Why Is America Marching Into Africa?
Virtually unnoticed, American troops are marching into Africa. On 1 May 2008, U.S. naval forces launched the latest in a series of missile strikes on Somali insurgents and last September U.S. Air Force personnel came under fire while ferrying supplies to counter-insurgency forces in Mali. Now the Pentagon is hard at work creating a new U.S. military command for Africa—the Africa Command or Africom—to direct America’s rapidly expanding military involvement in Africa. And yet few people in the United States are even aware of America’s dangerous new military adventure on the African continent.
So what exactly is Africom and what exactly is the Pentagon up to in Africa? Africom—which is scheduled to become operational on 1 October 2008—is a new independent combatant command that will manage U.S. military activities on the entire African continent (with the exception of Egypt) which up until now has been handled by three separate U.S. commands: European Command, Central Command, and Pacific Command. It will oversee U.S. military operations including arms sales, military training programs, the implementation of base access agreements with nearly a dozen African countries that have agreed to host American troops in times of crisis, and U.S. naval operations in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. It will also take over control of the forces stationed at the new U.S. base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the headquarters for the U.S. Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. These are the troops that have conducted five attacks on Somalia since January 2007, culminating in the cruise missile strike on 1 May. Indeed, according to General “Kip” Ward, the African-American general who runs Africom, the Pentagon sees the U.S. Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa as the “model” for the kind of operations that Africom will be conducting all over Africa.
The chief purpose of the new command, according to General Ward and other U.S. military officers, is to protect the flow of oil and other resources to the United States—which now depends upon Africa for more than 20% of its oil imports, more than we get from the Middle East and which expects to get more than 25% by 2015—to bolster the military capabilities of friendly governments—particularly repressive and undemocratic regimes in oil-rich countries like Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea—and to counter the growing economic and political involvement of China. It is the clearest indication yet that Washington has come to rely almost solely on the unilateral use of military force to advance U.S. interests in Africa.
This strategy is inherently self-destructive and profoundly un-American. It will provoke greater political repression, violence, and economic chaos in Africa, particularly in the oil-rich states that the United States depends upon to fuel its economy, thus jeopardizing the oil supplies that it is supposed to protect. And when oil supplies are disrupted, it will condemn the men and women who serve in America’s armed services to fighting and dying in a futile effort to pacify oil-producing areas throughout the continent.
If the American people want to ensure that they will continue to get oil from Africa, we need to pursue a very different strategy toward Africa. Instead of encouraging repression, violence, and the plundering of Africa’s resources by corrupt and dictatorial regimes, the United States should be giving strong and consistent support to the people of Africa who are fighting with incredible bravery and courage for democratic and accountable government, economic equity, and the rule of law.
Repression and military intervention may keep the oil flowing for a time. But in the end they always fail and—when they fail—vital oil production will be cut off and America will face a real energy crisis. As the American military occupation of Iraq has clearly shown, military adventurism does not bring security, protect oil production, or create democratic government. Only a strategy that is based on a genuine partnership with the people of Africa and that respects their needs and interests will build a stable, dependable, and mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and the countries of Africa. Ultimately, this is our only hope of keeping the oil flowing.
* Daniel Volman is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. He is a specialist on U.S. military activities in Africa and the author of numerous articles and research reports.
