Here’s a question for
you: Can a military tiptoe onto a continent? It seems the unlikeliest of
images, and yet it’s a reasonable enough description of what the U.S.
military has been doing ever since the Pentagon created an Africa Command
(AFRICOM) in 2007. It’s been slipping, sneaking, creeping into Africa,
deploying ever more forces in ever more ways doing ever more things at
ever more facilities in ever more countries -- and in a fashion so
quiet, so covert, that just about no American has any idea this is going
on. One day, when an already destabilizing Africa
explodes into various forms of violence, the U.S. military will be in
the middle of it and Americans will suddenly wonder how in the world
this could have happened.
In the Cold War years, while proxy battles took place between U.S.-
and Soviet-backed forces in Angola and other African lands, the U.S.
military, which by then had garrisoned much of the planet, was
noticeably absent from the continent. No longer. And no one who might
report on it seems to be paying attention as a downsizing media
evidently sees no future in anticipating America’s future wars. In
fact, with the exception of Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post, it’s hard to think of any journalist who has dug into the fast-expanding American role in Africa.
Enter TomDispatch’s Nick Turse. When it comes to American military
plans for that continent, he has been doing the work of the rest of the
American foreign press corps on his own. For the last two years, while
his bestselling book on the Vietnam War, Kill Anything That Moves, was being published, he has been carefully tracking and mapping the growing American military presence in Africa, exploring the way those moves may actually be helping to destabilize the continent, and doing his best to make sure that U.S. planning for future wars there doesn’t go unnoticed and unreported.
Today, he puts his work -- and his efforts to mine resistant AFRICOM spokespeople
for information -- into a single panorama of everything a fine reporter
and outsider can possibly know now about Washington’s ongoing
militarization of Africa. It’s a grim tale of the way, via a hush-hush
version of mission creep, the Pentagon and AFRICOM are turning Africa
into a battlefield of the future. Don’t say you weren’t warned -- at
TomDispatch. Tom
The Pivot to Africa
The Startling Size, Scope, and Growth of U.S. Military Operations on the African Continent
By Nick Turse
They’re involved in Algeria and Angola, Benin and Botswana, Burkina
Faso and Burundi, Cameroon and the Cape Verde Islands. And that’s just
the ABCs of the situation. Skip to the end of the alphabet and the
story remains the same: Senegal and the Seychelles, Togo and
Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia. From north to south, east to west, the Horn
of Africa to the Sahel, the heart of the continent to the islands off
its coasts, the U.S. military is at work. Base construction, security
cooperation engagements, training exercises, advisory deployments,
special operations missions, and a growing logistics network, all
undeniable evidence of expansion -- except at U.S. Africa Command.
To hear AFRICOM tell it, U.S. military involvement on the continent
ranges from the miniscule to the microscopic. The command is adamant
that it has only a single "military base" in all of Africa: Camp
Lemonnier in Djibouti. The head of the command insists
that the U.S. military maintains a "small footprint" on the continent.
AFRICOM’s chief spokesman has consistently minimized the scope of its
operations and the number of facilities it maintains or shares with host
nations, asserting that only "a small presence of personnel who
conduct short-duration engagements" are operating from "several
locations" on the continent at any given time.
With the war in Iraq over and the conflict in Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. military is deploying its forces far beyond declared combat zones. In recent years, for example, Washington has very publicly proclaimed a "pivot to Asia," a "rebalancing" of its military resources eastward, without actually carrying out wholesale policy changes. Elsewhere, however, from the Middle East to South America, the Pentagon is increasingly engaged in shadowy operations
whose details emerge piecemeal and are rarely examined in a
comprehensive way. Nowhere is this truer than in Africa. To the media
and the American people, officials insist the U.S. military is engaged
in small-scale, innocuous operations there. Out of public earshot,
officers running America’s secret wars say: "Africa is the battlefield
of tomorrow, today."
The proof is in the details -- a seemingly ceaseless string of
projects, operations, and engagements. Each mission, as AFRICOM
insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be "small"
on its own, but taken as a whole, U.S. military operations are sweeping
and expansive. Evidence of an American pivot to Africa is almost
everywhere on the continent. Few, however, have paid much notice.
