AFRICOM

This thesis contextualizes U.S. security policy in Africa by discussing the evolution of the strategic culture within U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). AFRICOM’s views on the relationship between security and development have changed substantially from the intellectual framework that spurred its creation in 2008. AFRICOM was intended to play a broad
interagency role and act as an enabler to U.S. development and diplomatic initiatives. Its policies, organizational structure and operations reflect the strategic reappraisals from post-Cold War development and civil engagement, to countering violent extremist organizations (VEOs), and toward an era of great power competition. This thesis assesses the evolution of AFRICOM’s strategic culture through theater security cooperation as a means of influence during declared great power competition. The first question set contextualizes AFRICOM’s role in security policy: how security policy is formulated, to what degree does policy involve interagency coordination, and how do disparities in capabilities and resources allow AFRICOM to define U.S. security policy? The second question set examines operational methods as an output of strategic culture: how does theater security cooperation impact U.S. access and influence and what are its potential effects on security and development? U.S. counterterrorism initiatives in West Africa from 2004 to present are examined as a longitudinal case study on AFRICOM’s strategic culture. Recent counterterrorism activities and
associated security sector assistance are responses that leverage AFRICOM’s culture and capabilities to preserve partnerships, access and influence. This trend is likely to prioritize traditional forms of military assistance over developmental initiatives within AFRICOM as it seeks reliable security partners to balance against the access and influence of malign actors and competition from Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

This study sought to investigate the geographic location and frequency distribution of three event types – violent events, nonviolent events, and events characterized by riots and protests – and the distribution of political and military events and death rates by region. We provided an assessment of various international interventions in Somalia between 2007 and 2017. Our results showed that violent events (N = 17,539, 86.9%) were by far the most common event type, followed by nonviolent events (N = 1,372, 6.8%), with riots and protests accounting for just N = 1,278 or 6.3% of total events. We found that almost one half (48.7%) of the events involved political or ethnic militias, and over 42.95% of events involved rebel forces, with slightly less than this accounted for by the government (40.2% of events) and 29.4% of the events involved civilians. The northern and central regions of Somalia registered the lowest number of events and fatalities, with most violent events and fatalities occurring in the southern regions. There was a burst of fatalities in 2010, and a steady increase in death rate from 2011 until 2017. External intervention has not halted this violence; instead, intervention has led to internal division in Somalia by subverting power dynamics, encouraging political polarization and radicalizing the insurgency and distribution of power, while lacking the resources and political will to sustain the preferred winning faction.

Uganda’s army, the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF), has been operating
on Sudanese territory since the late 1990s. From2002 to 2006, a bilateral agreement
between the governments in Khartoum and Kampala gave the Ugandan soldiers
permission to conduct military operations in Southern Sudan to eliminate the
Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Instead of conducting a successful
operation against Uganda’s most persistent rebels
who had withdrawn into
Sudanese territory and acted as a proxy force in Sudan’s civil war
the UPDF
conducted a campaign of abuse against Sudanese civilians. Drawing on extensive
fieldwork conducted over several years, this article documents local experiences of a
foreign army’s involvement in the brutal Sudanese civil war. It outlines why
continued operations of the UPDFoutside their borders recreate the same problem
they purport to be fighting: abuses of civilians. Since 2008, US military support for
the UPDF mission against the LRA has called into question the viability of
continued militarisation through an army that has committed widely documented
human rights abuses. The foreign military has not brought peace to the region.
Instead, it has made a peaceful environment less likely for residents of South Sudan.

This presentation explains why some terrorist groups--ISIS and Al Shabaab--become transnational threats whereas others do not. I argue that groups emerge when overlapping local struggles consolidate into one master social cleavage; and that these groups become transnational threats due to regional politics, specifically whether neighboring countries help them metastasize by weakening and destabilizing the originating country of the terrorist organization.

People also ask Is federal system suitable for Somalia? Since 2004, the country has moved toward a federal system, not because it is inherently better, Mohamed said, but because, "Somali people don't trust each other." ... It is the best form administration we can implement today in Somalia," Mohamed Nurani Bakar, a member of parliament, told IRIN.

