Africa Command was to respond to crises. An enduring task was to protect United States embassies and citizens in the region. United States Africa Command. Translate Arabic French Portugese Somali.
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Air Force. Headquarters Chief of Staff: Maj. William Bill Gayler, U. Africa Command, with partners, counters transnational threats and malign actors, strengthens security forces and responds to crises in order to advance U.
Africa Command has approximately 2, assigned personnel, including military, U. About 1, work at the command's headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. The command employs Senior Foreign Service officers in key positions as well as more than 30 personnel from more than 10 U. Agency for International Development - the senior State Department official serves as the deputy to the commander for civil-military engagement.
Interagency partners bring invaluable expertise to help the command ensure its plans and activities complement those of other U. They perform detailed planning, provide essential command and control, establish and sustain positive relationships with African partners, and execute the bulk of the programs, exercises and activities directed by AFRICOM. Army Africa conducts sustained security engagement with African land forces to promote security, stability, and peace. Naval Forces Africa's primary mission is to improve the maritime security capability and capacity of African partners.
Personnel are shared with U. Naval Forces Europe. Air Forces Africa - As the air component of U. Africa Command, U. Air Forces Africa conducts sustained security engagement and operations to promote air safety, security, and development in Africa. Air Forces Africa personnel are combined with U. They include piracy and illegal trafficking, ethnic tensions, irregular militaries and violent extremist groups, undergoverned regions, and pilferage of resources. As a military organization, most of our work consists of supporting security and stability programs in Africa and its island nations.
One of our biggest success stories is the Africa Partnership Station, a Navy program that partners Africom with African and international sailors to put together a multinational staff aboard a U. This creates what some have called a "floating schoolhouse," where the staff share a host of ideas, ranging from basic search-and-rescue techniques to advanced concepts of maritime domain awareness.
Across the continent, we work closely within the framework of the overall U. As a military organization, we do not create policy. Rather, we support those policy decisions and coordinate our actions closely with the State Department, U.
Despite the warnings of skeptics, the past three years have not seen any dramatic increase in numbers of U. Depending on how you count the figures, the U. We believe diplomacy, development, and defense should work hand in hand — and in balance — to achieve long-term security. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spoken eloquently about the need to increase funding for diplomacy and development and has warned of what he calls "excessive militarization.
The U. In many ways, Africom was devised as a test platform for helping the military as an institution to better understand its role in supporting diplomacy and development.
State Department and USAID officials serve in senior billets on the staff, advising the military on the best way to support their agencies. And yes, they frequently send message traffic back to their home offices to help ensure the military understands its subordinate role in Africa. All the U. We take that seriously.
I have seen anecdotal stories of military personnel showing up in an African nation unaware that they ultimately report to the U. If you run across one of those stories, take a look at the date. One of the reasons Africom was created was to help put an end to that kind of confusion. We have also been accused of looking to establish military bases across the African continent. Misconceptions arose when, in the early months of , some people in the U. However, there was never a formal search, and as soon as the command opened its doors in October , we made it clear that we intended to stay in Stuttgart for the foreseeable future.
Our footprint in Africa remains purposefully limited. We have only one forward operating base, at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, established in under the U. Although security assistance is not new, what has fundamentally changed is the role that such assistance can play in providing security in today's environment.
Threats to our security in the decades to come are more likely to emanate from state weakness than from state strength. The future strategic landscape will increasingly feature challenges in the ambiguous gray area that is neither fully war nor fully peace. In such an environment, enabling our partners to respond to security challenges may reduce risk to U. The National Defense Strategy stresses the military's commitment to the concept of a new "Jointness," with emphasis on developing a "whole-of-government" approach toward meeting national security objectives, including greater civilian participation in military operations and greater harmonization of best practices among interagency partners.
The QDR repeats the need to strengthen interagency partnerships. DOD officials have begun using a phrase, "Phase Zero" to encompass efforts prior to the first phase aimed at preventing the conflict. Advance Questions for General Bantz J. SOUTHCOM's mission, as defined by DOD, is to ensure the forward defense of the United States through security cooperation, counter-narcotics operations, humanitarian assistance, and monitoring and support for human rights initiatives in the region.
One DOD official suggested that the U. AFRICOM's proactive approach to deterring or averting conflict reflects an evolution in DOD strategy that has been outlined extensively in government documents, but operationalizing that broad mandate may prove difficult. While many at the State Department and USAID welcome the ability of DOD to leverage resources and to organize complex operations, there also is concern that the military may overestimate its capabilities as well as its diplomatic role, or pursue activities that are not a core part of its mandate.
