Download AFRICOM Planning

AFRICOM Planningi












5 Regional Integration Teams will do much of AFRICOM’s work. Each will deploy to
and is designed for a specific region of the continent.
One team each will go to the northern, eastern, southern, central and western portions of
the continent.1 Egypt is the only African country not included in AFRICOM’s AOR.
The regional teams will link to African Union organizations and be “Africa stand-by
force brigade headquarters [and] U.S. AID support hubs.”
This set-up is meant to mirror that of the AU.
The teams will contain planners, “area experts,” health capabilities, and command and
control systems.
The area-specific teams will “direct and facilitate” organizations the Pentagon will dub
“Offices of Security Cooperation.”
The Bush administration has set AFRICOM planning on a course to having a fully
functioning command by Oct. 1, 2008.
AFRICOM will primarily work on diplomatic, developmental, economic and security
projects. To that end, both its deputy commander for civil-military activities and the
AFRICOM commander’s top foreign policy adviser will be State Department officials
(none named yet).
Army Gen. William Ward is AFRICOM’s first commander.
The US cites a number of strategic reasons for creating AFRICOM: pushing responsible
governance; ensuring access to certain natural resources — especially oil; and engaging
areas that lack governance and could become staging grounds for terrorists.
AFRICOM is currently engaged in: refining mission requirements; drawing up a list of
possible nations where the AFRICOM headquarters might be based; determining how
many personnel and resources it will take to run the command; tweaking the headquarters
organization and overall structure; crafting a plan to transfer “mission sets” from the U.S.
commands that now have a hand in Africa.
AFRICOM has a budget of $50 million for the 2007-08 fiscal year.ii
AFRICOM Basing
Over the course of the coming months, where in Africa AFRICOM will be based remains to be
resolved.

A series of consultations with the governments of a number of African countries -including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Djibouti, Kenya found than none of them was
willing to host the new command.
 Assistant Secretary Whelan said that Liberia, Botswana, Senegal, and Djibouti were
among the countries that had expressed support for Africom.
1
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, according to the briefing
documents. A fourth team would concentrate on a group of central African countries such as the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Chad and Congo; 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.
1
 Only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to play host to Africom personnel.iii
 Notably, not all of the new American presence will have a permanent home on the
continent. Some unspecified “functions” that could be deployed to Africa but which
“cannot be located on continent” will be based elsewhere.
 AFRICOM is currently working out of Kelly Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany as a subunified command under EUCOM.
 Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Theresa Whelan
estimates 80 percent of the command’s eventual staff of around 800 will live outside the
continent.iv
Current US Military Operations in Africav
AFRICOM will likely take over the implementation of a host of military, security cooperation,
and security assistance programs, which are funded through either the State Department or the
Defense Department. These include the following:








Bilateral and Multilateral Joint Training Programs and Military Exercises
Flintlock 2005 and 2007 - These are Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)
exercises both conducted as part of Operation Enduring Freedom -- Trans-Saharan
Counter-Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP) which now links the United States with eight
African countries: Mali, Chad, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and
Algeria. In 2004, the TSCTP was created to replace the Pan-Sahel Counter-Terrorism
Initiative, which was initiated in 2002.
Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA) This
program, which began operating in 2002, replaces the African Crisis Response Initiative
launched in 1997 and in 2004, it became part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative.
ACOTA is designed to provide training to African military forces to improve their
ability to conduct peacekeeping operations, even if they take place in hostile
environments.
International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) The IMET
program brings African military officers to military academies and other military
educational institutions in the United States for professional training.
Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS)
African Coastal and Border Security Program (ACBS Program) This program
provides specialized equipment (such as patrol vessels and vehicles, communications
equipment, night vision devices, and electronic monitors and sensors) to African
countries to improve their ability to patrol and defend their own coastal waters and
borders from terrorist operations, smuggling, and other illicit activities.
Excess Defense Articles Program (EDA) This program is designed to conduct ad hoc
transfers of surplus U.S. military equipment to foreign governments.
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) In October 2002, the U.S.
Central Command played the leading role in the creation of this joint task force that was
designed to conduct naval and aerial patrols in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the
eastern Indian Ocean as part of the effort to detect and counter the activities of terrorist
groups in the region. Based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the CJTF-HOA is made up of
approximate 1,400 U.S. military personnel.vi
2



