{"id":67194,"date":"2015-12-07T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=67194"},"modified":"2015-12-04T14:40:23","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T14:40:23","slug":"does-eleven-plus-one-equal-sixty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/12\/does-eleven-plus-one-equal-sixty\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Eleven Plus One Equal Sixty?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. military has built an extensive archipelago of African outposts, transforming the continent into a laboratory for a new kind of war.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"(Photo:<\/a>

(Photo: U.S. Department of Defense | Flickr) Nick Turse<\/p><\/div>\n

In the shadows of what was once called the \u201cdark continent,\u201d a scramble has come and gone. If you heard nothing about it, that was by design. But look hard enough and\u2014north to south, east to west\u2014you\u2019ll find the fruits of that effort: a network of bases, compounds, and other sites whose sum total exceeds the number of nations on the continent. For a military that has stumbled from Iraq to Afghanistan and suffered setbacks from Libya to Syria, it\u2019s a rare can-do triumph. In remote locales, behind fences and beyond the gaze of prying eyes, the U.S. military has built an extensive archipelago of African outposts, transforming the continent, experts say, into a laboratory for a new kind of war.<\/p>\n

So how many U.S. military bases are there in Africa?\u00a0 It\u2019s a simple question with a simple answer. For years, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) gave a stock response<\/a>: one. Camp Lemonnier in the tiny, sun-bleached nation of Djibouti was America\u2019s only acknowledged \u201cbase\u201d on the continent.\u00a0It wasn\u2019t true, of course, because there were camps, compounds, installations, and facilities elsewhere, but the military leaned hard on semantics.<\/p>\n

Take a look at the Pentagon\u2019s official list of bases, however, and the number grows.\u00a0The 2015 report on the Department of Defense\u2019s global property portfolio lists Camp Lemonnier and three other deep-rooted sites on or near the continent:\u00a0U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3<\/a>, a medical research facility in Cairo, Egypt, that was established in 1946; Ascension Auxiliary Airfield, a spacecraft tracking station and airfield located 1,000 miles off the coast of West Africa that has been used by the U.S. since 1957; and warehouses at the airport and seaport in Mombasa, Kenya, that were built in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s only the beginning, not the end of the matter.\u00a0For years, various reporters<\/a>\u00a0have shed light on hush-hush\u00a0outposts<\/a>\u2014most of them built, upgraded, or expanded since 9\/11\u2014dotting the continent, including so-called cooperative security locations<\/a>\u00a0(CSLs). Earlier this year, AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez\u00a0disclosed<\/a>\u00a0that there were actually 11 such sites.\u00a0Again, devoted AFRICOM-watchers knew that this, too, was just the start of a larger story, but when I asked Africa Command for a list of bases, camps and other sites, as I periodically have done, I was treated like a sap.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all, AFRICOM has access to 11 CSLs across Africa. Of course, we have one major military facility on the continent: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti,\u201d Anthony Falvo, AFRICOM\u2019s Public Affairs chief, told me.\u00a0Falvo was peddling numbers that both he and I know perfectly well are, at best, misleading. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the most troubling aspects of our military policy in Africa, and overseas generally, that the military can\u2019t be, and seems totally resistant to being, honest and transparent about what it\u2019s doing,\u201d says David Vine, author of\u00a0Base Nation<\/em><\/a>: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Research by\u00a0TomDispatch\u00a0<\/em>indicates that in recent years the U.S. military has, in fact, developed a remarkably extensive network of more than 60 outposts and access points in Africa.\u00a0Some are currently being utilized, some are held in reserve, and some may be shuttered.\u00a0These bases, camps, compounds, port facilities, fuel bunkers, and other sites can be found in at least 34 countries\u2014more than 60 percent of the nations on the continent\u2014many of them\u00a0corrupt<\/a>,\u00a0 repressive<\/a>\u00a0states<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0poor<\/a>\u00a0human rights<\/a>\u00a0records.\u00a0The U.S. also operates \u201cOffices of Security Cooperation and Defense Attach\u00e9 Offices in approximately 38 [African] nations,\u201d according to Falvo, and has struck close to 30 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers.<\/p>\n

