What is Africom really about?

These following notes, written by Daniel Volman, are based on the Conference on “Transforming National Security: Africom—An Emerging Command” Organized which was organized by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Virginia from 19-20 February 2008.

Although the conference was open to the public, it was immediately clear that it was very much an “in group” affair explicitly held to bring together people from all the different agencies and African governments that will have to coordinate their activities to make Africom work. Thus, the conference itself was part of the process of organizing Africom. Technically, the conference was held under the NDU rules of “non-attribution,” i.e. participants can quote statements made at the conference, but are not supposed to identify speakers. I’ve complied with the rule in this memo, but just let me know if you want to know who said what.

About half of the audience of approximately 300 people (they said that this was the largest meeting devoted to Africom that has been held so far) were from the U.S. military services, mostly from the various agencies and departments that have been working through Eucom up until now and will now have to begin working with the new Africom HQ staff in Stuttgart. Most of the ones that I talked to were actually from Defense Intelligence staff, i.e. the people who decide to do with the intelligence information collected by the DIA and other agencies.

Then there were a substantial number of people from other departments, not just DoS and AID, but also Agriculture, Commerce, Judiciary, and others, since they all have programs in Africa that they will have to coordinate with Africom. And finally, there were a number of people from African embassies and governments, including both political and military personnel.

The conference was part of the ongoing effort of the Pentagon to actually get Africom going and to bring other countries into the structure, including by bringing their personnel into the Africom structure. I know that they organized a parallel conference in London, at the Royal United Services Institute, on 18-19 February to bring the Brits in, and I assume that they have/will do the same kind of thing to bring in the French and other European countries.

The conference was very much a nuts-and-bolts discussion of all the practical matters of making Africom work.

The first interesting thing was the discussion of how they define Africom’s mission. The presentation on this were based on internal DoD presentations, so they were much more honest and revealing than the kind of thing that comes from the public pronouncements. The presentation specifically cited the challenge of preventing disruptions in African oil production and exports as one of Africom’s six chief missions, along with meeting the challenge of China, controlling ungoverned regions and transnational extremism, dealing with instability in the Horn of Africa, dealing with instability in the Great Lakes region, and dealing with the situation in Chad/Sudan.

When one of the African representatives asked about China, they backtracked and said that Africom doesn’t see itself as a response to China and will seek to cooperate with China in the future. Africom is scheduled to produce a posture statement outlining its mission and intentions in March 2008.

A couple of other interesting points they made was to say that they saw the Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (the people who are spearheading U.S. involvement in Somalia and Ethiopia) as a model for what Africom could do in the rest of the continent. They admitted that they had made no attempt to consult with anyone at the UN while they were developing Africom and hadn’t really consulted with anyone in Africa either.

It was clear from their statements that they were very surprised and unhappy about the public response from Africans to Africom and that this was the reason that they were going to have to keep the Africom HQ in Stuttgart for the time being, although they will continue to look for African hosts and will also work on ways to station Africom staff people in less obvious and provocative ways like sending small groups to liaison with selected African military forces. They want to believe that this is just a problem of public relations and that they just have to do a better job of explaining themselves. One of the new buzzwords in Africom is “active listening,” i.e. pretending to care what other people think.

Finally, on a purely practical matter, there was considerable discussion about just how much trouble they are having finding adequate personnel and developing the kind of linkages and working relations with the agencies they will have to depend upon to actually do anything. This is all taking them a great deal of time and it’s clear that they will not really be ready when they become operational on 1 October. They’re worried that the difficult process of organizing Africom may actually disrupt U.S. military activities in Africa because the transition process itself will confuse everything.

* Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and the author of numerous articles on US security policy and African security issues.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org