Some argue that the highly unequal allocation of resources between the Departments of Defense, State, and USAID, hinder their ability to act as "equal partners" and could lead to the militarization of development and diplomacy. In that report, the OIG found that cuts in Department resources and personnel after the end of the Cold War led to a decline in management and experienced staffing at U. While the Phase Zero approach to ensuring national security has been accepted by much of the DOD leadership, discussion is ongoing within the Department about how best to use the U.
Among the OIG's many findings, the report determined that the U. Unfortunately, despite a growing awareness of the need and real efforts throughout the government to address it, adequate civilian capacity will take time and resources to develop and is unlikely to materialize in the near term.
Interagency coordination of U. At the regional level, State's PM Bureau appoints senior officials known as Foreign Policy Advisors POLADs to serve as advisors to combatant commanders and other military leaders to "provide policy support regarding the diplomatic and political aspects of the commanders' military responsibilities.
ISP-I, August Foreign Affairs , Refugees International, September These officials serve on interagency embassy Country Teams, which are led by the U. During his confirmation hearing, General Ward testified that he did not believe any statutory changes were necessary to incorporate "detailed" non-DOD personnel into the command.
Following General Ward's confirmation, a senior U. Yates, who had previously served as U. Matthew F. Changes to the titles and responsibilities of defense attaches and security assistance officers were made in DOD Directive A theater campaign plan translates national or theater strategy into operational concepts.
As in the case of POLADs, DOD and the respective department or agency will establish an agreement regarding the relationship between the staff member and the command. Anthony Holmes, a senior U. The DCMO is responsible for the implementation and execution of the command's programs and operations. DOD officials emphasize that the new command is still under development; some details regarding the command's structure and footprint are still being finalized.
A decision on AFRICOM's final headquarters location has been postponed to , and a move to the continent may not occur for several years, if at all. DOD officials initially considered the establishment of sub-regional offices in Africa but reportedly received resistance from the State Department, based on concerns related to chief-of-mission authority. Officials stress that there are no plans to establish any new military bases in Africa.
The facility provides support for U. The U. Prior to Secretary Gates's announcement of the command's establishment, there was speculation that an Africa Command might be permanently located in Europe, or in the United States, like the other commands. Locating the headquarters within the AOR would have several benefits in terms of proximity. Flight time from Germany to Nairobi, Kenya, for example, is approximately eight hours, and flight time from Germany to Johannesburg, South Africa, is approximately 11 hours.
Those who have advocated locating Africa Command on the continent faced some initial negative reactions from Africans. There are concerns, both domestically and internationally, that moving the command to Africa might be the first step in an alleged U. DOD officials stressed early in the headquarters discussion that the location in question would be a staff headquarters rather than a troop headquarters, and suggested that they might consider a dispersed regional headquarters model, with several small locations spread across the continent to lessen the U.
Those presences are likely to expand, and additional liaison offices may be attached to other regional organizations. DOD's FY budget request sought funding for a "limited presence on the African continent with the establishment of two of five regional offices," but plans for those two offices were postponed and funding for the offices was cut by Congress.
Through regular consultations with African countries that have a security relationship with the United States, U. Other strategic partners, such as South Africa and Algeria, expressed reluctance to host the command, possibly out of concern over a permanent foreign military presence within their borders.
In North Africa, for example, there are concerns that an American military presence might embolden domestic terrorist groups. Some African governments that consider themselves to be regional hegemons may perceive a permanent American military presence, whether staffed by civilians or troops, to be a rival for political or military power in their sphere of influence. At the forefront of DOD considerations in determining a host country or countries , should a decision to move to the continent be made, would be providing for the safety and security of over 1, American personnel and their families who staff the command.
Living standards in Africa are among the lowest in the world, and DOD would be expected to choose a politically stable location on the continent with good access to health care and schools and relatively low levels of corruption. Ease of access to regional and international transportation, along with proximity to the African Union, African regional organizations, and U.
Locating U. Manning a new command is a challenging task, particularly in a time when defense resources and personnel are stretched thin by engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the number of personnel needed to staff a combatant command headquarters varies, DOD officials estimate that the average command ranges from to more than 1, personnel exclusive of supporting intelligence architecture.
Africa Command, March 19, These figures do not necessarily include contractors working at command headquarters. These figures were short of the approved FY targets: military positions, DOD civilian positions, and 52 interagency positions. This includes an estimated 1, troops at CJTF-HOA and the rotational presence of forces participating in various exercises, such as the annual communications interoperability exercise African Endeavor; operations, such as the counterterrorism effort Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans-Sahara; theater security cooperation activities, such as the Navy's Africa Partnership Station; and various conferences and meetings.
