{"id":91400,"date":"2017-05-01T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=91400"},"modified":"2017-04-27T16:28:32","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T15:28:32","slug":"americas-war-fighting-footprint-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/05\/americas-war-fighting-footprint-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s War-Fighting Footprint in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Secret U.S. Military Documents Reveal a Constellation of American Military Bases across That Continent<\/em><\/p>\n

27 Apr 2017 – <\/em><\/strong>General Thomas Waldhauser sounded a little uneasy.\u00a0 \u201cI would just say, they are on the ground.\u00a0 They are trying to influence the action,\u201d commented<\/a> the chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) at a Pentagon press briefing in March, when asked about Russian military personnel operating in North Africa.\u00a0 \u201cWe watch what they do with great concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Russians aren\u2019t the only foreigners on Waldhauser\u2019s mind.\u00a0 He\u2019s also wary of a Chinese \u201cmilitary base\u201d being built not far from Camp Lemonnier, a large U.S. facility in the tiny, sun-blasted nation of Djibouti.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019ve never had an overseas base, and we\u2019ve never had a base of… a peer competitor as close as this one happens to be,\u201d he said<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cThere are some very significant… operational security concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that press conference, Waldhauser mentioned still another base, an American one exposed by the Washington Post<\/em> last October in an article<\/a> titled, \u201cU.S. has secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to North Africa.\u201d\u00a0 Five months later, the AFRICOM commander still sounded aggrieved.\u00a0 \u201cThe Washington Post story that said \u2018flying from a secret base in Tunisia.\u2019\u00a0 It\u2019s not a secret base and it\u2019s not our base… We have no intention of establishing a base there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waldhauser\u2019s insistence that the U.S. had no base in Tunisia relied on a technicality, since that foreign airfield clearly functions as an American outpost. For years, AFRICOM has peddled the fiction that Djibouti is the site of its only \u201cbase\u201d in Africa. \u201cWe continue to maintain one forward operating site on the continent, Camp Lemonnier,\u201d reads the command\u2019s 2017 posture statement. \u00a0Spokespeople for the command regularly maintain that any other U.S. outposts are few and transitory — \u201cexpeditionary\u201d in military parlance.<\/p>\n

While the U.S. maintains a vast empire of military installations around the world, with huge — and hard to miss — complexes throughout Europe and Asia, bases in Africa have been far better hidden.\u00a0 And if you listened only to AFRICOM officials, you might even assume that the U.S. military\u2019s footprint in Africa will soon be eclipsed by that of the Chinese or the Russians.<\/p>\n

Highly classified internal AFRICOM files offer a radically different picture.\u00a0 A set of previously secret documents, obtained by TomDispatch<\/em> via the Freedom of Information Act, offers clear evidence of a remarkable, far-ranging, and expanding network of outposts strung across the continent. \u00a0In official plans for operations in 2015 that were drafted and issued the year before, Africa Command lists 36 U.S. outposts scattered across 24 African countries.\u00a0 These include low-profile locations — from Kenya to South Sudan to a shadowy Libyan airfield — that have never previously been mentioned in published reports.\u00a0 Today, according to an AFRICOM spokesperson, the number of these sites has actually swelled to 46, including \u201c15 enduring locations.\u201d\u00a0 The newly disclosed numbers and redacted documents contradict more than a decade\u2019s worth of dissembling by U.S. Africa Command and shed new light on a constellation of bases integral to expanding U.S. military operations on the African continent and in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A map of U.S. military bases — forward operating sites, cooperative security locations, and contingency locations — across the African continent in 2014 from declassified AFRICOM planning documents (Nick Turse\/TomDispatch).<\/p><\/div>\n

A Constellation of Bases<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFRICOM failed to respond to repeated requests for further information about the 46 bases, outposts, and staging areas currently dotting the continent.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the newly disclosed 2015 plans offer unique insights into the wide-ranging network of outposts, a constellation of bases that already provided the U.S. military with unprecedented continental reach.<\/p>\n

Those documents divide U.S. bases into three categories: forward operating sites (FOSes), cooperative security locations (CSLs), and contingency locations (CLs).\u00a0 \u201cIn total, [the fiscal year 20]15 proposed posture will be 2 FOSes, 10 CSLs, and 22 CLs\u201d state the documents.\u00a0 By spring 2015, the number of CSLs had already increased to 11, according<\/a> to then-AFRICOM chief General David Rodriguez, in order to allow U.S. crisis-response forces to reach potential hot spots in West Africa.\u00a0 An appendix to the plan, also obtained by TomDispatch<\/em>, actually lists 23 CLs, not 22.\u00a0 Another appendix mentions one additional contingency location.<\/p>\n

