2044 or Bust
The U.S. Military's Battlefield of Tomorrow
Military Missions Reach Record Levels After U.S. Inks Deal to Remain in Africa
for Decades
By Nick Turse
April 14, 2015 "ICH"
- "Tom
Dispatch" - For three days, wearing a kaleidoscope of
camouflage patterns, they huddled together on a military base in Florida. They
came from U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and U.S. Army Special
Operations Command, from France and Norway, from Denmark, Germany, and Canada:
13 nations in all. They came to plan a years-long “Special Operations-centric”
military campaign supported by conventional forces, a multinational undertaking
that -- if carried out -- might cost hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of
dollars and who knows how many lives.Ask the men
involved and they’ll talk about being mindful of “sensitivities” and “cultural
differences,” about the importance of “collaboration and coordination,” about
the value of a variety of viewpoints, about “perspectives” and “partnerships.”
Nonetheless, behind closed doors and unbeknownst to most of the people in their
own countries, let alone the countries fixed in their sights, a coterie of
Western special ops planners were sketching out a possible multinational
military future for a troubled region of Africa.
From January 13th to 15th, representatives from the U.S. and
12 partner nations gathered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa for an exercise
dubbed Silent Quest 15-1. The fictional scenario on which they were to play out
their war game had a ripped-from-the-headlines quality to it. It was an amalgam
of two perfectly real and ongoing foreign policy and counterterrorism disasters
of the post-9/11 era: the growth of
Boko Haram in Nigeria and the emergence of the Islamic State, also known as
the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL. The war game centered on the
imagined rise of a group dubbed the “Islamic State of Africa” and the spread of
its proto-caliphate over parts of
Nigeria,
Niger, and
Cameroon -- countries terrorized by the real Boko Haram, which did recently
pledge its allegiance to the Islamic State.
Silent Quest 15-1 was just the latest in a series of similarly
named exercises -- the first took place in March 2013 -- designed to help plot
out the special ops interventions of the next decade. This war game was no
paintball-style walk in the woods. There were no mock firefights, no dress
rehearsals. It wasn’t the flag football equivalent of battle. Instead, it was
a tabletop exercise building on something all too real: the ever-expanding
panoply of U.S. and allied military activities across ever-larger parts of
Africa. Speaking of that continent, Matt Pascual, a participant in Silent Quest
and the Africa desk officer for SOCOM’s Euro-Africa Support Group, noted that
the U.S. and its allies were already dealing with “myriad issues” in the region
and, perhaps most importantly, that many of the participating countries “are
already there.” The country “already there” the most is, of course, Pascual’s
own: the United States.
In recent years, the U.S. has been involved in a variety of
multinational interventions in Africa, including one in Libya that involved both
a
secret war and a
conventional campaign of missiles and air strikes,
assistance to French forces in the Central African Republic and Mali, and
the training and funding of African proxies to do battle against militant groups
like
Boko Haram as well as Somalia’s
al-Shabab
and Mali’s
Ansar al-Dine. In 2014, the U.S. carried out 674 military activities across
Africa, nearly two missions per day, an almost 300% jump in the number of annual
operations, exercises, and military-to-military training activities since U.S.
Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in 2008.
Despite this massive increase in missions and a similar
swelling of bases, personnel, and funding, the picture painted last month before
the Senate Armed Services Committee by AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez was
startlingly bleak. For all the American efforts across Africa, Rodriguez
offered a vision of a continent in crisis, imperiled from East to West by
militant groups that have developed, grown in strength, or increased their
deadly reach in the face of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
“Transregional terrorists and criminal networks continue to
adapt and expand aggressively,” Rodriguez told committee members. “Al-Shabab has
broadened its operations to conduct, or attempt to conduct, asymmetric attacks
against Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and especially Kenya. Libya-based threats
are growing rapidly, including an expanding ISIL presence... Boko Haram
threatens the ability of the Nigerian government to provide security and basic
services in large portions of the northeast.” Despite the grim outcomes since
the American military began “pivoting” to Africa after 9/11, the U.S. recently
signed an agreement designed to keep its troops based on the continent until
almost midcentury.
Mission Creep
For years, the U.S. military has publicly insisted that its
efforts in Africa are negligible, intentionally leaving the American people, not
to mention most Africans, in the dark about the true size, scale, and scope of
its operations there. AFRICOM public affairs personnel and commanders have
repeatedly claimed no more than a “light footprint” on the continent. They
shrink from talk of camps and outposts, claiming to have just one
base anywhere in Africa: Camp Lemonnier in the tiny nation of Djibouti.
They don’t like to talk about
military operations. They offer detailed
information
about only a tiny fraction of their training exercises. They
refuse to disclose the locations where personnel have been stationed or even
counts of the countries involved.
