Published 16 Sep 08

Strategic Interests

by J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
World Defense Review columnist

Engaging Maritime Africa

In just two weeks, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), after operating for a year under the aegis of the European Command (EUCOM), will achieve independent unified status as America's newest regionally-focused military headquarters. Its mission is defined according to the statement approved in May by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates:

The United States Africa Command, in concert with other U.S. government agencies and international partners, conducts sustained security engagement through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.

What, then, are the key strategic interests which drive American foreign policy in Africa which AFRICOM's engagements will be expected to support?

The first is the ongoing global war on terrorism and the potential of Africa's poorly governed spaces being exploited to provide facilitating environments, recruits, and eventual targets for Islamist terrorists. As the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America noted, "Weak states ... can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states. Poverty does not make poor people into terrorists and murderers. Yet poverty, weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders." With the possible exception of the Greater Middle East, nowhere is this analysis truer than Africa where, as the document went on to acknowledge, regional conflicts arising from a variety of causes, including poor governance, external aggression, competing claims, internal revolt, and ethnic and religious tensions all "lead to the same ends: failed states, humanitarian disasters, and ungoverned areas that can become safe havens for terrorists" – deadly realities underscored by the increased terrorist attacks of "al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM) and the ongoing insurgency of al-Qaeda-linked Islamists in the territory of the former Somali Democratic Republic, both of which I have recently chronicled in this column space.

The second is access to hydrocarbons and other natural resources which Africa has in abundance. In his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush called for the United States to "replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025" and to "make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Last year, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, African countries accounted for more of America's petroleum imports than the states of the Persian Gulf region: 969,722,000 barrels (19.8 percent) versus 791,928,000 barrels (16.1 percent). While production fluctuates, the significance of Africa for America's energy security cannot be underestimated.

While, as I have had occasion to report here, other countries (including China, India, Japan, and Russia) have been attracted by the African continent's natural wealth and recently increased their own engagements there – a fact which ought to be cause for concern on the part of U.S. policymakers – even more preoccupying is the vulnerability of those assets. While African hydrocarbons, especially those from the West African producers along the Atlantic Ocean, are particularly attractive to American companies for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the higher marginal profit rates to be made per unit, both because of ease in extraction and transport and because, in the case of oil, the quality of the crude is particularly adapted to U.S. refineries, especially the light or "sweet" crude, which is preferred by refiners because it is largely free of sulfur, as I noted three months ago, increasingly sophisticated offshore attacks by small groups with local grievances like the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), heighten the risk of serious disruption at a time when the global markets are already stretched to capacity. Thus it is entirely appropriate that, alongside the predominantly Army-led initiatives like the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Program (TSCTP) and other land-based engagements, there also be within AFRICOM's capabilities a significant maritime component led by the U.S. Navy.

To date the most significant naval contribution to has been the Africa Partnership Station (APS), a part of Navy's "Global Fleet Station" initiative which is designed to provide a platform with the capacity and persistent presence to support training and other partnership efforts in parts of the world where access and sustainment have historically been challenging. Building on progressively more intense engagements dating back to July 2004, when the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise led a battle group of some thirty vessels from nine countries, including Morocco, in exercises off the western coast of Africa as part of worldwide "Summer Pulse '04" deployment, APS is designed to promote maritime safety and security in Africa through a collaborative effort focusing, at least initially on the Gulf of Guinea.

The maiden voyage of APS, which concluded this past April, involved the six month deployment of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry, accompanied by HSV-2 Swift, included eighteen ports of call in ten countries, during which U.S. personnel provided shipboard training to more than 1,700 officers and sailors from partner nations in everything from small boat handling, port security, and maintenance to non-commissioned officer leadership and international maritime law. Working with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as nongovernmental organizations like the medical relief group Project HOPE, the Fort McHenry delivered one million high-nutritional meals, twenty-five pallets of medical, hygiene and educational supplies, along with hospital beds and other medical equipment valued at over $100,000, donated through the Navy's Project Handclasp. During their port visits, sailors and other APS personnel used their liberty time to participate in some twenty-three community relations projects ranging from building tables for a school to painting a clinic.

During part of the Fort McHenry-led inaugural deployment of APS, the naval presence off Africa was also augmented by the Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Annapolis, which became the first U.S. submarine ever to make a visit to Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS San Jacinto. Altogether, the first APS voyage included visits to Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Togo.

Over the summer, APS was continued with the two-month deployment of the Hamilton-class cutter USCGC Dallas, which visited Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Senegal. The voyage was a return to African waters for the commanding officer of the Dallas, Coast Guard Captain Robert P. Wagner, who commanded the medium endurance cutter USCGC Bear during a deployment to the Gulf of Guinea in 2005. During the most recent voyage, the emphasis was on partnerships to help expand the maritime domain awareness of African nations in their 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs). For example, in Cape Verde, a country which I characterized earlier this year as one of "Africa's rare boot-strapping successes," this in meant embarking a local law enforcement detachment for a ten-day patrol of the island republic's EEZ. During the period, six suspicious vessels were stopped, including three where the Cape Verdean personnel led the boarding parties. The maneuvers in Cape Verde also involved partnering with the French Navy, which provided a liaison officer onboard the Dallas as well as maritime patrol aircraft which joined U.S. Navy P-3s in providing monitoring and detection support. Later during the cruise, the crew of the Dallasprovided technical assistance to their counterparts in Ghana to help with the maintenance of two decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard vessels, the Woodrush and the Sweetbriar, which were transferred to the Ghanaian Navy in 2001 and 2002, respectively. In a roundtable with bloggers organized last month by the Pentagon, Captain Wagner observed regarding the value of the deployment:

I think it has been, again, just a fantastic experience. Three years ago I came down to this part of the world; to be able to come back and just to see the changes that have been made. And I think what I've been able to see is that these reoccurring engagements, like APS, really do make a difference; Cape Verde in particular. Repetitive visits by U.S. ships, some of our allied partners going on, helping to train up the Cape Verde coast guard in a classroom or a static environment within the harbor, and then be able to take the next step and conduct operations at sea; going into Equatorial Guinea, again, just seeing tremendous growth and seeing their navy grow from what was a couple of patrol boats to now – we actually got underway with an exercise where they had five boats that got underway with us for the exercises.