The U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013 (key below article) ©2013 TomDispatch ©Google
If the proverbial picture is worth a thousand words, then what’s a
map worth? Take, for instance, the one created by TomDispatch that
documents U.S. military outposts, construction, security cooperation,
and deployments in Africa. It looks like a field of mushrooms after a
monsoon. U.S. Africa Command recognizes 54 countries on the continent,
but refuses to say in which ones (or even in how many) it now conducts
operations. An investigation by TomDispatch has found recent U.S.
military involvement with no fewer than 49 African nations.
In some, the U.S. maintains bases, even if under other names. In others, it trains local partners and proxies to battle militants
ranging from Somalia’s al-Shabab and Nigeria’s Boko Haram to members of
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Elsewhere, it is building facilities
for its allies or infrastructure for locals. Many African nations are
home to multiple U.S. military projects. Despite what AFRICOM officials
say, a careful reading of internal briefings, contracts, and other
official documents, as well as open source information, including the
command’s own press releases and news items, reveals that military
operations in Africa are already vast and will be expanding for the
foreseeable future.
A Base by Any Other Name...
What does the U.S. military footprint in Africa look like? Colonel Tom Davis,
AFRICOM’s Director of Public Affairs, is unequivocal: "Other than our
base at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, we do not have military bases in
Africa, nor do we have plans to establish any." He admits
only that the U.S. has "temporary facilities elsewhere… that support
much smaller numbers of personnel, usually for a specific activity."
AFRICOM’s chief of media engagement Benjamin Benson echoes this,
telling me that it’s almost impossible to offer a list of forward
operating bases. "Places that [U.S. forces] might be, the range of
possible locations can get really big, but can provide a really skewed
image of where we are... versus other places where we have ongoing
operations. So, in terms of providing a number, I’d be at a loss of how
to quantify this."
A briefing prepared last year by Captain Rick Cook, the chief of
AFRICOM’s Engineering Division, tells a different story, making
reference to forward operating sites or FOSes (long-term locations),
cooperative security locations or CSLs (which troops periodically rotate
in and out of), and contingency locations or CLs (which are used only
during ongoing operations). A separate briefing prepared last year by
Lieutenant Colonel David Knellinger references seven cooperative
security locations across Africa whose whereabouts are classified. A
third briefing, produced in July of 2012 by U.S. Army Africa, identifies
one of the CSL sites as Entebbe, Uganda, a location from which U.S.
contractors have flown secret surveillance missions using
innocuous-looking, white Pilatus PC-12 turboprop airplanes, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
The 2012 U.S. Army Africa briefing materials obtained by TomDispatch
reference plans to build six new gates to the Entebbe compound, 11 new
"containerized housing units," new guard stations, new perimeter and
security fencing, enhanced security lighting and new concrete access
ramps, among other improvements. Satellite photos indicate that many,
if not all, of these upgrades have, indeed, taken place.
  
Entebbe Cooperative Security Location, Entebbe, Uganda, in 2009 and 2013 ©2013 Google ©2013 Digital Globe
A 2009 image (above left) shows a barebones compound of dirt and
grass tucked away on a Ugandan air base with just a few aircraft
surrounding it. A satellite photo of the compound from earlier this
year (above right) shows a strikingly more built-up camp surrounded by a
swarm of helicopters and white airplanes.
Initially, AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson refused to comment on the
construction or the number of aircraft, insisting that the command had
no "public information" about it. Confronted with the 2013 satellite
photo, Benson reviewed it and offered a reply that neither confirmed nor
denied that the site was a U.S. facility, but cautioned me about using
"uncorroborated data." (Benson failed to respond to my request to
corroborate the data through a site visit.) "I have no way of knowing
where the photo was taken and how it was modified," he told me.
"Assuming the location is Entebbe, as you suggest, I would again argue
that the aircraft could belong to anyone… It would be irresponsible of
me to speculate on the missions, roles, or ownership of these aircraft."
He went on to suggest, however, that the aircraft might belong to the
United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO)
which does have a presence at the Entebbe air base. A request for
comment from MONUSCO went unanswered before this article went to press.