During an interview, an AFRICOM spokesman once expressed his
worry to me that even tabulating how many deployments the command has in Africa
would offer a “skewed image” of U.S. efforts. Behind closed doors, however,
AFRICOM’s officers speak quite a different language. They have repeatedly
asserted that the continent is an American “battlefield”
and that -- make no bones about it -- they are already embroiled in an actual “war.”
According to recently released figures from U.S. Africa
Command, the scope of that “war” grew dramatically in 2014. In its “posture
statement,” AFRICOM reports that it conducted 68 operations last year, up from
55 the year before. These included operations Juniper Micron and Echo Casemate,
missions focused on aiding French and African interventions in Mali and the
Central African Republic; Observant Compass, an effort to degrade or destroy
what’s left of Joseph Kony’s murderous Lord’s Resistance Army in central
Africa; and United Assistance, the deployment of military personnel to combat
the
Ebola crisis in West Africa.
The number of major joint field exercises U.S. personnel
engaged in with African military partners inched up from 10 in 2013 to 11 last
year. These included
African
Lion in Morocco,
Western Accord in Senegal,
Central Accord in Cameroon, and
Southern Accord in Malawi, all of which had a field training component and
served as capstone events for the prior year’s military-to-military instruction
missions.
AFRICOM also conducted
maritime security exercises including
Obangame Express in the
Gulf of Guinea, Saharan Express in the waters off Senegal, and three weeks
of maritime security training scenarios as part of
Phoenix Express 2014, with sailors from numerous countries including
Algeria, Italy, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey.
The number of security cooperation activities skyrocketed from
481 in 2013 to 595 last year. Such efforts included military training under a
“state partnership program” that teams African military forces with U.S.
National Guard units and the State Department-funded Africa Contingency
Operations Training and Assistance, or ACOTA, program through which U.S.
military advisers and mentors provide equipment and instruction to African
troops.
In 2013, the combined total of all U.S. activities on the
continent reached 546, an average of more than one mission per day. Last year,
that number leapt to 674. In other words, U.S. troops were carrying out almost
two operations, exercises, or activities -- from
drone strikes to
counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence gathering to marksmanship
training -- somewhere in Africa every day. This represents an enormous increase
from the 172 “missions, activities, programs, and exercises” that AFRICOM
inherited from other geographic commands when it began operations in 2008.
Transnational Terror Groups: Something From Nothing
In 2000, a report
prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies
Institute examined the “African security environment.” While it touched on
“internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as non-state
actors like militias and “warlord armies,” there was conspicuously no mention of
Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. Prior to 2001, in
fact, the United States did not recognize any terrorist organizations in
sub-Saharan Africa and a senior Pentagon official
noted
that the most feared Islamic militants on the continent had “not engaged in acts
of terrorism outside Somalia.”
In the wake of 9/11, even before AFRICOM was created, the U.S.
began ramping up operations across the continent in an effort to bolster the
counterterror capabilities of allies and insulate Africa from transnational
terror groups, namely globe-trotting Islamic extremists. The continent, in
other words, was seen as something of a clean slate for experiments in terror
prevention.
Billions of dollars have been pumped into Africa to build
bases, arm allies, gather intelligence, fight proxy wars, assassinate militants,
and conduct perhaps thousands of military missions -- and none of it has had its
intended effect. Last year, for example, Somali militants “either planned or
executed increasingly complex and lethal attacks in Somalia, Kenya, Uganda,
Djibouti, and Ethiopia,” according to AFRICOM. Earlier this month, those same
al-Shabab militants upped the ante by
slaughtering 142 students at a college in Kenya.
And al-Shabab’s deadly growth and spread has hardly been the
exception to the rule in Africa. In recent
testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, AFRICOM commander
Rodriguez rattled off the names of numerous Islamic terror groups that have
sprung up in the intervening years, destabilizing the very countries the U.S.
had sought to strengthen. While the posture statement he presented put the best
gloss possible on Washington’s military efforts in Africa, even a cursory
reading of it -- and under the circumstances, it’s worth quoting at length --
paints a bleak picture of what that “pivot” to Africa has actually meant on the
ground. Sections pulled from various parts of the document speak volumes:
“The network
of al-Qaeda and its affiliates and adherents continues to exploit Africa’s
under-governed regions and porous borders to train and conduct attacks. The
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is expanding its presence in North Africa.
Terrorists with allegiances to multiple groups are expanding their collaboration
in recruitment, financing, training, and operations, both within Africa and
trans-regionally. Violent extremist organizations are utilizing increasingly
sophisticated improvised explosive devices, and casualties from these weapons in
Africa increased by approximately 40 percent in 2014...
