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AFRICOM: A Threat to Africa's Security
Laurie Nathan
Online Publication Date: 01 April 2009
To cite this Article Nathan, Laurie(2009)'AFRICOM: A Threat to Africa's Security',Contemporary Security Policy,30:1,58 — 61
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13523260902760090
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AFRICOM: A Threat to Africa’s Security
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LAURIE NATHAN
James Forest and Rebecca Crispin seek to explain a significant problem confronting
the newly established United States Unified Command for Africa (AFRICOM): the
official purpose of the initiative is to assist Africans to address their security needs
but the response of Africans has been largely hostile. Forest and Crispin attribute
the negative reaction to weak planning, unrealistic timelines, a failure to consult
Africans about AFRICOM, and poor communication about the aims and orientation
of the command. The lack of proper consultation and communication led to misperceptions and mistrust among Africans. Forest and Crispin conclude that what is
required now is a robust strategic communications effort that includes extensive
consultation and public diplomacy. This would help to provide a clear vision of
AFRICOM, allay the misgivings and enable the command to transcend its inauspicious debut.
Forest and Crispin do not capture adequately the African concerns about
AFRICOM.1 If one takes serious account of these concerns, it appears that the
authors have misdiagnosed the causes of the problem and that their optimism
about AFRICOM’s future prospects is misplaced. The adverse response to the US
Department of Defense initiative was not simply due to poor planning, weak
communication, and resultant misunderstandings. More fundamentally, it reflects a
deep-rooted anti-imperialist posture that is grounded in the historical and contemporary realities of African politics and US foreign policy. It will not be overcome through
a communications strategy, no matter how well resourced and sophisticated.
The anti-imperialist stance derives from many sources. Chief among them are the
liberation struggles against colonialism, Washington’s unsympathetic attitude to the
liberation movements, its embrace of dictators in Africa and Latin America during
the Cold War, its unwavering support for Israel despite the illegal occupation of
Palestine, its exceptionalism in relation to the International Criminal Court, and its
long history of unilateralism, aggression, and disdain for international law. Under
the Bush administration these trends were reinforced in dramatic fashion by the
unlawful invasion of Iraq and the travesty of Guantanamo Bay. The conclusion is
that the US has no firm commitment to human rights, pursues its own interests at
the expense of others, and is willing to deploy force offensively to advance those
interests. The spectre of Empire looms ever large.
Forest and Crispin are aware of these dynamics but underestimate their import.
The authors note briefly that perceptions of American foreign policy towards
Africa are framed by history and actions elsewhere. They point out that from the
1960s through to the 1990s the US provided financial and military aid to corrupt
and brutal regimes and that unilateral American interventions in Iraq and other
Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.30, No.1 (April 2009), pp.58– 61
ISSN 1352-3260 print/1743-8764 online
DOI: 10.1080/13523260902760090 # 2009 Taylor & Francis
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59
places have raised suspicion of the US throughout the world. Questions about the
‘true’ nature and purpose of AFRICOM were therefore inevitable. In this context,
according to Forest and Crispin, AFRICOM ‘[went] public too quickly and with
too little consultation with African partners. Indeed, suspicion toward AFRICOM
grew among other agencies and international partners in large part because of how
this organization was unveiled to the world’.
It is naive to imagine that better consultation, planning, and marketing would
have substantially improved AFRICOM’s reception on the continent. No communication and consultation could have altered the essence and improved the image of a
superpower whose foreign policy is characterized by unilateralism, militarism, and
disregard for international law. The formation of a US military command for
Africa is a component of this foreign policy and is thus inescapably associated
with its features. AFRICOM is consequently considered a threat to the security and
independence of African countries. As discussed below, four types of threat are
apparent in the concerns raised by the Africans cited in this article.
Regional destabilization. AFRICOM was originally meant to be situated physically in Africa but this idea was put on hold because of resistance from African
states. The resistance stemmed partly from the fear that locating a US military
command in an African country would heighten American leverage, alter the regional
balance of power, and be divisive and destabilizing. It would undermine the sovereignty of the host country, the status and influence of the regional power (such as
Nigeria in West Africa), and the unity and collective decision-making of the regional
organization (such as the Economic Community of West African States). Even a
benign superpower would provoke considerable unease if it tried to establish a permanent military presence in Africa. In the case of the US, which is regarded as a
bully, the opposition was bound to be intense.
Offensive military action. The resistance to locating AFRICOM in Africa was
also due to fears that this would give the US a military platform from which to overthrow African governments and launch attacks on countries or organizations deemed
a threat to American interests. The adoption by President Bush of a pre-emptive war
doctrine in 2002 was a brazen official declaration of a policy long applied by the
United States in Central America. The US National Security Strategy contends that
‘the United States can no longer simply rely on deterrence to keep the terrorists at
bay or defensive measures to thwart them at the last moment. The fight must be
taken to the enemy, to keep them on the run’.2 In the name of the ‘war on terror’,
the US might also provide weaponry and other forms of military support to prop
up repressive governments in Africa.
