16 Aug 2007: ISS Today: The Americans are Already Here

16 August 2007: The Americans are Already Here

 

US Army General William E. “Kip” Ward, who will be inducted as the first commander of the Pentagon’s new Africa Command (AFRICOM) when it becomes operational in late 2008, visited South Africa last month as part of an African tour aimed at drumming up support for AFRICOM.  Unfortunately for General Ward, the visit was not particularly successful. He was denied a meeting with South African minister of defence, Mosiuoa Lekgota, and the AFRICOM marketing machine has received a similarly cold reception in most other African countries. The invitation by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf for AFRICOM to base their headquarters on Liberian soil stands in strong contrast to the general distain shown by African leaders, journalists and representatives of civil society.

 

In his recent testimony before the US Congress’ House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the head of the ISS African Security Analysis Programme, Dr Wafula Okumu, pointed out that many African countries are concerned that opening their arms to a US military presence will have a destabilizing effect. Even Kenya, a long-time ally of the US is worried that such a presence will act as a magnet for terrorism. There is also a sense of affront among many African leaders that the US should think of unilaterally sticking their military noses into Africa’s business. Okumu quotes the Libyan Ambassador to South Africa, Abdullahi Alzubedi, as asking “How can the US divide the world up into its own military commands? Wasn’t that for the United Nations to do? What would happen if China also decided to create its Africa command? Would this not lead to conflict on the continent?”

 

What’s lost from view in most of these reactions to AFRICOM is the fact that there is nothing new about there being US military structures with responsibility for pursuing US security interests in Africa. In fact, the US system of Unified Combatant Commands, which now cover the entire globe, began to emerge in the 1950’s and was consolidated in the early 1980’s. Until recently Africa was covered by no fewer than three of these Commands – the European Command (EUCOM), the Central Command (CENTCOM), and the Pacific Command (PACCOM). It seems therefore that Ambassador Alzubendi’s protestations against the US approach of ‘dividing the world up into its own military commands’ have come half a century too late.

 

Every company commander knows that the greatest tactical vulnerabilities lie at the ‘joint’ between two military units under different commands. The same holds just as true at the strategic level, and the arbitrary division of Africa between three Commands whose main area of focus was elsewhere was never ideal. Now that the US is increasingly recognizing the strategic importance of Africa, it makes obvious sense to reorganize in the manner of the emerging AFRICOM.

 

And that’s exactly what AFRICOM is, a bureaucratic reshuffle. Beyond Gen Ward and a few other leadership appointments, AFRICOM will be staffed simply by redesignating existing Africa-focused personnel who are currently part of EUCOM, CENTCOM and PACCOM, and doing the same with some civilians from other US government agencies. For the most part they will probably not even move from their current desks. Present plans suggest that AFRICOM will operate under a ‘distributed’ headquarters concept, rather than try to establish a headquarters in one particular location. AFRICOM is not even a fully-fledged Unified Command, but is rather a ‘Sub-Unified Command’ under the overall umbrella of EUCOM. AFRICOM will not have standing forces at its disposal, but will have units and personnel attached to it when circumstances demand. (The need to have support available for AFRICOM seems to be part of the reason for the US Department of Defense’s current reanalysis of a previously-planned reduction of the complement of EUCOM, which advocated a reduction by as many as 40,000 personnel.)

 

It seems, therefore, that much of the fuss and bother over AFRICOM is in response to what amounts to little more than a re-drawing of the Pentagon’s organization charts. In material terms, very little has changed. What has changed, what is potentially new and interesting about AFRICOM, is the approach that is built into its new structures. AFRICOM is unique among the US Commands in having a significant proportion of its strength drawn from civilian government departments and agencies such as the US State Department and USAID. Indeed, AFRICOM will be the first ever Command to have civilians among its senior leadership, including a civilian deputy commander who, according to US Undersecretary of Defense for Africa, Theresa Whelan, ‘will be responsible for the planning and oversight of the majority of AFRICOM’s security assistance work’. This reflects AFRICOM’s nature as a ‘non-kinetic’ command. But what exactly does that mean?

 

A bumper-sticker doing the rounds in the US at the moment reads ‘Withdraw our Troops from Iraq – Through Iran’. While this reflects the gung-ho attitude of certain sectors of US society, the reality is that a US invasion of Iran – a high level ‘kinetic’ engagement - is extremely unlikely. It is even less likely that the US will redirect meaningful warfighting capability to the African theatre. The Iraq deployment has taken a significant toll on the US fighting machine and its equipment, and cooler heads in the post-Rumsfeld Department of Defense are looking for an opportunity to rebuild after the inevitable drawdown in Iraq. There are many within the US military who are concerned that the grinding low-intensity conflict in Iraq has, though the pressure of deployments over training, blunted the US military’s cherished conventional warfare edge. The last thing they will be seeking out is entanglement in Africa’s notoriously intractable conflicts. Instead they will look to influence and shape the African environment as far as they can without requiring any large-scale combat deployments.

 

Which brings us back to the ‘non-kinetic’ nature of AFRICOM. Gerrie Swart, lecturer at UNISA and Head Researcher of the Conflict and Terrorism Unit at Consultancy Africa Intelligence, pointed out in a recent lecture that ‘the command’s primary mission will be “shaping” activities designed to ameliorate troubling trends before they reach a crisis, rather than traditional operations involving the use of force.’ Swart, however, declares himself ‘puzzled’ by this, arguing that only the use of force will provide the leverage necessary to advance US interests on the continent, for this is what it will take to address Africa’s conflict hotspots.

 

So then, Swart criticises AFRICOM for not bringing sufficient combat power to the table, while African leaders like Ambassador Alzubedi seem concerned that the setting up of AFRICOM is a prelude to heavy handed armed US intervention. What both sides have not understood is that AFRICOM does not represent a major shift in the Pentagon’s approach to Africa. Yes, Africa is seen as being more important than before, and this is what has resulted in the consolidation of the Pentagon’s efforts in Africa under the AFRICOM banner. But this change is largely about making existing assets work together more effectively. It is an incremental shift, rather than a radical and threatening policy revision. We do not need to be concerned that AFRICOM means that the American’s are coming – they’re already here, and they’re not doing much that’s different from before.

 

Dr Deane-Peter Baker, Editor African Security Review, ISS