Africom

Fast forward a few weeks and Captain Rick Cook, the chief of U.S. Africa Command’s Engineer Division, was addressing an audience of more than 50 representatives of some of the largest military engineering firms on the planet — and this reporter. The contractors were interested in jobs and he wasn’t pulling any punches. “The eighteen months or so that I’ve been here, we’ve been at war the whole time,” Cook told them. “We are trying to provide opportunities for the African people to fix their own African challenges. Now, unfortunately, operations in Libya, South Sudan, and Mali, over the last two years, have proven there’s always something going on in Africa.”

Last year, AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that the U.S. was conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, drone operations from Base Aérienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger. In the months since, air operations there have only increased. In addition, documents recently obtained by TomDispatch indicated that the Army Corps of Engineers has been working on two counter-narco-terrorism projects in Arlit and Tahoua, Niger. So I told Gatz what I had uncovered. Only then did he locate the right paperwork. “Oh, okay, I’m sorry,” he replied. “You’re right, we have two of them… Both were actually awarded to construction.”

Second, US military personnel conduct training sequences with African militaries.

Third, the US military funds social science research into African society, culture and politics. This takes various forms, one of which is the use of SCRATs (or Sociocultural Advisory Teams) for the purposes of preparing US military personnel for deployment and missions.

A strong military structure paves the way for the resource plunder and large scale dispossessions that are seen in neoliberal states in the so-called Global South. In this system, the state ensures profit for class elites (both international and domestic) by guaranteeing the super-exploitation of labour and the dispossession of millions of people of their lands and livelihoods for resource extraction at serious costs to local ecology, health and wellbeing. This guarantee can only be made through an increased militarism that stifles political mobilisation.

Ensure, by timely and effective military action, the security of the United States, its possessions, and areas vital to its interest.   c. Uphold and advance the national policies and interests of the United States. 

Despite the inauguration of President Barack Obama in January 2009, U.S. government policy on the procurement of African oil is largely governed by the National Energy Policy Report—the final report of the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG)—which was issued on May 17, 2001.

The direct linkage between growing U.S. dependence on oil imports from Africa—and particularly from Nigeria—is based on the assertion that U.S. national security—and our continued enjoyment of the “American way of life”—requires unimpeded access to African oil. Commenting on this development, the former U.S. ambassador to Chad, Donald R. Norland, told the Africa Subcommittee of the U.S. House International Relations Committee in April 2002, “It’s been reliably reported that, for the first time, the two concepts – ‘Africa’ and ‘U.S. national security’ – have been used in the same sentence in Pentagon documents.”

As a result, the “Carter Doctrine,” proclaimed by President Jimmy Carter in January 1980 has been extended to Nigeria, the rest of Africa, and—indeed—the entire world. In his final State of the Union Address, President Carter designated the free flow of Persian Gulf oil as a “vital interest” of the United States and declared that this country would use “any means necessary, including military force,” to defend that interest. To implement this policy, widely known as the “Carter Doctrine,” the U.S. Department of Defense established the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) to oversee U.S. military operations in the Gulf area and built up a substantial military basing infrastructure in the region.

African states therefore suffer from a number of important handicaps. They suffer from weak allegiance by their citizens to these states and vice versa. This explains why African countries during the past 50 years have been centres of many conflicts, in particular civil wars, inter-tribal wars, violent communal conflicts and pogroms, wars of secession, and more recently in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, attempts at genocide. These great conflicts have been accompanied by vast population movements in and out of different national boundaries. Africa, not surprisingly, is host to the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.

One of the most disgraceful but under-reported scandals in Africa is the extent to which African elites export capital from the continent. According to the United Nations, nearly 40% of Africa's private wealth is kept outside Africa compared to only 3% of South Asia's private wealth and 6% of East Asia's. The small economic surplus that remains, goes to finance elite consumption and to pay for the running of the largely unaccountable state.

Notwithstanding what I have said about the undesirability of focusing on the military option to solve Africa's challenges, use of force to solve Africa's problems must however not be ruled out. This is why in my view the creation of the African Command by the US government was an important initiative. Africom however must not just confine itself to working with African governments only. It must also engage with non-state actors in its effort to assist in re-constructing societies which, I have argued, is a pre-condition to achieving long term security in Africa. Clearly we have a long road ahead of us, so we need to pace ourselves accordingly.

as a self-critical entrepreneur in post-Apartheid South Africa, Mbeki was in a position to use the controversial platform to test his persuasive prowess, exhorting them to consider a more humanitarian and developmental AFRICOM, that would link not only to African governments, but also to ‘society’. It is this link to society and Mbeki’s development thesis that piques curiosity about Mbeki’s opening remarks – that South Africa was the lead capital exporter into Africa, ahead of traditional rivals the UK and France, as well as the US. The common interest between the US and South Africa, said Mbeki, was to provide security for their mutual investments in the region. The ‘truths’ Mbeki espoused may not be convincing to critically engaged Africans; they seem tailored to the sensitive palate of his audience.

Mbeki said he tried to show that the challenge facing sub-Saharan Africa, based on ‘the deep roots of Africa's security and development crises’, is ‘not state building as many analysts believe. The immediate challenge most of Africa faces is society building.’ In short, this is the role he recommended for AFRICOM.

‘Building a viable, sustainable and stable society requires the establishment and development of legitimate, socially hegemonic group or groups that can then build a viable state,‘ he said, which the European colonial powers failed to do. They left behind a semblance of a state that had no social anchors, which ‘led to Africa's instability during the last half a century‘ and continues to this day in many countries.

The USA’s men in khaki are increasing their activity in Africa, despite a cold reception to the idea of hosting a base on the continent and warnings that the endeavour risks conflating local problems with international terrorist groups.

The chief of the US African Command, General E. Ward, explained this in language more clear than that of any US politician when he stated that an Africa in which "African populations are able to provide for themselves, contribute to global economic development and are allowed access to markets in free, fair, and competitive ways, is good for America and the world..."

Pending legislation, "The Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act 2009," being pushed by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) would empower AFRICOM not only to give technical support but to physically go to war with the armed groups that both Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo Forces have not been able to dislodge. Royce said:

The US Africa Command is now spending billions in training and arm supplies. It is expecting to spend nothing less than $20 billion in 2010, and this will benefit the armies of a very many repressive regimes.Take the case of Sudan. Openly, Western governments, including the US, have never been more critical of the regime in Khartoum, even accusing it of committing genocide in Darfur. The fact that the head of Sudan's intelligence agency, wanted by the International Criminal Court, was secretly jetted to the US by the CIA to discuss military interests in the Horn of Africa was one of the most disgusting acts of hypocrisy by the Bush administration.

The resurgence of Vietnam War-era counterinsurgency doctrine as a principal tenet of U.S. security policy, therefore, has led to a major escalation of U.S. military involvement in Africa by the Obama administration that seems likely to continue in the years ahead.

When Pres. Barack Obama took office in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarised and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa, as well as toward other parts of the world.After one year in office, however, it is clear that the Obama administration is following essentially the same policy that has guided U.S. military policy toward Africa for more than a decade. Indeed, the Obama administration is seeking to expand U.S. military activities on the continent even further.