Joint Task Force Aztec Silence (JTFAS) In December 2003, the U.S. European
Command created this joint task force under the commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet
(Europe) to carry out counter-terrorism operations in North and West Africa and to
coordinate U.S. operations with those of countries in those regions. Specifically, JTFAS
was charged with conducting surveillance operations using the assets of the U.S. Sixth
Fleet and to share information, along with intelligence collected by U.S. intelligence
agencies, with local military forces. The primary assets employed in this effort are a
squadron of U.S. Navy P-3 "Orion" based in Sigonella, Sicily.
Naval Operations in the Gulf of Guinea Although American naval forces operating in
the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea and other areas along Africa's shores are formally under the
command of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, based in the Mediterranean, and other U.S. Navy
commands, Africom will also help coordinate naval operations along the African
coastline.
Base Access Agreements for Cooperative Security Locations and Forward
Operating Sites Over the past few years, the Bush administration has negotiated base
access agreements with the governments of Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia,
Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. Under these agreements, the United
States gains access to local military bases and other facilities so that they can be used by
American forces as transit bases or as forward operating bases for combat, surveillance,
and other military operations. They remain the property of the host African government
and are not American bases in a legal sense.
Current AFRICOM Activities (As of January 2008):







A half-year training exercise in the Gulf of Guinea.
The Navy presence in the Gulf of Guinea— measured by “ship days” in the region — has
increased by over 50 percent since last year, said the Navy’s 6th Fleet spokesman, Lt.
Brian Badura. From just a handful of days in 2004, the Navy expects to have a daily
presence into next year.
The Navy ship now in the region, the dock landing ship Fort McHenry, has the luxury of
skirting the issue. The self-sustaining, helicopter-equipped vessel can serve as a mobile
sea base on which American forces can train Africans on maritime security — and move
on.vii
The Navy is now operating an Africa Partnership Station (APS) off of the Fort
McHenry in the Gulf of Guinea.
APS is a multinational effort to bring the latest training and techniques to maritime
professionals in nine West and Central African countries, including basic life-saving
techniques.viii
The APS is an initiative to promote maritime safety and security run by the US Sixth
Fleet. It aims to confront the challenges African coastal states are contending with
including: illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing; oil theft; piracy; illicit
trade; narcotics trafficking; human trafficking; illegal immigration; and environmental
degradation.
APS responds to specific African requests for assistance, is aligned with broad
international community and U.S. objectives, and is reflective of the mission of the U.S.
Africa Command.
3

APS: is self-sufficient and requires no bases and minimal footprint ashore; is
multinational; offers a tailored and flexible training schedule; incorporates U.S.
Joint/Interagency Participation; incorporates NGOs; and is transparent.
Participating agencies in APS include:
Military staff from the U.S., France, United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Denmark and
Germany
U.S. State Department
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Coast Guard
U.S. Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Select international non-governmental organizationsix
Further Information:
For an excellent in-depth backgrounder on AFRICOM, its genesis and prospective activities,
please see: McFate, Sean. “US Africa Command: A New Strategic Paradigm?” Military
Review, a publication of the Combined Arms Center (CAC), Fort Leavenworth. JanuaryFebruary 2008 issue.
Notes:
Bennet, John T. “Pentagon Planning Five Regional Teams Under AFRICOM Framework.” 19 September 2007.
http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=3049227&C=america
ii
“Navy exercise kicks off AfriCom mission.” AP. 5 November 2007.
iii
Volman, Daniel. “AFRICOM: The New US Military Command for Africa.” Monthly Review. 17 January 2008.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/volman170108.html
iv
“Navy exercise kicks off AfriCom mission.” AP. 5 November 2007.
v
Volman, Daniel. “AFRICOM: The New US Military Command for Africa.” Monthly Review. 17 January 2008.
http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/volman170108.html
vi
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1328840,00.html
vii
“Navy exercise kicks off AfriCom mission.” AP. 5 November 2007.
viii
Stratchko, R.J. “U.S. Sailor Helps Save Drowning Woman in Gabon.”
http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1618 17 January 2008.
ix
Africa Partnership Station. http://www.c6f.navy.mil/APS/ Accessed 29 January 2008.
i
4