There is no reason to believe that even this represents a complete accounting of America\u2019s growing archipelago of African outposts.\u00a0Although it\u2019s possible that a few sites are being counted twice due to AFRICOM\u2019s failure to provide basic information or clarification, the list\u00a0TomDispatch<\/em>\u00a0has developed indicates that the U.S. military has created a network of bases that goes far beyond what AFRICOM has disclosed to the American public, let alone to Africans.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/a>

U.S. military outposts, port facilities, and other areas of access in Africa, 2002-2015 (Nick Turse TomDispatch, 2015)<\/p><\/div>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s Base Bonanza<\/strong><\/p>\n

When AFRICOM became an independent command in 2008, Camp Lemonnier was reportedly still one of the few American outposts on the continent.\u00a0In the years since, the U.S. has embarked on nothing short of a building boom\u2014even if the command is loath to refer to it in those terms.\u00a0As a result, it\u2019s now able to carry out increasing numbers of overt and covert missions, from training exercises to drone assassinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAFRICOM, as a new command, is basically a laboratory for a different kind of warfare and a different way of posturing forces,\u201d says Richard Reeve, the director of the\u00a0Sustainable Security Programm<\/a>e<\/a>\u00a0at the\u00a0Oxford Research Group<\/a>, a London-based think tank.\u00a0\u201cApart from Djibouti, there\u2019s no significant stockpiling of troops, equipment, or even aircraft.\u00a0There are a myriad of \u2018lily pads\u2019 or small forward operating bases\u2026 so you can spread out even a small number of forces over a very large area and concentrate those forces quite quickly when necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, U.S. staging areas, cooperative security locations, forward operating locations (FOLs), and other outposts\u2014many of them involved in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities and Special Operations missions\u2014have been built (or built up) in\u00a0Burkina Faso<\/a>, Cameroon<\/a>, the\u00a0Central African Republic<\/a>,\u00a0 Chad<\/a>, Djibouti<\/a>,\u00a0 Ethiopia<\/a>,\u00a0Gabon<\/a>,Ghana<\/a>,\u00a0Kenya<\/a>,\u00a0Mali<\/a>,\u00a0Niger<\/a>,\u00a0Senegal<\/a>,\u00a0the Seychelles<\/a>,\u00a0Somalia<\/a>,\u00a0South Sudan<\/a>, and\u00a0Uganda<\/a>.\u00a0A 2011 report by Lauren Ploch,<\/em>\u00a0an analyst in African affairs\u00a0with the Congressional Research Service, also mentioned U.S. military access to locations in Algeria, Botswana, Namibia, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and\u00a0Pr\u00edncipe, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and Zambia.\u00a0AFRICOM failed to respond to scores of requests by this reporter for further information about its outposts and related matters, but an analysis of open source information, documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and other records show a persistent, enduring, and growing U.S. presence on the continent.<\/p>\n

\u201cA cooperative security location is just a small location where we can come in\u2026 It would be what you would call a very austere location with a couple of warehouses that has things like: tents, water, and things like that,\u201d explained AFRICOM\u2019s Rodriguez. As he implies, the military doesn\u2019t consider CSLs to be \u201cbases,\u201d but whatever they might be called, they are more than merely a few tents and cases of bottled water.<\/p>\n

Designed to accommodate about 200 personnel, with runways suitable for C-130 transport aircraft, the sites are primed for conversion from temporary, bare-bones facilities into something more enduring. At least three of them in Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon are apparently designed to facilitate faster deployment for a rapid reaction unit with a mouthful of a moniker: Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa (SPMAGTF-CR-AF<\/a>).\u00a0Its forces are\u00a0based<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Mor\u00f3n<\/a>, Spain, and Sigonella, Italy, but are focused on Africa.\u00a0They rely heavily on MV-22 Ospreys,\u00a0tilt-rotor<\/a>\u00a0aircraft that can take-off, land, and hover like helicopters, but fly with the speed and fuel efficiency of a turboprop plane.<\/p>\n