This buildup may only be the beginning for Entebbe CSL. Recent
contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that AFRICOM is
considering an additional surge of air assets there -- specifically
hiring a private contractor to provide further "dedicated fixed-wing
airlift services for movement of Department of Defense (DoD) personnel
and cargo in the Central African Region." This mercenary air force would
keep as many as three planes in the air at the same time on any given
day, logging a total of about 70 to 100 hours per week. If the military
goes ahead with these plans, the aircraft would ferry troops, weapons,
and other materiel within Uganda and to the Central African Republic,
the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.
Another key, if little noticed, U.S. outpost in Africa is located in
Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. An airbase there serves as the
home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, as well as the
Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative.
According to military documents, that "initiative" supports "high-risk
activities" carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations
Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman
for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that it provides
"emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with
partner nations throughout the Sahel," although official documents note
that such actions have historically accounted for only 10% of its
monthly flight hours.
While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program,
citing operational security concerns, military documents again indicate
that, whatever its goals, it is expanding rapidly. Between March and
December 2012, for example, the initiative flew 233 sorties. In the
first three months of this year, it carried out 193.
In July, Berry Aviation, a Texas-based longtime Pentagon contractor, was awarded a nearly $50 million contract to provide
aircraft and personnel for "Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing
services." Under the terms of the deal, Berry will "perform casualty
evacuation, personnel airlift, cargo airlift, as well as personnel and
cargo aerial delivery services throughout the Trans-Sahara of Africa,"
according to a statement from the company. Contracting documents
indicate that Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Libya, Mali,
Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia are the "most
likely locations for missions."
Special Ops in Africa
Ouagadougou is just one site for expanding U.S. air operations in
Africa. Last year, the 435th Military Construction Flight (MCF) -- a
rapid-response mobile construction team -- revitalized an airfield in South Sudan for Special Operations Command Africa, according to the unit’s commander, Air Force lieutenant Alexander
Graboski. Before that, the team also "installed a runway lighting
system to enable 24-hour operations" at the outpost. Graboski states
that the Air Force’s 435th MCF "has been called upon many times by
Special Operations Command Africa to send small teams to perform work in
austere locations." This trend looks as if it will continue. According
to a briefing prepared earlier this year by Hugh Denny of the Army Corps
of Engineers, plans have been drawn up for Special Operations Command
Africa "operations support" facilities to be situated in "multiple
locations."
AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson refused to answer questions about
SOCAFRICA facilities, and would not comment on the locations of missions
by an elite, quick-response force known as Naval Special Warfare Unit 10
(NSWU 10). But according to Captain Robert Smith, the commander of
Naval Special Warfare Group Two, NSWU 10 has been engaged "with
strategic countries such as Uganda, Somalia, [and] Nigeria."
Captain J. Dane Thorleifson, NSWU 10’s outgoing commander, recently
mentioned deployments in six "austere locations" in Africa and "every
other month contingency operations -- Libya, Tunisia, [and] POTUS,"
evidently a reference to President Obama’s three-nation trip
to Africa in July. Thorleifson, who led the unit from July 2011 to
July 2013, also said NSWU 10 had been involved in training "proxy"
forces, specifically "building critical host nation security capacity;
enabling, advising, and assisting our African CT [counterterror] partner
forces so they can swiftly counter and destroy al-Shabab, AQIM
[Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], and Boko Haram."
Nzara in South Sudan is one of a string of shadowy forward operating
posts on the continent where U.S. Special Operations Forces have been stationed in recent years. Other sites include Obo and Djema in the Central Africa Republic and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According
to Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere, the commander of the 3rd
Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group, "advisory assistance at forward
outposts was directly responsible for the establishment of combined
operations fusion centers where military commanders, local security
officials, and a host of international and non-governmental
organizations could share information about regional insurgent activity
and coordinate military activities with civil authorities."