These outposts — of which forward operating sites are the most permanent and contingency locations the least so — form the backbone of U.S. military operations on the continent and have been expanding at a rapid rate, particularly since the September 2012 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.\u00a0 The plans also indicate that the U.S. military regularly juggles locations, shuttering sites and opening others, while upgrading contingency locations to cooperative security locations in response to changing conditions like, according to the documents, \u201cincreased threats emanating from the East, North-West, and Central regions\u201d of the continent.<\/p>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s 2017 posture statement notes, for example, a recent round of changes to the command\u2019s inventory of posts.\u00a0 The document explains that the U.S. military \u201cclosed five contingency locations and designated seven new contingency locations on the continent due to shifting requirements and identified gaps in our ability to counter threats and support ongoing operations.\u201d\u00a0 Today, according to AFRICOM spokesman Chuck Prichard, the total number of sites has jumped from the 36 cited in the 2015 plans to 46 — a network now consisting of two forward operating sites, 13 cooperative security locations, and 31 contingency locations.<\/p>\n

Location, Location, Location<\/strong><\/p>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s sprawling network of bases is crucial to its continent-wide strategy of training the militaries of African proxies and allies and conducting a multi-front campaign aimed at combating a disparate and spreading<\/a> collection of terror groups.\u00a0 The command\u2019s major areas of effort involve: a shadow war against the militant group al-Shabaab in Somalia (a long-term<\/a> campaign, ratcheting up<\/a> in the Trump era, with no end in sight); attempts to contain the endless fallout from the 2011 U.S. and allied military intervention that ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi (a long-term effort<\/a> with no end in sight); the neutralizing of \u201cviolent extremist organizations\u201d across northwest Africa, the lands of the Sahel and Maghreb (a long-term effort<\/a> with no end in sight); the degradation of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin nations of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad (a long-term effort — to the tune of $156 million<\/a> last year alone in support of regional proxies there — with no end in sight); countering piracy in the Gulf of Guinea (a long-term effort<\/a> with no end in sight), and winding down<\/a> the wildly expensive<\/a> effort to eliminate Joseph Kony and his murderous Lord\u2019s Resistance Army in Central Africa (both live on<\/a>, despite a long-term U.S. effort).<\/p>\n

The U.S. military\u2019s multiplying outposts are also likely to prove vital to the Trump administration\u2019s expanding wars<\/a> in the Middle East.\u00a0 African bases have long been essential, for instance, to Washington\u2019s ongoing shadow war in Yemen<\/a>, which has seen a significant increase<\/a> in drone strikes under the Trump administration.\u00a0 They have also been integral<\/a> to operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where a substantial<\/a> (and deadly) uptick in U.S. airpower (and civilian casualties) has been evident in recent months.<\/p>\n

In 2015, AFRICOM spokesman Anthony Falvo noted that the command\u2019s \u201cstrategic posture and presence are premised on the concept of a tailored, flexible, light footprint that leverages and supports the posture and presence of partners and is supported by expeditionary infrastructure.\u201d The declassified secret documents explicitly state that America\u2019s network of African bases is neither insignificant nor provisional. \u00a0\u201cUSAFRICOM\u2019s posture requires a network of enduring and non-enduring locations across the continent,\u201d say the 2015 plans.\u00a0 \u201cA developed network of FOSes, CSLs, and non-enduring CLs in key countries… is necessary to support the command\u2019s operations and engagements.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the files, AFRICOM\u2019s two forward operating sites are Djibouti\u2019s Camp Lemonnier and a base on the United Kingdom\u2019s Ascension Island off the west coast of Africa.\u00a0 Described as \u201cenduring locations\u201d with a sustained troop presence and \u201cU.S.-owned real property,\u201d they serve as hubs for staging missions across the continent and for supplying the growing network of outposts there.<\/p>\n

Lemonnier, the crown jewel of America\u2019s African bases, has expanded<\/a> from 88 acres to about 600 acres since 2002, and in those years, the number of personnel there has increased exponentially as well. \u201cCamp Lemonnier serves as a hub for multiple operations and security cooperation activities,\u201d reads AFRICOM\u2019s 2017 posture statement.\u00a0 \u201cThis base is essential to U.S. efforts in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, the formerly secret documents note that the base supports \u201cU.S operations in Somalia CT [counterterrorism], Yemen CT, Gulf of Aden (counter-piracy), and a wide range of Security Assistance activities and programs throughout the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015, when he announced<\/a> the increase in cooperative security locations, then-AFRICOM chief David Rodriguez mentioned Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon as staging areas for the command\u2019s rapid reaction forces.\u00a0 Last June, outgoing U.S. Army Africa commander Major General Darryl Williams drew attention<\/a> to a CSL in Uganda and one being set up in Botswana, adding, \u201cWe have very austere, lean, lily pads, if you will, all over Africa now.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSL Entebbe in Uganda has, for example, long been an important air base<\/a> for American forces in Africa, serving as a hub for surveillance aircraft<\/a>.\u00a0 It also proved integral to Operation Oaken Steel, the July 2016 rapid deployment of troops to the U.S. Embassy in Juba, South Sudan, as that failed state (and failed U.S. nation-building effort<\/a>) sank into yet more violence.<\/p>\n

