The establishment and implications of the United States-Africa Command: An African perspective

This paper is designed to describe and evaluate the foreign policy making of the United States (US) in relation to Africa, and also to offer an early assessment of the nature, leadership, features and purposes of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) from an African perspective. It explores how AFRICOM is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policy File 2009
Main Author: Mesfin, Berouk
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
Foreign policy
Institute for Security Studies
National security
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:This paper is designed to describe and evaluate the foreign policy making of the United States (US) in relation to Africa, and also to offer an early assessment of the nature, leadership, features and purposes of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) from an African perspective. It explores how AFRICOM is supposed to oversee security and conduct military operations, when necessary. The paper also examines whether AFRICOM will pick its way through a minefield of misunderstandings in both the US and Africa, and worsen or improve Africa's environment of peace and security. It advances the argument that AFRICOM is a combatant command set up by the US in an attempt to make more efficient its diplomatic and military activities in Africa. Yet, AFRICOM has unintentionally come to be regarded by many Africans as an unsettling militarisation of US-Africa relations which will only compound their continent's multifaceted problems.