 Drone
bases are also expanding. In February, the U.S. announced the
establishment of a new drone facility in Niger. Later in the spring,
AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that U.S. air
operations conducted from Base Aerienne 101 at Diori Hamani
International Airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital, were providing
"support for intelligence collection with French forces conducting
operations in Mali and with other partners in the region." More
recently, the New York Times noted that what began as the deployment of one Predator drone to Niger had expanded
to encompass daily flights by one of two larger, more advanced Reaper
remotely piloted aircraft, supported by 120 Air Force personnel.
Additionally, the U.S. has flown drones out of the Seychelles Islands and Ethiopia’s Arba Minch Airport.
When it comes to expanding U.S. outposts in Africa, the Navy has also been active. It maintains a forward operating location -- manned
mostly by Seabees, Civil Affairs personnel, and force-protection troops
-- known as Camp Gilbert in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia. Since 2004, U.S.
troops have been stationed at a Kenyan naval base known as Camp Simba at
Manda Bay. AFRICOM’s Benson portrayed operations there as relatively
minor, typified by "short-term training and engagement activities." The
60 or so "core" troops stationed there, he said, are also primarily
Civil Affairs, Seabees, and security personnel who take part in
"military-to-military engagements with Kenyan forces and humanitarian
initiatives."
An AFRICOM briefing earlier this year suggested, however, that the
base is destined to be more than a backwater post. It called attention
to improvements in water and power infrastructure and an extension of
the runway at the airfield, as well as greater "surge capacity" for
bringing in forces in the future. A second briefing, prepared by the
Navy and obtained by TomDispatch, details nine key infrastructure
upgrades that are on the drawing board, underway, or completed.
In addition to extending and improving that runway, they include
providing more potable water storage, latrines, and lodgings to
accommodate a future "surge" of troops, doubling the capacity of washer
and dryer units, upgrading dining facilities, improving roadways and
boat ramps, providing fuel storage, and installing a new generator to
handle additional demands for power. In a March article in the National Journal, James Kitfield, who visited the base, shed additional light on expansion there. "Navy Seabee engineers," he wrote,
"...have been working round-the-clock shifts for months to finish a
runway extension before the rainy season arrives. Once completed, it
will allow larger aircraft like C-130s to land and supply Americans or
African Union troops."
AFRICOM’s Benson tells TomDispatch that the U.S. military also makes
use of six buildings located on Kenyan military bases at the airport and
seaport of Mombasa. In addition, he verified that it has used Léopold
Sédar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling stops as
well as the "transportation of teams participating in security
cooperation activities" such as training missions. He confirmed a
similar deal for the use of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in
Ethiopia.
While Benson refused additional comment, official documents indicate
that the U.S. has similar agreements for the use of Nsimalen Airport and
Douala International Airport in Cameroon, Amílcar Cabral International
Airport and Praia International Airport in Cape Verde, N'Djamena
International Airport in Chad, Cairo International Airport in Egypt,
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and Moi International Airport in
Kenya, Kotoka International Airport in Ghana, Marrakech-Menara Airport
in Morocco, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Nigeria, Seychelles
International Airport in the Seychelles, Sir Seretse Khama
International Airport in Botswana, Bamako-Senou International Airport in
Mali, and Tunis-Carthage International Airport in Tunisia. All told,
according to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics
Agency, the U.S. military now has 29 agreements to use international
airports in Africa as refueling centers.
In addition, U.S. Africa Command has built a sophisticated logistics
system, officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network,
but colloquially referred to as the "new spice route." It connects posts
in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya, Kampala and Entebbe in
Uganda, Dire Dawa in Ethiopia, as well as crucial port facilities used
by the Navy’s CTF-53 ("Commander, Task Force, Five Three") in Djibouti,
which are collectively referred to as "the port of Djibouti" by the
military. Other key ports on the continent, according to Lieutenant
Colonel Wade Lawrence of U.S. Transportation Command, include Ghana’s
Tema and Senegal’s Dakar.
The U.S. maintains
10 marine gas and oil bunker locations in eight African nations,
according to the Defense Logistics Agency. AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson
refuses to name the countries, but recent military contracting documents
list
key fuel bunker locations in Douala, Cameroon; Mindelo, Cape Verde;
Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire; Port Gentil, Gabon; Sekondi, Ghana; Mombasa,
Kenya; Port Luis, Mauritius; Walvis Bay, Namibia; Lagos, Nigeria; Port
Victoria, Seychelles; Durban, South Africa; and Dar Es Salaam,
Tanzania.