One of the world’s largest military logistics contractors, Fluor Corporation, was in Tuzla last week looking for workers to fill its new contract to support the U.S. military in Liberia and Sierra Leone. At one level this is not news: For almost a decade and a half now thousands of people from Southeast Europe, and in particular Bosnia, have been recruited to work on U.S. bases in the Middle East, Central Asia, and East Africa. What is new is the context. While previous work focused on providing support for war and counterterrorism operations, the aim of this mission is to prevent the further spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa.

Split off from other U.S. regional commands, AFRICOM is the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) new command for Africa and this new customized organization offers enormous opportunities for the continent, particularly if it is able to fully harness the capabilities of the private sector to support its goal of enhancing African stability. The private sector has long supported international policies in Africa with logistics, peacekeeping support, peacekeeper training, demining, heavy aviation, security and many other services. With AFRICOM’s greater focus on African problems, it is likely that the unique capabilities of private companies will be utilized to an ever-greater degree to improve and expand policies that have been helping to provide stability to the African continent.

When I was first made aware of this film, and after seeing its rather misleading theatrical trailer at the cinema, I was taken with an overwhelming desire not to see it; all it looked like was another standard fare action film about the war on terror. 

However, my wife convinced me to give "Eye In The Sky" the benefit of the doubt, and off we went a month later to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon.  I went into the theatre, still prepared to be cynically judgemental, but after an hour and forty five minutes or so of well crafted tension, my opinion of the film had dramatically changed.

I was now convinced that what I had just watched was a slick piece of military sponsored propaganda, designed to win over audiences as to the necessity of extrajudicial killings of terrorists by drone strike, and remove political oversight from such military action.

Two things happened to change my initial perception of the film since the first viewing. 

First, I received a response from the British Ministry Of Defence to a Freedom Of Information Act request I had overconfidently submitted, regarding their involvement in the film, convinced that I would get a breakdown of funding and technical advice.  The response came back to the contrary, so after more digging and some well-given advice from a more experienced researcher, well versed in military and intelligence agency sponsorship of films, I looked at the most obvious indicator of state sponsorship, the special thanks section of the end credits.  This proved that my initial speculation had been unfounded; there did not appear to be any state sponsorship of the film.

This prompted my second re-assessment of my attitude towards the film.  I watched the film again on DVD. This time I was amazed, through the fresher eyes of the elapsed time between viewings, I realised that "Eye In The Sky" seemed to be simultaneously pushing two agendas. The clever direction of the film portrayed an almost pantomime-esque initiation of the audience through active participation in the tension unfolding on the screen, which I realised was why I had such an averse reaction to it on the first viewing.  My own personal stubbornness naturally causes me to dislike overt manipulation of this sort, but upon review, that's one of the most interesting things about this film...

http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2016/10/eye-in-sky-audience-participation_18.html

Operation Hermes is the dramatic sequel to the satirical novel War Under the Mango Tree. An economic crisis and rioting in the streets threaten to topple the government of the longtime American ally. Amid the turmoil, the country's aging autocrat looks to Beijing for support, raising fears in Washington of a new superpower rivalry emerging in Africa. A mysterious assassination attempt sends rivals scrambling for advantage, each hoping to occupy the executive mansion. With the country's future hanging in the balance, American spies, diplomats, and soldiers race against time and each other to get their candidate into power.

Special Forces have long captured people’s imaginations. Books, films, video games and news outlets propagate an image of heroism and mysticism – only added to by governments’ reticence to discuss their operations. The impact of this is that, while almost everyone knows or thinks they know what Special Forces are, few really know what they do.

When asked to present a paper based on the previous publication ‘God, Gold & Power’, I relished the chance because I believe that something is missing from the debate concerning the ‘Africa rising’ narrative...

This paper was kindly presented by Elena Filippova, Director of Research at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation, on behalf of Dr. John Bruni, Director SAGE International, Adelaide, South Australia, PANEL IV-6 NEOCOLONIALISM IN AFRICA: THE 21ST CENTURY, May 30, 2014

This study sought to investigate the geographic location and frequency distribution of three event types – namely violent events, nonviolent events, and events characterized by riots and protests – and the distribution of political and military events and death rates by region. We provided an assessment of various international interventions in Somalia between 2007 and 2017. Our results showed that violent events (N = 17,539, 86.9%) were by far the most common event type, followed by nonviolent events (N = 1,372, 6.8%), with riots and protests accounting for just N = 1,278 or 6.3% of total events. We found that almost one half (48.7%) of the events involved political or ethnic militias, and over 42.95% of events involved rebel forces, with slightly less than this accounted for by the government (40.2% of events) and 29.4% of the events involved civilians. The northern and central regions of Somalia registered the lowest number of events and fatalities, with most violent events and f...