Overriding African interests. The claim by US officials that AFRICOM is primarily intended to further Africa’s security and development has no credibility on the
continent. Few people doubt that America is motivated principally by its own interests, which are believed to encompass the following: ensuring a stable supply of oil
from the continent; maintaining access to Africa’s natural resources; countering if not
rebuffing China’s growing economic and political engagement in Africa; and eliminating Islamic terrorist groups that take root in weak and failed states. The crucial
point is not that the US wants to advance its interests but that these interests do
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CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY
not coincide with those of Africa and, more importantly, that the US has the means
and disposition to pursue its interests at the expense of African interests.
Undermining the African Union. The failure by the US administration to consult
the African Union (AU) about AFRICOM was seen not as a communications lapse
but as indicative of the superpower’s arrogance, ignorance of African politics, and
disregard for the efforts of Africans to enhance their own security. Particularly if
it had its headquarters on the continent, AFRICOM might, by virtue of the power
it represents and commands, marginalize the AU’s Peace and Security Council and
become the de facto locus of major decision-making on African security.
Any discussion on the way forward should distinguish between the different
aspects of AFRICOM. First, AFRICOM consolidates under a single command the
American military activity in Africa that was previously spread among three commands. This organizational restructuring of the US Department of Defense is the
least contentious dimension of AFRICOM and should be considered a fait accompli.
Second, AFRICOM was conceived as a combatant command based on the continent.
This controversial idea has been dismissed so emphatically in Africa that it should be
abandoned and not merely postponed. For example, in 2007 the heads of state of the
Southern African Development Community, whose members include Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, discussed AFRICOM
and concluded dryly ‘that it is better if the United States were involved with
Africa from a distance rather than be present on the continent’.3 As noted by the
South African Minister of Defence, the majority of African regional organizations
have taken a similar position.4
Third, AFRICOM is designed to administer a range of military and civilian
programmes on security cooperation, building African capacity, and strengthening
democratic institutions in support of peace and security. The crucial question is
whether African governments have confidence in this support. In an essay on the
American empire, Alan Ryan observes that the US has failed to use non-military
forms of influence effectively because it has not taken the trouble to understand
the rest of the world; moreover, ‘the professed ideological purity of the United
States’ motives – the argument that its foreign policy is aimed at spreading democracy and the rule of law – is doubly disastrous. It strikes half the world as hypocritical; it strikes the other half as threatening’.5 Confidence in AFRICOM’s ‘do good’
programmes is diminished further by the other major aspects of the command,
namely its warfighting capabilities and potential for offensive action and its pursuit
of US goals at the expense of African interests.
In relation to the AFRICOM programmes, the US administration should concentrate on consulting African stakeholders and meeting their requests for support rather
than on packaging and selling AFRICOM. While consultation with individual
African governments and civil society organizations is necessary, consultation with
the governmental decision-making forums of the AU and the regional organizations
is more important. Foreign security initiatives that are rejected by these organizations
will be forever divisive and mired in controversy.
Whatever the concrete outcomes of the consultations, Africans will remain
alarmed about the vast power of the US and its willingness to use that power as it
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sees fit. The unease will not be mitigated by strategic communications and assurances
of good intentions regarding AFRICOM. It will only be alleviated if the US adopts
a benign foreign policy that respects the values and interests of other states. Many
Africans hope that the Obama presidency will usher in that policy but this, of
course, remains to be seen.
NOTES
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1. In this article I draw on the following sources for governmental and non-governmental African views on
AFRICOM: Africa Action, ‘African Voices on AFRICOM’, Pambazuka News, 1 April 2008, retrieved
on 26 November 2008 from www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/47047; Christopher Isike,
Ufo Okeke-Uzodike, and Lysias Gilbert, ‘The United States Africa Command: Enhancing American
Security or Fostering African Development?’, African Security Review, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2008),
pp. 20– 38; Samuel Makinda, ‘Why AFRICOM Has Not Won over Africans’, undated, Africa Policy
Forum, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, retrieved on 30 November 2008 from http://
forums.csis.org/africa/?p¼72; Mark Malan, ‘AFRICOM: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing?’, testimony
before the Subcommittee on African Affairs, United States Senate, 1 August 2007, retrieved on
22 November 2008 from http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2007/MalanTestimony070801.pdf;
Wafula Okumu, ‘Africa Command: Opportunity for Enhanced Engagement or the Militarization of
US-Africa Relations?’, testimony given to the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health,
United States Congress, 2 August 2007, retrieved on 30 November 2008 from www.iss.co.za/
dynamic/administration/file_manager/file_links/AFRICOMWOKUMU.PDF?link_id¼31&slink_id¼
4821&link_type¼12&slink_type¼13&tmpl_id¼3; Freedom C. Onuoha, ‘US Africa Command
(AFRICOM) and Nigeria’s National Security’, Africa Insight, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2008), pp. 173–84; and
South African Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Notes Following International Relations, Peace and
Security (IRPS) [Cabinet] Cluster Media Briefing’, 29 August 2007, retrieved on 16 November 2008
from www.info.gov.za/speeches/2007/07083016151001.htm.
2. Government of the United States, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, March
2006, p. 8, retrieved on 16 November 2008 from www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/nss2006.pdf.
3. South African Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Notes’.
4. Ibid.
5. Alan Ryan, ‘What Happened to the American Empire?’, New York Review of Books, Vol. 55, No. 16 (23
October 2008), p. 61.
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