The U.S. also continues to maintain
a long-time Naval Medical Research Unit, known as NAMRU-3, in Cairo,
Egypt. Another little-noticed medical investigation component, the U.S.
Army Research Unit - Kenya, operates from facilities in Kisumu and
Kericho.
(In and) Out of Africa
When considering the scope and rapid expansion of U.S. military
activities in Africa, it’s important to keep in mind that certain key
"African" bases are actually located off the continent. Keeping a
semblance of a "light footprint" there, AFRICOM’s headquarters is
located at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart-Moehringen, Germany. In June, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported
that the base in Stuttgart and the U.S. Air Force’s Air Operations
Center in Ramstein were both integral to drone operations in Africa.
Key logistics support hubs for AFRICOM are located in Rota, Spain; Aruba in the Lesser Antilles; and Souda Bay, Greece, as well as at Ramstein. The command also maintains
a forward operating site on Britain’s Ascension Island, located about
1,000 miles off the coast of Africa in the South Atlantic, but refused
requests for further information about its role in operations.
Another important logistics facility is located in Sigonella on the
island of Sicily. Italy, it turns out, is an especially crucial
component of U.S. operations in Africa. Special-Purpose Marine
Air-Ground Task Force Africa, which provides teams of Marines and
sailors for "small-footprint theater security cooperation engagements"
across the continent, is based at Naval Air Station Sigonella. It has,
according to AFRICOM’s Benjamin Benson, recently deployed personnel to
Botswana, Liberia, Djibouti, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Tunisia,
and Senegal.
In the future, U.S. Army Africa will be based at Caserma Del Din in northern Italy, adjacent to the recently completed
home of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. A 2012 U.S. Army
Africa briefing indicates that construction projects at the Caserma Del
Din base will continue through 2018. The reported price-tag for the
entire complex: $310 million.
A Big Base Gets Bigger
While that sum is sizeable, it’s surpassed by spending on the lone
official U.S. base on the African continent, Camp Lemonnier in
Djibouti. That former French Foreign Legion post has been on a
decade-long growth spurt.
In 2002, the U.S. dispatched personnel to Africa as part of Combined
Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). The next year, CJTF-HOA
took up residence at Camp Lemonnier, where it resides to this day. In
2005, the U.S. struck a five-year land-use agreement with the Djiboutian
government and exercised the first of two five-year renewal options in
late 2010. In 2006, the U.S. signed a separate agreement to expand the
camp’s boundaries to 500 acres.
According to AFRICOM’s Benson, between 2009 and 2012, $390 million
was spent on construction at Camp Lemonnier. In recent years, the
outpost was transformed by the addition of an electric power plant,
enhanced water storage and treatment facilities, a dining hall, more
facilities for Special Operations Command, and the expansion of aircraft
taxiways and parking aprons.
A briefing prepared earlier this year by the Naval Facilities
Engineering Command lists a plethora of projects currently underway or
poised to begin, including an aircraft maintenance hangar, a
telecommunications facility, a fire station, additional security
fencing, an ammunition supply facility, interior paved roads, a general
purpose warehouse, maintenance shelters for aircraft, an aircraft
logistics apron, taxiway enhancements, expeditionary lodging, a combat
aircraft loading apron, and a taxiway extension on the east side of the
airfield.
Navy documents detail the price tag of this year’s proposed projects,
including $7.5 million to be spent on containerized living units and
workspaces, $22 million for cold storage and the expansion of dining
facilities, $27 million for a fitness center, $43 million for a joint
headquarters facility, and a whopping $220 million for a Special
Operations Compound, also referred to as "Task Force Compound."
 Plans for Construction of the Special Operations or "Task Force" Compound at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti
According to a 2012 briefing by Lieutenant Colonel
David Knellinger, the Special Operations Compound will eventually
include at least 18 new facilities, including a two-story joint
operations center, a two-story tactical operations center, two
five-story barracks, a large motor pool facility, a supply warehouse,
and an aircraft hangar with an adjacent air operations center.
