9/7/2020 U.S.

Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

The creation of a new U.S. military command for Africa signals the continent’s
growing strategic importance and its many development challenges.

Backgrounder by Stephanie Hanson

May 2, 2007

This publication is now archived.

Introduction

In February 2007, President Bush announced the creation of a unified military

command for Africa. This puts the continent on par, in the Pentagon’s eyes and
command structure, with the Pacific Rim (Pacific Command), Europe (European
Command), Latin America (Southern Command), the Middle East (Central Command),
and North America (Northern Command). The Pentagon and many military analysts
argue the continent’s growing strategic importance necessitates a dedicated regional
command. But some experts suggest the command’s creation was motivated by more
specific concerns: China and oil. With Soviet influence gone and France’s traditional
presence much diminished, China has poured money into the continent in recent years
as it jockeys for access to natural resources. And the United States is projected to
import at least 25 percent of its oil from Africa by 2015, according to the National
Intelligence Council.

Africom’s Genesis

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 1/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

Three U.S. regional commands currently share responsibility for American security
issues in Africa. The Europe Command is responsible for the largest swath of the
continent: North Africa, West Africa (including the Gulf of Guinea), and central and
southern Africa. The Central Command covers the Horn of Africa—including Somalia,
Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, and Sudan—as well as Egypt. The Pacific Command
is responsible for Madagascar, the Seychelles, and the Indian Ocean area off the African
coast.

Because
More From Our Experts
Africa has
James M. Lindsay
been
Ten More Foreign-Policy Movies Worth Watching
subsumed
under other Sheila A. Smith

regional Spotlight on Japan Summer 2020

commands,
Jendayi E. Frazer
the
Why African Nations Support U.S. Anti-Racism Protesters
continent
has never
been a priority for the U.S. military. “Africa has been divided up and been the poor
stepchild in each of these different commands and not gotten the full attention it
deserves,” Susan Rice, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Clinton
administration’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told NPR.

The Pentagon has floated plans for a unified command for over ten years. Former
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld convened a planning team for such a command
in mid-2006, and in December, President Bush authorized its creation. The president
announced the command in February 2007, stating that it “will enhance our efforts to
bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of
development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa.”

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 2/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

Ambassador Robert G. Loftis, senior adviser in the State Department’s Bureau of

Political and Military Affairs and a member of the Africa Command transition team,
says the command will promote “a greater unity of effort across the government.” He
notes that aid to Africa under President Bush has tripled since 2001, but “if we don’t
have security in Africa, a lot of that development assistance will not be helpful.”

Mixed Reactions to the Command’s Creation

The Pentagon has been careful to stress that Africom will partner with African
countries to promote mutual interests. “This is not about a scramble for the continent,”
said Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, in a
February press briefing. Yet some Africans greeted news of the command’s creation
with skepticism. “Looking at U.S. alliances with authoritarian governments in Africa,
one can see that what plays best to the media is not always what works best in the
world of realpolitik,” wrote Fred Mbugua in Kenya’s East African Standard. The Defense
Department has started a series of trips to African countries to address misperceptions
about the command and solicit input on Africom’s mission statement. Thus far, Africans
have been “largely positive” about Africom, says Ambassador Loftis, and have stressed
their interest in working with existing security structures on the continent such as the
African Union and regional economic organizations. The South African reaction to the
command’s creation has been “ambivalent,” says Francis Kornegay, senior researcher at
the Center for Policy Studies in Johannesburg. He says it raises questions about whether
U.S. and African priorities are in sync.

Daily News Brief

A summary of global news developments with CFR analysis delivered to your
inbox each morning. Most weekdays.

Email Address

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 3/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

Submit

View all newsletters >

Many of the experts who heralded the command’s creation seem to validate African
concerns. Writing in World Defense Review, J. Peter Pham, director of the Nelson
Institute for International and Public Affairs, calls Africom’s creation “long overdue” in
light of U.S. dependence on Africa’s oil, its concern over radical Islamist groups
targeting the region, and the continent’s identity as “an arena for intense diplomatic
competition with other states with global ambitions, like China.” Others note that
Africom will help the United States secure vital sea lanes.

The Feasibility of an Interagency Command

The recent upsurge in violence in the Horn of Africa clearly has the Pentagon focused
on the threat that Somalia, long a festering realm of warlordism, could become a new
base for al-Qaeda. However, the Pentagon stresses that Africom’s primary mission will
be preventing “problems from becoming crises, and crises from becoming conflicts.”
Rear Admiral Robert T. Moeller, head of the transition team charged with standing up
the Africa Command, says Africom will work to enhance security cooperation, extend
humanitarian assistance, build partner capacity, and perform limited kinetic military
assistance. But he adds that the command’s mission statement is still in draft form, and
will not be finalized until a commander is selected (probably later this year). It
resembles the mission statement of other regional commands, but “the difference is
that building partnerships is first and foremost of the strategies which is not necessarily
the case with other commands,” says Ambassador Loftis.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 4/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