This combination of manpower, access, and technology has come to be known in the military by the moniker \u201cNew Normal<\/a>.\u201d Birthed<\/a>\u00a0in the wake of the September 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the New Normal effectively allows the U.S. military quick access 400 miles inland from any CSL or, as Richard Reeve notes, gives it \u201ca reach that extends to just about every country in West and Central Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concept was\u00a0field-tested<\/a>\u00a0as South Sudan plunged into civil war and 160 Marines and sailors from\u00a0Mor\u00f3n\u00a0were forward deployed to Djibouti in late 2013.\u00a0 Within hours, a contingent from that force was sent to Uganda and, in early 2014, in conjunction with another rapid reaction unit, dispatched to South Sudan to evacuate 20 people from the American embassy in Juba.\u00a0 Earlier this year, SPMAGTF-CR-AF ran trials at its African staging areas including the CSL in Libreville, Gabon, deploying nearly 200 Marines and sailors along with four Ospreys, two C-130s, and more than 150,000 pounds of materiel.<\/p>\n

A similar test run was carried out at the Senegal CSL located at Dakar-Ouakam Air Base, which can also host 200 Marines and the support personnel necessary to sustain and transport them.\u00a0\u201cWhat the CSL offers is the ability to forward-stage our forces to respond to any type of crisis,\u201d Lorenzo Armijo, an operations officer with SPMAGTF-CR-AF, told a military reporter. \u201cThat crisis can range in the scope of military operations from embassy reinforcement to providing humanitarian assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another CSL, mentioned in a July 2012 briefing by U.S. Army Africa, is located in\u00a0Entebbe<\/a>, Uganda.\u00a0From there, according to a\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>investigation, U.S. contractors have flown surveillance missions using innocuous-looking turboprop airplanes.\u00a0\u201cThe AFRICOM strategy is to have a very light touch, a light footprint, but nevertheless facilitate special forces operations or ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] detachments over a very wide area,\u201d Reeve says. \u201cTo do that they don\u2019t need very much basing infrastructure, they need an agreement to use a location, basic facilities on the ground, a stockpile of fuel, but they also can rely on private contractors to maintain a number of facilities so there aren\u2019t U.S. troops on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/a>

U.S. Army Africa briefing slide from 2012 detailing work at the Entebbe CSL<\/p><\/div>\n

The Outpost Archipelago<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFRICOM ignored my requests for further information on CSLs and for the designations of other outposts on the continent, but\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to a 2014 article in\u00a0Army Sustainment<\/em>\u00a0on \u201cOvercoming Logistics Challenges in East Africa,\u201d there are also \u201cat least nine forward operating locations, or FOLs.\u201d\u00a0A 2007 Defense Department news release referred to an FOL in Charichcho, Ethiopia.\u00a0The U.S. military also utilizes \u201cForward Operating Location Kasenyi\u201d in Kampala, Uganda. A 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office\u00a0mentioned<\/a>\u00a0forward operating locations<\/a>\u00a0in Isiolo and Manda Bay, both in Kenya.<\/p>\n

Camp Simba in Manda Bay has, in fact, seen significant expansion in recent years.\u00a0In 2013, Navy Seabees, for example,\u00a0worked<\/a>\u00a024-hour shifts to extend its runway to enable larger\u00a0aircraft<\/a>\u00a0like C-130s to land there, while other projects were initiated to accommodate\u00a0greater numbers of troops in the future, including increased fuel and potable water storage, and more latrines.\u00a0The base serves as a home away from home for Navy personnel and Army Green Berets among other U.S. troops and, as recently\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0at the Intercept<\/em>, plays an integral role in the secret\u00a0drone assassination<\/a>\u00a0program aimed at militants in neighboring Somalia as well as in Yemen.<\/p>\n

Drones have played an increasingly large role in this post-9\/11 build-up in Africa.\u00a0MQ-1 Predators have, for instance, been based in Chad\u2019s capital, N\u2019Djamena<\/a>, while their newer, larger, more far-ranging cousins,\u00a0MQ-9 Reapers<\/a>, have been\u00a0flown<\/a>\u00a0out of Seychelles International Airport.\u00a0As of June 2012,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0Intercept<\/em>, two contractor-operated drones, one Predator and one Reaper, were based in\u00a0Arba Minch<\/a>, Ethiopia, while a detachment with one\u00a0Scan Eagle<\/a>\u00a0(a low-cost drone used by the Navy) and a remotely piloted helicopter known as an\u00a0MQ-8 Fire Scout<\/a>\u00a0operated off the coast of East Africa.\u00a0 The U.S. also recently began setting up a\u00a0base<\/a>\u00a0in Cameroon for unarmed Predators to be used in the battle against Boko Haram militants.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/a>