A document produced earlier this year by Lieutenant
Troy Gilbert, an infrastructure planner with AFRICOM’s engineer
division, lists almost $400 million in "emergency" military construction
at Camp Lemonnier, including work on the special operations compound
and more than $150 million for a new combat aircraft loading area. Navy
documents, for their part, estimate that construction at Camp Lemonnier
will continue at $70 million to $100 million annually, with future
projects to include a $20 million wastewater treatment plant, a $40
million medical and dental center, and more than $150 million in troop
housing.
Rules of Engagement
In addition, the U.S. military has been supporting
construction all over Africa for its allies. A report by Hugh Denny of
the Army Corps of Engineers issued earlier this year references 79 such
projects in 33 countries between 2011 and 2013, including Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire,
Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi,
Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda,
Senegal, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tunisia, The Gambia, Togo,
Uganda, and Zambia. The reported price-tag: $48 million.
Senegal has, for example, received a $1.2 million
"peacekeeping operations training center" under the auspices of the U.S.
Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program.
ACOTA has also supported training center projects in Benin, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Niger,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda.
The U.S. is planning to finance the construction of
barracks and other facilities for Ghana’s armed forces. AFRICOM’s
Benson also confirmed to TomDispatch that the Army Corps of Engineers
has plans to "equip and refurbish five military border security posts in
Djibouti along the Somalia/Somaliland border." In Kenya, U.S. Special
Operations Forces have "played a crucial role in infrastructure
investments for the Kenyan Special Operations Regiment and especially in
the establishment of the Kenyan Ranger school," according to Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere of the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group.
AFRICOM’s "humanitarian assistance" program is also
expansive. A 2013 Navy briefing lists $7.1 million in humanitarian
construction projects -- like schools, orphanages, and medical
facilities -- in 19 countries from Comoros and Guinea-Bissau to Rwanda.
Hugh Denny’s report also lists nine Army Corps of Engineers "security
assistance" efforts, valued at more than $12 million, carried out during
2012 and 2013, as well as 15 additional "security cooperation" projects
worth more than $22 million in countries across Africa.
A Deluge of Deployments
In addition to creating or maintaining bases and
engaging in military construction across the continent, the U.S. is
involved in near constant training and advisory missions. According to
AFRICOM’s Colonel Tom Davis, the command is slated
to carry out 14 major bilateral and multilateral exercises by the end
of this year. These include Saharan Express 2013, which brought
together forces from Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Liberia,
Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, among other nations, for
maritime security training; Obangame Express 2013, a counter-piracy exercise involving
the armed forces of many nations, including Benin, Cameroon, Cote
d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, São Tomé
and Príncipe, and Togo; and Africa Endeavor 2013, in which the
militaries of Djibouti, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Zambia, and 34 other African nations took part.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Davis
told TomDispatch, "We also conduct some type of military training or
military-to-military engagement or activity with nearly every country on
the African continent." A cursory look at just some of U.S. missions
this spring drives home the true extent of the growing U.S. engagement
in Africa.
In January, for instance, the U.S. Air Force began transporting
French troops to Mali to counter Islamist forces there. At a facility
in Nairobi, Kenya, AFRICOM provided military intelligence training to
junior officers from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and
South Sudan. In January and February, Special Operations Forces
personnel conducted
a joint exercise code-named Silent Warrior with Cameroonian soldiers.
February saw South African troops travel all the way to Chiang Mai,
Thailand, to take part in Cobra Gold 2013, a multinational training
exercise cosponsored by the U.S. military.
In March, Navy personnel worked with members of Cape Verde’s armed forces, while Kentucky National Guard troops spent a week advising soldiers from the Comoros Islands. That same month, members of Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Africa deployed
to the Singo Peace Support Training Center in Uganda to work with
Ugandan soldiers prior to their assignment to the African Union Mission
in Somalia. Over the course of the spring, members of the task force
would also mentor local troops in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Burkina
Faso, the Seychelles, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Liberia.
