US Command for Africa Established---AFRICOM

[XXPANTHAXX]

October 5, 2008

U.S. Command for Africa Established

By THOM SHANKER
New York Times

WASHINGTON — For decades, Africa was rarely more than an afterthought
for the Pentagon.

Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast African
continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat
headquarters, those for Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East.
Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old
Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear
North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.

If deployment of fighting forces is an indicator, that historic focus
north of the equator endures. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a
new view has gained acceptance among senior Pentagon officials and
military commanders: that ungoverned spaces and ill-governed states,
whose impoverished citizens are vulnerable to the ideology of violent
extremism, pose a growing risk to American security.

Last week, in a small Pentagon conference hall, Defense Secretary Robert
M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
inaugurated the newest regional headquarters, Africa Command, which is
responsible for coordinating American military affairs on the continent.

There are barely 2,000 American combat troops and combat support
personnel based in Africa, and the new top officer, Gen. William E. Ward
of the Army, pledges that Africa Command has no designs on creating
vast, permanent concentrations of forces on the continent.

“Bases? Garrisons? It’s not about that,” General Ward said in an
interview. “We are trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to having to
react to a conflict.”

Already, though, analysts at policy advocacy organizations and research
institutes are warning of a militarization of American foreign policy
across Africa.

Mr. Gates said the new command was an example of the Pentagon’s evolving
strategy of forging what he called “civilian-military partnerships,” in
which the Defense Department works alongside and supports the State
Department and the Agency for International Development, as well as host
nations’ security and development agencies.

“In this respect, Africom represents yet another important step in
modernizing our defense arrangements in light of 21st-century
realities,” Mr. Gates said. “It is, at its heart, a different kind of
command with a different orientation, one that we hope and expect will
institutionalize a lasting security relationship with Africa, a vast
region of growing importance in the globe.”

Mr. Gates and General Ward said that this work to complement and support
American security and development policies would include missions like
deploying military trainers to improve the abilities of local
counterterrorism forces, assigning military engineers to help dig wells
and build sewers, and sending in military doctors to inoculate the local
population against diseases.

While that thinking has influenced the work of all of the military’s
regional war-fighting commands, it is the central focus of Africa
Command.

And over the past two years, it has quietly become the central focus of
the military’s Southern Command, once better known for the invasions of
Grenada and Panama, but now converting itself to a headquarters that
supports efforts across the United States government and within host
nations to improve security and economic development in Latin America.

A number of specialists in African and Latin American politics at
nongovernmental organizations express apprehension, however, that the
new emphasis of both these commands represents an undesirable injection
of the military into American foreign policy, a change driven by fears
of terrorists or desires for natural resources.

Officials at one leading relief organization, Refugees International,
warned of the risk that Africom “will take over many humanitarian and
development activities that soldiers aren’t trained to perform.”

In a statement, Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees
International, said that the creation of Africa Command was “a sign of
increased U.S. attention to Africa.” But he also said that it was
“important that Africom focus on training peacekeepers and helping
African countries build militaries responsive to civilian control and
democratic government.”

Mr. Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration, added,
“The military should stick to military tasks and let diplomats and
development experts direct other aspects of U.S. policy in Africa.”

Refugees International released statistics showing that the percentage
of development assistance controlled by the Defense Department had grown
to nearly 22 percent from 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, while the
percentage controlled by the Agency for International Development
dropped to 40 percent from 65 percent.

General Ward rejected criticisms that Africa Command would result in a
militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically
structured for cooperative efforts across the agencies of the United
States government.

For example, a deputy commander at Africom is Ambassador Mary Carlin
Yates, a career Foreign Service officer. And General Ward himself
previously served in a combined diplomatic and military role, as
director of efforts to help reform the Palestinian security services.

But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more
money, more personnel and more power than any other government
organization, American or foreign.

“If we can bring a capability that can be an assist to one of our
interagency partners, then I think we ought to do that,” General Ward
said. “But I draw a distinction between leading that effort and
supporting that effort. We don’t create policy. This is not the job of a
unified command. We implement those aspects of policy that have military
implications. And we support others.”

Planners abandoned early intentions to base Africa Command in Africa,
perhaps with a major headquarters and regional satellite offices. Owing
to local sensitivities, security concerns and simple logistics of moving
around the vast continent, which often requires routing through Europe,
the command will for now have its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.

General Ward said that in creating the Africa Command, he had been in
close contact with his counterpart atop the military’s Southern Command,
Adm. James G. Stavridis, who has received high marks from Pentagon
leaders for converting the military presence in Central and South
America. Where previously Southern Command emphasized direct military
action, it now focuses on programs to train and support local forces,
and assist economic development, health services and counternarcotics
efforts.

“The more I look at this region over the two years I have been at
Southcom,” Admiral Stavridis said in an interview, “the more convinced I
am that the approach we need to take for U.S. national security in the
region is really an interagency approach.

“Think of the problems that afflict this region — natural disasters,
poverty, the narcotics trade, lack of medical care,” he said. “Our
thought at Southcom is, How can we be supportive of an interagency
approach? How can we partner with other interagency actors, and then tie
that together with our international partners?”

Admiral Stavridis said Southern Command was “very directly and
consciously not taking the lead.”

“We are trying to be part of the team, to be a facilitator,” he added.

But George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin
America, a nonprofit research and human-rights advocacy organization,
said in a statement that “while improved delivery of U.S. assistance is
certainly an admirable goal,” putting Southern Command into a
coordinating role on issues like corruption, crime or poverty “drains
authority from the State Department and resources from the Defense
Department.”