The Pentagon calls Africom a “unifed combatant command,” meaning a command that
combines military and civil functions. Though Africom will be led by a top-ranking
four-star military general, unlike other regional commands, its deputy commander will
be a State Department official. The current transition team of about sixty people—
which is largely military—will form the core of Africom’s headquarters staff, but
Moeller anticipates there will eventually be several hundred personnel when the
command becomes operational in September 2008. Africom aims to bring together
intelligence, diplomatic, health and aid experts. Staff will be drawn from all branches of
the military, as well as USAID and the departments of state, agriculture, treasury, and
commerce. These nonmilitary staff may be funded with money from their own
departments as well as the DOD.

The
More From Our Experts
Pentagon
James M. Lindsay
has touted
Ten More Foreign-Policy Movies Worth Watching
the new
interagency Sheila A. Smith

structure of Spotlight on Japan Summer 2020

Africom, but
Jendayi E. Frazer
experts
Why African Nations Support U.S. Anti-Racism Protesters
question
whether the
command will be any different than other regional commands in execution. The small
size of other government offices in comparison to the military means that it may be
difficult to hire enough nonmilitary staff. Even if interagency personnel are brought
into the command, it is not clear how instrumental they will be in the command’s
decision-making process. Ambassador Loftis says having a State Department official as
deputy commander is “uncharted territory” for the Department of Defense. Some

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 5/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

defense officials say that Africom could function like the interagency task force within
Southern Command; in that structure, interagency members have the authority to
make decisions without consulting Washington.

Yet the Pentagon has not even provided details on what percentage of the staff will be
interagency, let alone how much authority those staff will have. This lack of
information extends to other aspects of the command. Chester A. Crocker, assistant
secretary of state for African affairs under President Reagan, says the Pentagon “rolled
it out before they were ready to roll it out.” Rear Admiral Moeller says “It’s like being
the plank owner of a new construction ship—all the excitement of being the first crew
member and all the work involved of figuring out if we have enough welding rods to do
a particular day’s work.”

Headquarter or Headquarters?

By October 2007, Africom will begin operating as part of the European Command in
Stuttgart, Germany. The permanent location for Africom’s headquarters, however, has
yet to be determined. Several African countries have already offered to house Africom
within their borders, and the Department of Defense has started a series of
consultations with African countries that will continue into the summer. Moeller
emphasizes that though Africom will have its headquarters on the continent, the
United States is not planning to put additional military forces in Africa. He did not rule
out the possibility that Africom would operate in a hub-and-spoke fashion, with a
central headquarters coordinating a group of smaller locations around the continent.
“We are still in the very early stages on this,” says Ambassador Loftis.

Speculation about a possible headquarters location abounds. Defense and Foreign

Affairs Strategic Policy argues that Morocco is the only “geographically and politically
viable” location for headquartering Africom because it is a neutral Muslim state that
has proven willing to work with the United States to combat the growth of radical Islam

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 6/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

in Africa. It adds that the command would need to have additional lesser basing in the
Gulf of Guinea, East Africa, and southern Africa. Some have suggested that Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia might be a viable location for the headquarters because it is the seat of
the African Union and the United States has a close relationship with Ethiopia.

Current Military Initiatives in Africa

The United States already has a military presence on the continent, which is expected
to continue under Africom. Since 2002, the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa
(CJTF-HOA) has based roughly 1,700 troops at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. The task
force focuses on disrupting terrorist activities in the region, and was reportedly
involved in tracking down two alleged leaders of Somalia’s Islamic Courts in December
2006. In January 2007, the military announced that Camp Lemonier will expand from
its current ninety-seven acres to more than five hundred acres.

Another program in the region, the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) ,

also focuses on counterterrorism. The $500 million interagency program seeks to
dampen Islamic extremism in the region and locate and eliminate terrorists by
providing counterterrorist training programs and weapons to countries in North Africa.
It emerged in 2005 from the Pan-Sahel Initiative, a U.S. State Department program to
strengthen border controls in several North African countries.

The U.S. military has significantly expanded its naval presence in the Gulf of Guinea in
recent years. It now has almost continuous patrols in the region, up from almost no
activity in 2004. It led two security conferences in the region in 2006, and has conducted
security cooperation activities with several countries, including Angola, Ghana, and the
Republic of the Congo.

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 7/8
9/7/2020 U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) | Council on Foreign Relations

In addition to these programs, the United States is the largest troop contributor to a
peacekeeping force on the Egypt-Israel border. Roughly seven hundred U.S. soldiers
participate in the Multinational Forces and Observers (MFO), which supervises the
implementation of the 1973 Egyptian-Israeli Treaty of Peace. Central Command will
likely retain control over these troops after Africom’s stand-up (Egypt is the only
country Africom is not slated to oversee on the continent).

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-africa-command-africom 8/8