinea and
the coincident rollout of A Cooperative Strategy for
21st Century Seapower signaled a strong American
commitment to leveraging U.S. sea power….The APS is a
Global Fleet Station (GFS) sea base designed to assist
the Gulf of Guinea maritime community in developing
better maritime governance….The Global Fleet Station,
born out of a need for military shaping and stability
operations…is a proven concept for this mission in
such areas as the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean
basin.” [30] Currently AFRICOM is leading the Phoenix Express
2010 maritime counter-insurgency exercise in the
Mediterranean Sea with Morocco and Senegal among other
African nations. Paralleling NATO’s almost nine-year Operation
Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean which patrols the
northern coast of Africa from the Suez Canal to the
Strait of Gibraltar, the U.S. Navy now regularly roams
the African coastline from where the Mediterranean
meets the Atlantic Ocean down to the strategic
oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and all the way south to Cape
Town, then north again along the entire Indian Ocean
coast to the Red Sea. Africa is encircled by U.S. and
NATO warships. Pentagon Builds Surrogate Armies To Control Africa
Region By Region On the mainland, the Pentagon has transformed the
armed forces of Liberia, Rwanda, Uganda and Ethiopia
into military surrogates on both ends of the
continent. Since 2006 “a U.S. State Department-led
initiative…has completely rebuilt the military in
Liberia,” according to AFRICOM. [31] Last October the commander of U.S. Army Africa,
Major General William B. Garrett III, visited Rwanda
(whose military is a U.S. and British proxy) and
“stressed that the US army is interested in
strengthening its cooperation with the Rwandan Defence
Force (RDF).” Garrett confirmed that the U.S. was
ready to send more advisers and trainers for the
Rwandan army and added, “Likewise, we hope that the
Rwandan Defence Forces can also participate in our
exercises. So we are hoping to increase the level of
cooperation between the US and the Rwandan Defense
forces.” [32] Earlier in the year AFRICOM’s General Ward also
visited Rwanda, where he “met with Rwandan defense
leaders and watched displays of Rwandan Defense Force
(RDF) capabilities during a two-day visit April 20-21,
2009.” [33] Late last year Ward visited Morocco, a U.S.
military partner for several decades, where he had
paid two visits the preceding year, and “discussed
bilateral military cooperation and opportunities to
strengthen partnership between the Royal Armed Forces
and the U.S. Army.” Recently U.S. Marines trained Moroccan troops in
Spain ahead of 12-nation naval maneuvers in the
Mediterranean Sea. This April 28 Ward paid his third visit to
Botswana, “where he discussed ongoing regional
security efforts and potential future
military-to-military activities with the BDF [Botswana
Defence Force]….The BDF and U.S. military conducted 40
cooperation events together in 2010.” The following day the AFRICOM chief paid his first
visit to Namibia where “he met with Namibia’s National
Defense Force officials to discuss potential future
cooperation activities.” [34] On April 27 Brigadier General Silver Kayemba, chief
of training and operations for the Ugandan People’s
Defense Force (UPDF), visited Washington to meet with
Major General William B. Garrett III, commander of
U.S. Army Africa. The Ugandan general was quoted saying on the
occasion, “This visit strengthens our relationship
with the U.S. Armed Forces, particularly with U.S.
Army Africa. We are looking forward to even closer
cooperation in the future.” [35] Under an Africa Partnership Station program, a
130-troop Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task
Force has been training military forces in Ghana,
Liberia and Senegal. The marine commander in charge,
Lieutenant Colonel John Golden, said, “This is the
cutting edge of phase zero counterinsurgency,” an
aspect of “military-to-military training in a very
austere environment in areas where there hasn’t been a
lot of U.S. military presence in the last 235 years.”
[36] A report by the Stars and Stripes on May 2
disclosed that “At a remote military base in the
jungle city of Kisangani, an elite team of U.S. troops
is attempting to retrain a battalion of Congolese
infantrymen.” The feature laid emphasis on the humanitarian facet
of the operation as reports on AFRICOM activities
generally do, but also contained these excerpts: “There are economic and strategic incentives to
bringing more security to the Congo, which is rich in
natural resources such as cobalt, a key component in
the manufacturing of cell phones and other
electronics. The country contains 80 percent of the
world’s cobalt reserves….An April 2009 report to
Congress by the National Defense Stockpile Center made
clear that ensuring access to mineral markets around
the world is of vital interest to national security.”
[37] The U.S. is not dragging almost every nation in
Africa into its military network because of altruism
or concerns for the security of the continent’s
people. AFRICOM’s function is that of every predatory
military power: The threat and use of armed violence
to gain economic and geopolitical advantages. 1) U.S. Department of Defense, March 18, 2009 Comments 💬 التعليقات |