A New Kind of command (for development)? The presence of US AFRICOM

US military commands have been, by their name, military commands to maintain a US military presence throughout the globe. From Europe to Asia, from South America to the Middle East, the US military has commands under four star generals ready to secure US interests through physical military might. Yet, for years, the continent of African was under the scope of the US European Command until 2007 when the US formed US African Command (USAFRICOM).

On its website, USAFRICOM states that:

The designers of U.S. Africa Command clearly understood the relationships between security, development, diplomacy and prosperity in Africa. As a result, U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, reflects a much more integrated staff structure, one that includes significant management and staff representation by the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other U.S. government agencies involved in Africa. The command also will seek to incorporate partner nations and humanitarian organizations, from Africa and elsewhere, to work alongside the U.S. staff on common approaches to shared interests.

This signals that the mission of this new command is mainly that of development and not military projection. Activities from its website show US troops engaged in many civil partnerships and what is termed Military Operations Other than War (MOOTW). In this sense, USAFRICOM is a military group for development assistance.

The background to the command, however, paints a different story. Africa in the post Cold War era has seen conflicts from Somalia to Darfur all which have been under the international spotlight. After 9/11, the US staged its anti terrorist operations from the French base at Djibouti, not just at the Middle East but at locations in Africa where Al Qaeda groups were supposedly operating. USAID, charged with delivering development aid, increased aid for anti terrorist operations in Africa. Furthermore, other major global players such as China have been making major forays into Africa with the Chinese Premier recently pledging a development assistance package to the region. As Pambazuka News has noted, the US is also concerned with the threat to the region’s supply of oil to the US. All these indicators show that AFRICOM’s underlying mission is more than of strategic interests rather than moral development concerns.

It has been argued that conflict is a major impediment to sustainable development and history has richly shown that. For the US, AFRICOM could represent a group dedicated to secure African livelihood and preventing the spread of major conflicts such as terrorism, especially in the post 9/11 environment. Yet, AFRICOM remains part of the US Defence Department and its individual sub components such as US Army Africa and US Special Forces (Africa) are armed commands. Furthermore, US development assistance has bee first for US foreign interest with other objectives such as poverty reduction as secondary. USAFRICOM may not be for engaging in traditional war, but to call it a command assisting with development is hardly an appropriate description.

Posted on December 12, 2009

comments

about the author

Jiesheng Li is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham. He has completed his Masters in Development Studies from Cambridge and has a Joint Honours in Economics and Politics from the University of Birmingham and has undergone an internship at the Overseas Development Institute. He maintains a site on international development and international political economy (http://ipeanddevelopment.wordpress.com) but beyond such serious work, he can be found taking photos or listening to a variety of music.

recent articles

copyright

Creative Commons License
We published this article under a Creative Commons License.

You are free:

  • to Share — to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work

  • to Remix — to make derivative works

Under the following conditions:

  • Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
  • Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
  • Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.