There has been a growing acknowledgment that external interventions into the Global South too often fail to account for local agency, which has inspired innovative approaches seeking to better understand the processes of engagement between 'topdown' and 'bottom-up' forces that go beyond liberal peace discourses. Related to these discourses, recent years have seen a resurgence of strategic interest in Africa by the United States, as characterised by the creation of the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM). Regional institutions such as the African Union may be instrumental in legitimising the work of interveners, as is the increasing role of globally-networked civil society groups. One such undertaking is the multinational effort to eliminate the Ugandan rebels known as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and protect civilians in Central Africa. This thesis focuses on the regional Counter-LRA initiative, and critically examines both its military and civilian components, as well as the AFRICOM activities which are responsible for training and advising the bulk of the African Union's (mostly Ugandan) military task force. I employ the conceptual framework of hybridity in order to assess asymmetric power relations between and among the various actors involved. This research addresses a lack of scholarship that has failed to account for the lived experiences of locals currently affected by the LRA conflict and its international response. Moreover, it explores the political and historical context from which this effort originates-the considerable US military aid provided to Uganda. My arguments are threefold: 1) Despite the predominant academic critiques to the contrary, current Counter-LRA efforts are both militarily effective and locally legitimate; 2) In stark contrast, the US-Ugandan security relationship has deleterious consequences inside Uganda in terms of human rights and democratic accountability; 3) The role of civil society is a determining factor both in the emancipatory nature of Counter-LRA activities and why it differs from authoritarian trends in Uganda. This research contributes to broader understandings of the tensions between the liberal peace in Africa and the militarisation of US-Africa policy. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to assess the utility of the conceptual framework of hybridity against robust empirical fieldwork.

The Third Force is the dramatic conclusion of The Gisawi Chronicles. The Democratic Republic of Gisawi is on the verge of historic elections after the ousting of the county's longtime dictator. The fragile democracy is imperiled when an infamous warlord and his rebel army threaten to send the country into chaos. Meanwhile, superpower rivals are scheming for advantage, manipulating the presidential election, and claiming their share of the prize. When Colonel Louie Bigombe emerges as a surprise candidate, it's unclear who's supporting him and why. He must discover the truth as the campaign turns deadly for those he most wants to protect.

Protection has risen to prominence over the past decade in fields from humanitarian practice to military operations. Its rise, however, has been characterized by a lack of clarity over what it means in practice. This article attempts to discern the politics of protection by examining a specific case: the international effort to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army. It argues that the initiatives being mounted to protect civilians from the Lord's Resistance Army should be seen as efforts to constitute and experiment with new forms of transnational political authority, specifically unaccountable , militarized administration networks that bring together state, international, and substate actors and institutions.

Africa’s booming growth dynamics have drawn a renewed interest of its traditional Western trade partners, who felt their preferential relations threatened by the growing Chinese competition for access to the abundant strategic resources. The Chinese approach of combining trade in minerals with investments in large infrastructure projects to access the needed resources has transformed the traditional structure of the geopolitical rivalry on the continent. With the objectives of the geostrategic game shifting from territorial domination to political hegemony, oil and profits, the payoffs to different protagonists have become more complementary than mutually exclusive. As a result, new foreign actors seeking to use their own specific approaches to take advantage of the growing African trade and investment opportunities have emerged. In this article, we analyse the main patterns of global actors’ engagement with Africa, as well as shed some light on the way how Turkey has gotten involved in the continent. We hope to make sense of Turkey’s growing diplomatic and trade relationships with Africa in the context of the increasing competition for influence between Africa’s traditional Western partners and the emerging Asian global players. One of our goals is to ascertain whether Turkey’s engagement with Africa is something unique or bears resembles to other actors’ engagement.

The Ford Institute for Human Security and the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies hosted a panel discussion on September 7, 2011 to celebrate the recent publication of the book African Security and the US African Command. The book is based on the conference, “Conflict, Human Security and Energy: African Reaction to the New US-Africa Command,” held at University of Pittsburgh in March 2009.