U.S. Army Africa briefing slide from 2013 obtained by TomDispatch via the Freedom of Information Act<\/p><\/div>\n

In February 2013, the U.S. also began\u00a0flying<\/a>\u00a0Predator drones out of Niger\u2019s capital,\u00a0Niamey<\/a>. A year later, Captain Rick Cook, then chief of U.S. Africa Command\u2019s Engineer Division,\u00a0mentioned<\/a>\u00a0the potential for a new \u201cbase-like facility\u201d that would be \u201csemi-permanent\u201d and \u201ccapable of air operations\u201d in that country.\u00a0That September, the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s Craig Whitlock exposed<\/a>\u00a0plans to base drones at a second location there, Agadez.\u00a0Within days, the U.S. Embassy in Niamey\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that AFRICOM was, indeed, \u201cassessing the possibility of establishing a temporary, expeditionary contingency support location in Agadez, Niger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Captain Rodney Worden of AFRICOM\u2019s Logistics and Support Division mentioned \u201ca partnering and capacity-building project\u2026 for the Niger Air Force and Armed Forces in concert with USAFRICOM and [U.S.] Air Forces Africa to construct a runway and associated work\/life support area for airfield operations.\u201d\u00a0And when the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 was\u00a0introduced<\/a>\u00a0in April, embedded in it was a $50 million\u00a0request<\/a>\u00a0for the construction of an \u201cairfield and base camp at Agadez, Niger\u2026 to support operations in western Africa.\u201d\u00a0When Congress recently passed the annual defense policy bill, that sum was authorized.<\/p>\n

According to Brigadier General Donald Bolduc, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, there is also a team of Special Operations forces currently \u201cliving right next to\u201d local troops in Diffa, Niger.\u00a0A 2013 military briefing slide, obtained by\u00a0TomDispatch<\/em>\u00a0via the Freedom of Information Act, indicates a \u201cU.S. presence\u201d as well in Ouallam, Niger, and at both Bamako and Kidal in neighboring Mali.\u00a0Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, a country that borders both of those nations, plays host to a Special Operations Forces Liaison Element Team, a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative which, according to official documents, facilitates \u201chigh-risk activities\u201d carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the continent in Somalia, elite U.S. forces are\u00a0operating<\/a> from small compounds in Kismayo and Baledogle, according to reporting by Foreign Policy<\/em>. Neighboring Ethiopia has similarly been a prime locale for American outposts,\u00a0including<\/a>\u00a0Camp Gilbert<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Dire Dawa<\/a>, contingency operating locations at both Hurso and Bilate, and facilities used by a 40-man team\u00a0based<\/a>\u00a0in Bara.\u00a0So-called Combined Operations Fusion Centers were set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan as part of an effort to destroy Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord\u2019s Resistance Army (LRA).\u00a0Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>investigations have revealed that U.S. forces have also been based in\u00a0Djema<\/a>,\u00a0Sam Ouandja<\/a>, and\u00a0Obo<\/a>, in the Central African Republic as part of that effort.\u00a0There has recently been new construction by Navy Seabees at Obo to increase the camp\u2019s capacity as well as to install the infrastructure for a satellite dish.<\/p>\n

There are other locations that, while not necessarily outposts, nonetheless form critical nodes in the U.S. base network on the continent.\u00a0These include 10 marine gas and oil bunkers located at ports in eight African nations.\u00a0Additionally, AFRICOM acknowledges an agreement to use L\u00e9opold S\u00e9dar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling as well as for the \u201ctransportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities.\u201d\u00a0A similar deal is in place for the use of Kitgum Airport in Kitgum, Uganda, and Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia.\u00a0All told, according to the Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. military has struck 29 agreements to use airports as refueling centers in 27 African countries.<\/p>\n

