New Thinking On How AFRICOM Can Help Increase Stability (Strategic Studies Institute)

The Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute has just published what I think is an extremely interesting and insightful monograph about the kinds of engagement activities AFRICOM needs to consider in order to help increase stability in sub-Saharan Africa.

Titled, "Civilian Skills for African Military Officers to Resolve the Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Stability Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa," and authored by Diane Chido, this 56 page monograph contains "a good bit of good thinking" and should be required reading for anyone in the defense cooperation, defense partnership or security assistance communities that support African missions.  

Intelligence professionals should find this volume interesting as well for its exploration, in case-study format, of previous stability efforts in Africa.  The author highlights a number of indicators that probably aren't normally considered but seem to be highly relevant to any peacekeeping and stability operations in which the US might participate in Africa.

It is free to download here.  Worth checking out. 

(Full disclosure:  Diane is a friend and frequent co-author of mine.  I had nothing to do with this monograph, however (she wouldn't even let me see a draft...).  I first took a look at it today and was, as I usually am, impressed with her grasp of the issue and the quality of her recommendations.  As someone who spent several years working defense cooperation issues, I think she has hit the nail on the head.  While I may be biased, I still think that, if you work African issues at all, you owe it to yourself to read this book.)

Fast And Frugal Conflict Early Warning In Sub-Saharan Africa (Original Research)

Now that AFRICOM has officially stood up, there is likely to be a much greater emphasis on understanding the culture, economics, politics and seemingly inevitable conflicts of sub-Saharan Africa. While a number of authoritative sources are busy cranking out some really good products on Africa, simple, effective conflict early warning systems seem to be in short supply.

With this as background, one of Mercyhurst's graduate students, Bradley Perry, recently took a stab at trying to come up with such a system in his thesis, "Fast and Frugal Conflict Early Warning in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Intelligence Analysis."

Bradley was in a unique position to write this thesis. In the first place, he came to us a bit later in life than most grad students, having spent a number of years in Ghana. In addition, while technically here, he completed his strategic intelligence project (on local reactions to a planned expansion of a national park) from a tent in Malawi. He was in Kenya about the same time as the recent upheavals there and is now working for iJet (where he was a member of the iJet team that recently took a share of the prize at the ODNI's Open Source Conference).

Riffing on Gerd Gigerenzer's research (outlined in his fascinating book, Gut Feelings) regarding "fast and frugal" evaluative systems, Bradley went looking for "good enough" indicators of potential conflict that he could chain together to form a predictive model. He found three promising indicators in the literature, political freedom, ethnic homogeneity, and income inequality, and proceeded to build exactly what he wanted to build -- a fast and frugal model for conflict prediction for Sub-Saharan Africa.

He tested the model on previous conflicts and got reasonably good results. The model tended to overpredict conflict in some cases but never failed to predict confict where one ultimately occurred. He was also able to rank order the potential conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa by likelihood. Using recent data and plugging it into his model, he believes that, from most likely to least likely, Swaziland, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Eritrea, Chad, Guinea and Sudan will see violent conflict (See the map below from the thesis).


Beyond the model and the predictions it makes, the literature review on other early warning systems concerning Africa and on the validity of various indicators that predict conflict is definitely worth the read. It is an excellent work and, if interested, you can download the entire thesis here.

Related Posts:
Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa
Security Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa

AFRICOM Transition Likely Smoother Than Many Expect (ISN)

Mercyhurst grad student Shannon Ferrucci makes the case in an ISN report published today that AFRICOM's transition to full operational status is likely to be less dramatic than many have feared. According to her analysis, the issues relating to AFRICOM are well known by most and have likely already been factored into the equation by dissenters and proponents alike, making the 1 OCT 08 activation date important only in a ceremonial sense.

21st Century Marines In Africa (CETO, 2005 Report)

Another oldie but goodie. Written before the decision to form AFRICOM, this paper is a brief but fairly complete overview of the continent and the major international players and issues there (If you haven't already seen it, you can download the full text here via the CARL). As the authors at the Center For Emerging Threats And Opportunities out in Quantico indicate up front, "The purpose of this paper is to provide a continental overview, identify key actors, outline U.S. interests and strategies, address potential future roles for Marine forces there, and identify operational capabilities, doctrine, and training and education issues." The laundry list and descriptions of the Influential Actors In African Affairs Section is worth the price of admission.

Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests And The Role Of The U.S. Military In Africa (CRS)

The CRS has just published a new background brief on AFRICOM for the members of Congress. The report contains a good outline of the US's strategic interests in Africa, DOD's current proposal for the new command and a list of oversight issues for Congress as well as a good bit of background info including an annex on the 42 (!) instances of US armed forces intervention in Africa since 1950.

Here are some other highlights (Boldface and italics are mine):

• "In recent years, analysts and U.S. policymakers have noted Africa’s growing strategic importance to U.S. interests. Among those interests are Africa’s role in the Global War on Terror and potential threats posed by uncontrolled spaces; the growing importance of Africa’s natural resources, particularly energy resources; and ongoing concern for Africa’s many humanitarian crises, armed conflicts, and more general challenges, such as the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS."
  

• "DOD has signaled its intention to eventually locate AFRICOM on the continent, and U.S officials are consulting with strategic partners in the region to identify a suitable location for the command’s headquarters. The new command will operate from Stuttgart, Germany until facilities in Africa are secured. DOD has stressed that there are no plans to have a significant troop presence on the continent."

• "The 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa highlighted the threat of terrorism to U.S. interests on the continent. Political instability and civil wars have created vast ungoverned spaces, areas in which some experts allege that terrorist groups may train and operate. Instability also heightens human suffering and retards economic development, which may in turn threaten U.S. economic interests. Africa recently surpassed the Middle East as the United States’ largest supplier of crude oil, further emphasizing the continent’s strategic importance." (Yoikes!)

AFRICOM's Dilemma (Strategic Studies Institute)

The US Army's Strategic Studies Institute has just published an interesting monograph on some of the challenges facing AFRICOM as it stands up. Robert Berschinski, the author of the piece, has spent a good bit of time in Africa and talks about the Global War On Terror, capacity building, humanitarianism and the future of US security policy in Africa.

Highlights extracted from the Summary:

"AFRICOM’s proponents claim that the
new command accurately reflects Africa’s growing
strategic importance and an enlightened U.S. foreign
policy focused on supporting “African solutions to
African problems.” Its critics allege that the command
demonstrates a self-serving American policy focused
on fighting terrorism, securing the Africa’s burgeoning
energy stocks, and countering Chinese influence."

"Indeed, much African distrust is justified. Since
September 11, 2001 (9/11), the Department of Defense’s
(DoD) most significant endeavors in Africa have been
undertaken in pursuit of narrowly conceived goals
related to the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)."

"Though often tactically successful, these efforts—
against Algerian insurgents in North Africa and an
assortment of Islamists in Somalia—have neither
benefited American security interests nor stabilized
events in their respective regions."

"Misdirected analyses regarding
Africa’s sizable Muslim population, its overwhelming
poverty, and its numerous ungoverned spaces and
failed states further contribute to a distorted picture
of the terrorist threat emanating from the continent."

"Because of its pioneering incorporation of security,
development, and humanitarian functions into
one organization, AFRICOM may be particularly
susceptible to criticism if its sporadic “hard” operations
overshadow its “softer” initiatives."

"AFRICOM must demonstrate
its commitment to a long-term security relationship
on African terms."