In recent years, the US has quietly ramped up its military
presence across Africa, even if it officially insists its footprint on the
continent is light. For years, the United States Africa Command (known by the
acronym AFRICOM) has downplayed the size and scope of its missions on the
continent, and without large battalions of actual boots on the ground, as was
the case in Afghanistan and Iraq, you’d be forgiven for missing its unfolding. US
military officials are already starting to see Africa as the new battleground
for fighting extremism, and have begun to roll out a flurry of logistical
infrastructure and personnel from West to East – colloquially called the “ new
spice route” – and roughly tracing the belt of volatility on the southern
fringes of the Sahara Desert; the deployment to Cameroon is just the latest of
many.
Officially, the US has only one permanent base in Africa,
Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, headquarters of the Combined Joint Task Force -
Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA). Concrete figures on the number of troops stationed
there are sketchy, but various reports put it anything between 3,500 and 4,500
soldiers. It provides a vital base for US Special Forces, fighter planes and
helicopters, as well as serving as a base for drone operations into Somalia and
Yemen, and maritime surveillance in the Indian Ocean.
But the US has numerous other “temporary” bases across the
continent, and though on their own they seem small, together they are sweeping
and expansive, forming a seemingly endless string of engagements, projects and
operations. There are drone ports in the Indian Ocean island of Seychelles, off
the eastern coast of Africa, as well as in Ethiopia, in the southern region of
Arba Minch, that provide support for flying intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance missions. Nzara in South Sudan is another shadowy operating post
on the continent where U.S. Special Operations Forces have been stationed in
recent years. Other “temporary sites” sites including Obo and Djema in the
Central Africa Republic and Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). More
than anything, however, the US conducts military exercises, training missions
and advisory assignments with local African armies.
In 2014, the combined total of all US Africa Command
activities on the continent reached 674.
In other words, US 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 nearly a four-fold increase from the 172 “missions, activities,
programmes, and exercises” that AFRICOM inherited from other commands when it
began operations in 2008.
And it looks like the US is going to be in it for the long
haul. Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti is currently undergoing a $1.4billion upgrade, expanding everything
from aircraft maintenance hangars, ammunition shelters, runway and taxiway
extensions and accommodation facilities.
Since 2002, the camp
has grown from 88 acres to nearly 500 acres, and in 2013, 22 projects were
underway there, more than at any other
US Navy base anywhere in the world.
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