Currently, the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Elrod is in West African waters in support of APS. The Norfolk, Virginia-based ship is expected to arrive in Lagos, Nigeria, later this week to participate in a joint search-and-rescue training exercise with the Nigerian Navy. Last week, during a call at Mindelo, Cape Verde, the Elrod's sailors responded to a call for assistance from Cape Verdean officials when fire broke out in the Port Authority building and successfully prevented the blaze from spreading to surrounding buildings. The upcoming exercise in Nigeria will help test the West African country's newly installed Regional Maritime Awareness Capability and Automated Identification System (RMAC/AIS).

Even if the primary motivating national interest, from the American perspective, is to secure access to energy resources, the engagement initiatives like APS also strengthen the capacity of partners to deal with a host of challenges which represent priorities for them, including such maritime domain vulnerabilities as piracy, criminal enterprises, and poaching (see my column last year on "Securing the New Strategic Gulf" as well as my piece on "The Security Challenge of West Africa's New Drug Depots"). Moreover, the APS concept is rather constructive in a number of important respects.

First, by literally floating offshore, APS does not require a territorial footprint. This avoids the whole question of basing which, however regrettably, has bedeviled AFRICOM with various African countries – including some which would never be considered for logistical reasons – expressing reservations about hosting the new command. Within certain limits, APS can both provide continuing engagement and avoid ongoing tensions which are, respectively, the inherent advantage and disadvantage, of in-country missions.

Second, the flexible platform allows APS to adapt to the availability (or lack thereof) of resources, needs, and interests. As witnessed by the differing outreach projects carried out by the personnel and ships in the first year of APS, engagement can be tailored to requirements of each nation, especially some of the smaller ones which, for obvious geopolitical reasons, are likely to be the most open to partnering with the United States. What is critical, however, is that the training given is what is requested the host countries, rather than simply the dispensing what is available.

Third, while currently being piloted only off the Atlantic coast of Africa, there is not reason why it cannot be developed also in the Indian Ocean waters off the continent's eastern littoral where, as I reported last month, piracy is on the rise even while the maritime capabilities of African countries affected are virtually nonexistent. Since the threat, especially from Somali pirates, is one that affects many nations, the architecture of APS readily permits their incorporation into the eventual response.

Fourth, the joint as well as interagency framework of APS is a proof of concept for AFRICOM's vision of a more integrated command and staff structure that includes representation of State Department, USAID, and other U.S. government agency personnel serving alongside military personnel. Both APS and AFRICOM should be encouraged to expand the participation personnel from civilian agencies since strategic success depends on the whole-of-government approach to security and stability – which in turn require synchronization and integration of activities in the common furtherance of the national interest.

Fifth, Project Handclasp, which accepts and transports educational, humanitarian, and other material overseas on a space-available basis on U.S. Navy vessels, and the cooperation of APS with Project HOPE are likewise demonstrations of the potential partnerships which AFRICOM might strike with nongovernmental and other charitable organizations in furtherance of shared objectives.

Sixth, while they have largely not lived up to their promise, Africa's multilateral institutions are nonetheless increasingly valued by African leaders and peoples. While APS engagements have thus far been bilateral, the structure itself can be adapted to strengthen the capacities of regional and subregional organizations, especially in maritime matters where they need assistance even more desperately than they need it with peacekeeping duties onshore (see my report last year on "Too Few Good Men – and Even Fewer Supplies: The Challenge of African Peacekeeping"). While the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is one of the more effective subregional groupings within the African Union, the twenty-five member Maritime Organization of West and Central Africa (MOWCA), established in 1975, is virtually inoperative (although that has not stopped it from providing sinecures for hundreds of people at its headquarters in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire). Down the road, APS, in cooperation with interested international agencies like the International Maritime Organization, might serve to help jump start multilateral bodies like MOWCA.

Seventh, the explicit effort to engage not only African countries, but also European allies, is a significant advantage. The former colonial powers – especially France, Great Britain, and Portugal – have historical memory, cultural awareness, and operational knowledge about the Africa theatre which U.S. personnel would benefit immensely from having access to.

While Africa Partnership Station will not provide the answer for all the security dilemma which AFRICOM will face in trying to facilitate a secure and stable environment conducive to the achievement of American policy objectives on the continent, it does present a model of how a joint and interagency approach might contribute to forging regional partnerships which not only further our interests, but also those of Africans, thereby, as I argued previously, "anchoring Sub-Saharan Africa firmly in America's moral and political orbit before our enemies, state and non-state alike, can exploit the continent's weaknesses in their war against us."

— J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.

Dr. Pham is the author of over two hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).

In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review Online's military blog, The Tank.

© 2008 J. Peter Pham

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