Not all U.S. bases in Africa have seen continuous use in these years.\u00a0After the American-backed military\u00a0overthrew<\/a>\u00a0the government of Mauritania in 2008, for example, the U.S.\u00a0suspended<\/a>\u00a0an airborne surveillance program based in its capital,\u00a0<\/strong>Nouakchott.\u00a0Following a coup in Mali by a U.S.-trained officer, the United States suspended military relations with the government and a spartan U.S. compound near the town of Gao was apparently\u00a0overrun<\/a> by rebel forces.<\/p>\n

Most of the new outposts on that continent, however, seem to be putting down roots.\u00a0 As\u00a0 TomDispatch<\/em>\u00a0regular<\/a>\u00a0 and\u00a0 basing expert<\/a>\u00a0David Vine suggests, \u201cThe danger of the strategy in which you see U.S. bases popping up increasingly around the continent is that once bases get established they become very difficult to close.\u00a0Once they generate momentum, within Congress and in terms of funding, they have a tendency to expand.\u201d<\/p>\n

To supply its troops in East Africa, AFRICOM has also built a sophisticated logistics system.\u00a0It\u2019s officially known as the Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially\u00a0referred<\/a>\u00a0to as the \u201cnew spice route.\u201d It connects Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.\u00a0These hubs are, in turn, part of a transportation and logistics network that includes bases located in Rota, Spain; Aruba in the Lesser Antilles; Souda Bay, Greece; and a\u00a0forward operating site<\/a>\u00a0on Britain\u2019s Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of U.S.\u00a0<\/em>Air Forces Europe and one of the largest American military bases outside the United States, is another key site.\u00a0As the\u00a0Intercept<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year, it serves as \u201cthe high-tech heart of America\u2019s drone program\u201d for the Greater Middle East and Africa.\u00a0Germany is also host to AFRICOM\u2019s headquarters, located at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart-Moehringen, itself a site reportedly\u00a0integral<\/a>\u00a0to drone operations in Africa.<\/p>\n

In addition to hosting a contingent of the Marines and sailors of Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa, Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Italy, is another\u00a0important<\/a>\u00a0logistics<\/a>\u00a0facility for African operations. The\u00a0second-busiest<\/a>\u00a0military air station in Europe, Sigonella is a key hub for drones covering Africa, serving as a\u00a0base<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0MQ-1 Predators<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0RQ-4B Global Hawk<\/a>\u00a0surveillance drones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Crown Jewels<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back on the continent, the undisputed crown jewel in the U.S. archipelago of bases is indeed still Camp Lemonnier. To\u00a0quote<\/a>\u00a0Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, it is \u201ca hub with lots of spokes out there on the continent and in the region.\u201d\u00a0Sharing a runway with Djibouti\u2019s\u00a0Ambouli<\/a>\u00a0International Airport, the sprawling compound is the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa and is\u00a0home<\/a>\u00a0to the East Africa Response Force, another regional quick-reaction unit.\u00a0The camp, which also serves as the forward headquarters for\u00a0Task Force 48-4<\/a>, a hush-hush counterterrorism unit targeting militants in East Africa and Yemen, has seen personnel stationed there jump by more than 400 percent since\u00a02002<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the same period, Camp Lemonnier has\u00a0expanded<\/a>\u00a0from 88 acres to nearly 600 acres and is in the midst of a years-long\u00a0building boom<\/a>\u00a0for which more than $600 million has already been awarded or allocated.\u00a0<\/strong>In late 2013, for example, B.L. Harbert International, an Alabama-based construction company, was\u00a0awarded<\/a>\u00a0a $150 million contract by the Navy for \u201cthe P-688 Forward Operating Base at Camp Lemonnier.\u201d According to a corporate press release, \u201cthe site is approximately 20 acres in size, and will contain 11 primary structures and ancillary facilities required to support current and emerging operational missions throughout the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, the Navy\u00a0completed<\/a>\u00a0construction of a $750,000 secure facility for Special Operations Command Forward-East Africa (SOCFWD-EA). It is one of three similar teams on the continent\u2014the others being\u00a0SOCFWD-Central Africa<\/a>\u00a0and SOCFWD-North and West Africa\u2014which,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to the military, \u201cshape and coordinate special operations forces security cooperation and engagement in support of theater special operations command, geographic combatant command, and country team goals and objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, according to secret documents recently\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0by the\u00a0Intercept<\/em>, 10 Predator drones and four Reaper drones were\u00a0based<\/a>\u00a0at Camp Lemonnier, along with six\u00a0U-28As<\/a>\u00a0(a single-engine aircraft that conducts surveillance for special operations forces) and two\u00a0P-3 Orions<\/a>\u00a0(a four-engine turboprop surveillance aircraft).\u00a0There were also eight F-15E Strike Eagles, heavily armed, manned fighter jets. By August 2012, an average of 16 drones and four fighters were\u00a0taking off<\/a>\u00a0or landing at the base each day.<\/p>\n