In April, members of the task force also began training Senegalese commandos at Bel-Air military base in Dakar, while Navy personnel deployed to Mozambique to school civilians in demining techniques. Meanwhile, Marines traveled
to Morocco to conduct a training exercise code-named African Lion 13
with that country’s military. In May, Army troops were sent to Lomé,
Togo, to work with members of the Togolese Defense Force, as well as to Senga Bay, Malawi, to instruct soldiers there.
That same month, Navy personnel conducted
a joint exercise in the Mediterranean Sea with their Egyptian
counterparts. In June, personnel from the Kentucky National Guard deployed
to Djibouti to advise members of that country’s military on border
security methods, while Seabees teamed up with the Tanzanian People’s
Defense Force to build
maritime security infrastructure. That same month, the Air Force
airlifted Liberian troops to Bamako, Mali, to conduct a six-month
peacekeeping operation.
Limited or Limitless?
Counting countries in which it has bases or outposts
or has done construction, and those with which it has conducted military
exercises, advisory assignments, security cooperation, or training
missions, the U.S. military, according to TomDispatch’s analysis, is
involved with more than 90% of Africa’s 54 nations. While AFRICOM
commander David Rodriguez maintains that the U.S. has only a "small
footprint" on the continent, following those small footprints across the
continent can be a breathtaking task.
It’s not hard to imagine why the U.S. military wants
to maintain that "small footprint" fiction. On occasion, military
commanders couldn’t have been clearer on the subject. "A direct and
overt presence of U.S. forces on the African continent can cause
consternation… with our own partners who take great pride in their
post-colonial abilities to independently secure themselves," wrote
Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume Beaurpere earlier this year in the military
trade publication Special Warfare. Special Operations Forces,
he added, "must train to operate discreetly within these constraints and
the cultural norms of the host nation."
On a visit to the Pentagon earlier this summer, AFRICOM’s Rodriguez echoed
the same point in candid comments to Voice of America: "The history of
the African nations, the colonialism, all those things are what point to
the reasons why we should… just use a small footprint."
In a question-and-answer piece in Special Warfare
earlier this year, Colonel John Deedrick, the commander of the 10th
Special Forces Group, sounded off about his unit’s area of
responsibility. "We are widely employed throughout the continent," he
said. "These are not episodic activities. We are there 365-days-a-year
to share the burden, assist in shaping the environment, and exploit
opportunities."
Exploitation and "persistent engagement" are exactly what critics of U.S. military involvement in Africa have long feared, while blowback and the unforeseen consequences of U.S. military action on the continent have already contributed to catastrophic destabilization.
Despite some candid admissions by officers involved in shadowy
operations, however, AFRICOM continues to insist that troop deployments
are highly circumscribed. The command will not, however, allow
independent observers to make their own assessments. Benson said
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa does not "have a media visit
program to regularly host journalists there."
My own requests to report on U.S. operations on the continent were,
in fact, rejected in short order. "We will not make an exception in
this case," Benson wrote in a recent email and followed up by
emphasizing that U.S. forces are deployed in Africa only "on a limited
and temporary basis." TomDispatch’s own analysis -- and a mere glance
at the map of recent missions -- indicates that there are, in fact, very
few limits on where the U.S. military operates in Africa.
While Washington talks openly about rebalancing its military assets to Asia, a pivot to Africa is quietly and unmistakably underway. With the ever-present possibility of blowback
from shadowy operations on the continent, the odds are that the results
of that pivot will become increasingly evident, whether or not
Americans recognize them as such. Behind closed doors, the military
says: "Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today." It remains to be
seen just when they’ll say the same to the American people.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Nation, on the BBC, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. His website is NickTurse.com.
Key to the Map of the U.S. Military’s Pivot to Africa, 2012-2013
Green markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2013
Yellow markers: U.S. military training, advising, or tactical deployments during 2012
Purple marker: U.S. "security cooperation"
Red markers: Army National Guard partnerships
Blue markers: U.S.
bases, forward operating sites (FOSes), contingency security locations
(CSLs), contingency locations (CLs), airports with fueling agreements,
and various shared facilities
Green push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2013
Yellow push pins: U.S. military training/advising of indigenous troops carried out in a third country during 2012
Copyright 2013 Nick Turse
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