“In North and West Africa, Libyan and Nigerian insecurity increasingly threaten
U.S. interests. In spite of multinational security efforts, terrorist and
criminal networks are gaining strength and interoperability. Al-Qaeda in the
Lands of the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar al-Sharia, al-Murabitun, Boko Haram, the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and other violent extremist organizations
are exploiting weak governance, corrupt leadership, and porous borders across
the Sahel and Maghreb to train and move fighters and distribute resources...
“Libya-based threats to U.S. interests are growing… Libyan governance, security,
and economic stability deteriorated significantly in the past year… Today, armed
groups control large areas of territory in Libya and operate with impunity.
Libya appears to be emerging as a safe haven where terrorists, including
al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-affiliated groups, can train
and rebuild with impunity. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is
increasingly active in Libya, including in Derna, Benghazi, Tripoli, and Sebha...
“The spillover effects of instability in Libya and northern Mali increase risks
to U.S. interests in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, including the success
of Tunisia’s democratic transition...
“The security situation in Nigeria also declined in the past year. Boko Haram
threatens the functioning of a government that is challenged to maintain its
people’s trust and to provide security and other basic services… Boko Haram has
launched attacks across Nigeria’s borders into Cameroon, Chad, and Niger...
“...both the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo are
at risk of further destabilization by insurgent groups, and simmering ethnic
tensions in the Great Lakes region have the potential to boil over violently in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
All this, mind you, is AFRICOM’s own assessment of the
situation on the continent on which it has focused its efforts for the better
part of a decade as U.S. missions there soared. In this context, it’s worth
reemphasizing that, before the U.S. ramped up those efforts, Africa was -- by
Washington’s own estimation -- relatively free of transnational Islamic terror
groups.
Tipping the Scales in Africa
Despite Boko Haram’s
pledge
of allegiance to the Islamic State and
scare
headlines
lamenting their merger or conflating those or other brutal terror outfits
operating under similar
monikers, there is currently no real
Islamic State of Africa. But the war game carried out at MacDill Air Force
Base in January against that fictional group is far from fantasy, representing
as it does the next logical step in a series of operations that have been
gaining steam since AFRICOM’s birth. And buried in the command’s 2015 Posture
Statement is actual news that signals a continuation of this trajectory into the
2040s.
In May 2014, the U.S. reached an agreement -- it’s called an
“implementing arrangement” -- with the government of Djibouti “that secures
[its] presence” in that country “through 2044.” In addition, AFRICOM officers
are now
talking about the possibility of building a string of surveillance outposts
along the northern tier of the continent. And don’t forget how, over the past
few years, U.S. staging areas, mini-bases, and airfields have popped up in the
contiguous nations of Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and -- skipping
Chad (where AFRICOM recently built temporary facilities for a special ops
exercise) -- the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and
Ethiopia. All of this suggests that the U.S. military is digging in for the
long haul in Africa.
Silent Quest 15-1 was designed as a model to demonstrate just
how Washington will conduct “Special Operations-centric” coalition warfare in
Africa. It was, in fact, designed to align, wrote Gunnery Sergeant Reina
Barnett in SOCOM’s trade publication Tip of the Spear, with the “2020
planning guidance of Army Maj. Gen. James Linder, commander of Special
Operations Command Africa.” And the agreement with Djibouti demonstrates that
the U.S. military is now beginning to plan for almost a quarter-century beyond
that. But, if the last six years -- marked by a 300% increase in U.S. missions
as well as the spread of terror groups and terrorism in Africa -- are any
indicator, the results are likely to be anything but pleasing to Washington.
AFRICOM commander David Rodriguez continues to put the best
face on U.S. efforts in Africa, citing “progress in several areas through close
cooperation with our allies and partners.” His command’s assessment of the
situation, however, is remarkably bleak. “Where our national interests compel
us to tip the scales and enhance collective security gains, we may have to do
more -- either by enabling our allies and partners, or acting unilaterally,”
reads the posture statement Rodriguez delivered to that Senate committee.
After more than a decade of increasing efforts, however,
there’s little evidence that AFRICOM has the slightest idea how to tip the
scales in its own favor in Africa.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of
TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. A 2014
Izzy Award and
American
Book Award winner for his book
Kill Anything That Moves, he has reported from the Middle East,
Southeast Asia, and Africa and his pieces have appeared in the New York
Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Nation, and
regularly at TomDispatch. His latest book,
Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa (Haymarket
Books), will soon be published.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook.
Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Rebecca Solnit's Men
Explain Things to Me, and Tom Engelhardt's latest book, Shadow
Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a
Single-Superpower World.
Copyright 2015 Nick Turse