The next year, in the wake of a number of drone crashes and turmoil involving Djiboutian air traffic controllers, drone operations were moved to a more remote site located about six miles away. Djibouti\u2019s\u00a0Chabelley Airfield<\/a>, which has seen significant construction of late and has a much lower profile than Camp Lemonnier, now serves as a key base for America\u2019s regional drone campaign.\u00a0Dan Gettinger, the co-founder and co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College, recently\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Intercept<\/em>\u00a0that the operations run from the site were \u201cJSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] and CIA-led missions for the most part,\u201d explaining that they were likely focused on counterterrorism strikes in Somalia and Yemen, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities, as well as support for the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen.<\/p>\n

A Scarier Future<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over many months, AFRICOM repeatedly ignored even basic questions from this reporter about America\u2019s sweeping archipelago of bases.\u00a0In practical terms, that means there is no way to know with complete certainty how many of the more than 60 bases, bunkers, outposts, and areas of access are currently being used by U.S. forces or how many additional sites may exist. What does seem clear is that the number of bases and other sites, however defined, is increasing, mirroring\u00a0the rise<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0number<\/a>\u00a0of U.S. troops,\u00a0special operations deployments<\/a>, and\u00a0missions<\/a>\u00a0in Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a network of small bases with maybe a couple of medium-altitude, long-endurance drones at each one, so that anywhere on the continent is always within range,\u201d says the Oxford Research Group\u2019s Richard Reeve when I ask him for a forecast of the future. In many ways, he notes, this has already begun everywhere but in southern Africa, not currently seen by the U.S. military as a high-risk area.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration, Reeve explains, has made use of humanitarian rhetoric as a cover for expansion on the continent. He points in particular to the deployment of forces against the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army in Central Africa, the build-up of forces near Lake Chad in the effort against Boko Haram, and the post-Benghazi\u00a0New Normal<\/a>\u00a0concept as examples. \u201cBut, in practice, what is all of this going to be used for?\u201d he wonders.\u00a0After all, the enhanced infrastructure and increased capabilities that today may be viewed by the White House as an insurance policy against another Benghazi can easily be repurposed in the future for different types of military interventions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere does this go post-Obama?\u201d Reeve asks rhetorically, noting that the rise of AFRICOM and the proliferation of small outposts have been \u201cin line with the Obama doctrine.\u201d He draws attention to the president\u2019s embrace of a lighter-footprint brand of warfare, specifically a reliance on Special Operations forces and drones.\u00a0This may, Reeve adds, just be a prelude to something larger and potentially more dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere would Hillary take this?\u201d he asks, referencing the\u00a0hawkish<\/a> Democratic primary\u00a0frontrunner<\/a>, Hillary Clinton. \u201cOr any of the Republican potentials?\u201d\u00a0He points to the George W. Bush administration as an example and raises the question of what it might have done back in the early 2000s if AFRICOM\u2019s infrastructure had already been in place.\u00a0Such a thought experiment, he suggests, could offer clues to what the future might hold now that the continent is dotted with American outposts, drone bases, and compounds for elite teams of Special Operations forces. \u201cI think,\u201d Reeve says, \u201cthat we could be looking at something a bit scarier in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Nation Institute<\/a>. A 2014 Izzy Award and American Book Award<\/a> winner for his book\u00a0Kill Anything That Moves<\/u>, his pieces have appeared in the <\/em>New York Times<\/a>, the Intercept<\/a>, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at\u00a0TomDispatch<\/a>. His latest book is <\/em>Tomorrow\u2019s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 tomdispatch.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. military has built an extensive archipelago of African outposts, transforming the continent into a laboratory for a new kind of war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}