Washington, D.C. — The United States' new African military command structure – Africom – will neither base nor deploy U.S. forces on the African continent, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Teresa Whelan said Thursday.
Whelan was speaking at an American Enterprise Institute conference in Washington, D.C.
She said that apart from the "forward operating site" which the U.S. Defense Department had been operating in Djibouti since 2002, "we will have no bases… and we will not be deploying U.S. forces on the African continent."
However, Africom as a command structure "will have a presence… in the form of staff officers" throughout Africa, she added. Nevertheless, "no more than 20 percent of the entire command will actually be physically present on the African continent."
Whelan also noted that a significant percentage of the command staff would be civilians from other departments such as the U.S. State Department, the Treasury, the Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The conference, entitled "Africom: Implications for African Security and U.S.-African Relations" brought together experts from the United States and Africa.
Conference participants addressed recent criticism of Africom, including a recent statement in which South African defense minister Mosiuoa Lekota said the Southern African Development Community was opposed to hosting Africom.
"We don't want to be any place that doesn't want us," Whelan said, but having staff based on the continent would help manage the "tyranny of distance" that results from being out of touch with activities on the ground.
"The biggest concern of the DOD [Department of Defense] is not how to get involved in Africa, but how to stay out of Africa," Whelan said.
Linda Thomas Greenfield of the State Department said Africom will help address multi-faceted security threats in Africa, including "terrorism, wars and internal instability, the presence of militia, transport of narcotics and arms, religious intolerance, corruption, and poverty."
"Africom is not about dropping military troops on Africa," she added, or "competing with China."
The announcement of Africom has been met with skepticism in Africa, and retired U.S. Air Force General James L. Jamerson of the Lockheed Martin Corporation acknowledged that "the key is acceptance in Africa" but that "we have a ways to go."
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Lieutenant General Tsadkan Gebretensae of the Center for Policy Research and Dialogue in Addis Ababa said the skepticism is "legitimate" and warned that African and American security priorities are not necessarily the same.
General Tsadkan warned against a "huge military presence" that could "bring [back] memories of colonialism." It would be best to "go slow" and "build trust," he said.
Former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said the announcement of Africom "took me completely by surprise."
He was, he said, "still not absolutely convinced that it's a good idea, but it is there and I believe it can be made into a good thing," citing the "success story" of the United States' part in peacekeeping in Liberia.
Wolfowitz addressed African skepticism to Africom by noting that "it wasn't Africans themselves who brought all this horrible conflict to the subcontinent… the U.S. and the Soviet Union had a fairly big role in supporting their various allies in the Cold War."
He said the effects of U.S. support for former Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko provides a "fairly understandable" reason for African reluctance to see the American military on their soil.