On September 30, , President Bush signed into law H. DOD officials suggest some of the items trimmed from the budget were restored following negotiations with the relevant committees, although the command lost some requested funding because of across-the-board cuts to the operations and maintenance account. In interviews with the author in December , DOD officials reported that a compromise had been reached on the cut to salaries for interagency personnel.
That cut would effectively eliminate the budget for the command's Operation Objective Voice. AFRICOM leadership and staff have reported challenges posed by the routing and scheduling of commercial airlines traveling on the continent. Issues on the African continent have not historically been identified as strategic priorities for the U. In , the Department of Defense outlined its view of Africa in its U.
Security Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, asserting that "ultimately we see very little traditional strategic interest in Africa.
The embassy bombings, and the retaliatory strike against Sudan, are considered by many analysts to be a turning point in U. Africa was not included in the U. European Command because of their historic relationship with Europe. Under the Reagan Administration, U. The Bush Administration's National Security Strategy of reflected a need for a more focused strategic approach toward the African continent: "In Africa, promise and opportunity sit side by side with disease, war, and desperate poverty.
This threatens both a core value of the United States - preserving human dignity - and our strategic priority - combating global terror. For an overview of the history of U. Appendix B provides a list of instances in which U. Letitia Lawson, "U. VI, Issue 1, January The report did, however, note significant U.
To address these challenges, the document asserted that U. The Obama Administration has yet to release a National Security Strategy, but the President has affirmed his view of Africa's strategic importance in policy documents and public statements. In a speech in Ghana in July , he said,. When there is genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems, they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response And let me be clear: our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold on the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa, and the world.
The establishment of the new Africa Command reflects an evolution in policymakers' perceptions of U. In an advisory panel of Africa experts authorized by Congress to propose new policy initiatives identified five factors that have shaped increased U. The United States has sought to increase its economic relations with Sub-Saharan Africa, and trade between the United States and Africa has tripled since In , the Clinton Administration introduced a comprehensive U.
AGOA has been amended by Congress on several occasions, most recently in Natural resources, particularly energy resources, dominate the products imported from Africa under AGOA. Africa now supplies the United States with roughly the same amount of crude oil as the Middle East.
Nigeria is Africa's largest supplier of oil, and is regularly the fifth-largest global supplier of oil to the United States. Instability in the country's Niger Delta region has reduced output periodically. Some U. One DOD official testified before Congress that climate change served as a "threat multiplier" in Africa, using Nigeria, Sudan, and Somalia as examples and asserting, "beyond the more conventional threats we traditionally address, I believe we must now also prepare to respond to the consequences of dramatic population migrations, pandemic health issues and significant food and water shortages due to the possibility of significant climate change.
Walter H. Kansteiner III and J. Stephen Morrison, Rising U. Data on U. World oil prices have been affected by Nigerian political developments and by periodic attacks on pipelines and other oil facilities in the Delta. President Bush announced in his State of the Union Address his intention to "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by ," 57 echoing a commitment made in "to strengthen [U.
Africa's coastlines, particularly along the Gulf of Guinea, the Gulf of Aden, and the west Indian Ocean, have been highly susceptible to illegal fishing, illegal trafficking, and piracy in recent years. The growing problem of narcotics trafficking in West Africa, estimated by the U. Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC to be a transit point for almost one-third of all cocaine annually consumed in Europe, has become an area of increasing concern to policymakers.
In , the Bush Administration introduced its National Strategy for Maritime Security, identifying the freedom of the seas and the facilitation and defense of commerce as top national priorities and indicating plans to fund border and coastal security initiatives with African countries. Navy, the State Department, and the Africa Center for Strategic Studies ACSS , has engaged its West African partners in a number of ministerial conferences on maritime security, and is currently conducting several activities to increase the capability of African navies to monitor and enforce maritime laws.
This prediction implies that previously higher sub-Saharan African shares of U. Previously, when absolute levels of U. National Security and African Development , January According to the International Maritime Bureau, the waters off the coast of Nigeria had the highest number of pirate attacks worldwide in , but attacks by Somali pirates have been the most numerous since Navy has increased its operations in the Gulf of Guinea to enhance security in the region, although those operations have been sporadic.
Political conflict and instability in parts of Africa have caused human suffering on a massive scale and undermined economic, social, and political development. Despite a willingness to participate in these operations, many African militaries lack the command and control, training, equipment, and logistics capability to effectively participate in such efforts.
Instability in Africa has demanded substantial humanitarian and defense resources from the international community, and the United States and other donor countries have acknowledged the utility and potential cost-effectiveness of assisting African forces to enhance their capabilities to participate in these operations.
Terrorist attacks on the U. Policy , coordinated by John Rollins.
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