Libreville, Gabon, is listed in the documents as a \u201cproposed CSL,\u201d but was actually used<\/a> in 2014 and 2015 as a key base for Operation Echo Casemate<\/a>, the joint U.S.-French-African military response to unrest in the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s 2015 plan also lists cooperative security locations in Accra, Ghana; Gaborone, Botswana; Dakar, Senegal; Douala, Cameroon; Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; and Mombasa, Kenya.\u00a0 While officially defined by the military as temporary locales capable of being scaled up for larger operations, any of these CSLs in Africa \u201cmay also function as a major logistics hub,\u201d according to the documents.<\/p>\n

Contingency Plans\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

The formerly secret AFRICOM files note that the command has designated five contingency locations as \u201csemi-permanent,\u201d 13 as \u201ctemporary,\u201d and four as \u201cinitial.\u201d\u00a0 These include a number of sites that have never previously been disclosed, including outposts in several countries that were actually at war when the documents were created.\u00a0 Listed among the CLs, for instance, is one in Juba<\/a>, the capital of South Sudan<\/a>, already in the midst of an ongoing civil war in 2014; one in Bangui, the capital of the periodically unstable Central African Republic; and another in Al-Wigh<\/a>, a Saharan airfield in southern Libya located near that country\u2019s borders with Niger, Chad, and Algeria.<\/p>\n

Officially classified as \u201cnon-enduring\u201d locations, CLs are nonetheless among the most integral sites for U.S. operations on the continent.\u00a0 Today, according to AFRICOM\u2019s Prichard, the 31 contingency locations provide \u201caccess to support partners, counter threats, and protect U.S. interests in East, North, and West Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

AFRICOM did not provide the specific locations of the current crop of CLs, stating only that they \u201cstrive to increase access in crucial areas.\u201d The 2015 plans, however, provide ample detail on the areas that were most important to the command at that time.\u00a0 One such site is Camp Simba in Manda Bay, Kenya, also mentioned in a 2013 internal Pentagon study<\/a> on secret drone operations in Somalia and Yemen.\u00a0 At least two manned surveillance aircraft were based there at the time.<\/p>\n

Chabelley Airfield<\/a> in Djibouti is also mentioned in AFRICOM\u2019s 2015 plan.\u00a0 Once a spartan French Foreign Legion post, it has undergone substantial expansion in recent years as U.S. drone operations in that country were moved from Camp Lemonnier to this more remote location.\u00a0 It soon became a regional hub for unmanned aircraft not just for Africa but also for the Middle East.\u00a0 By the beginning of October 2015, for example, drones flown from Chabelley had already logged<\/a> more than 24,000 hours of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions and were also, according to the Air Force, \u201cresponsible for the neutralization of 69 enemy fighters, including five high-valued individuals\u201d in the war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

AFRICOM\u2019s inventory of CLs also includes sites in Nzara<\/a>, South Sudan; Arlit<\/a>, Niger; both Bamako<\/a> and Gao<\/a>, Mali; Kasenyi<\/a>, Uganda; Victoria<\/a>, the capital of the Seychelles; Monrovia, Liberia; Ouassa and Nema, Mauritania; Faya Largeau<\/a>, Chad; Bujumbura, Burundi; Lakipia<\/a>, the site of a Kenyan Air Force base; and another Kenyan airfield at Wajir that was upgraded and expanded<\/a> by the U.S. Navy earlier in this decade, as well as an outpost in Arba Minch, Ethiopia, that was reportedly shuttered<\/a> in 2015 after nearly five years of operation.<\/p>\n

A longtime contingency location in Niamey, the capital of Niger, has seen marked growth in recent years as has a more remote location, a Nigerien military base at Agadez, listed among the \u201cproposed\u201d CSLs in the AFRICOM documents.\u00a0 The U.S. is, in fact, pouring $100 million into building up the base, according<\/a> to a 2016 investigation by the Intercept<\/em>.\u00a0 N’Djamena, Chad, the site of yet another \u201cproposed CSL,\u201d has actually been used by the U.S. military for years.\u00a0 Troops and a drone were dispatched<\/a> there in 2014 to aid in operations against Boko Haram and \u201cbase camp facilities\u201d were constructed<\/a> there, too.<\/p>\n

The list of proposed CLs also includes sites in Berbera, a town in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, and in Mogadishu, the capital of neighboring Somalia (another locale used<\/a> by American troops for years), as well as the towns of Baidoa and Bosaso.\u00a0 These or other outposts are likely to play increasingly important roles as the Trump administration ramps up its military activities in Somalia, the long-failed state that saw 18 U.S. personnel killed in the disastrous<\/a> \u201cBlack Hawk Down\u201d mission of 1993.\u00a0\u00a0 Last month, for instance, President Trump relaxed rules<\/a> aimed at preventing civilian casualties when the U.S. conducts drone strikes and commando raids in that country and so laid the foundation for a future escalation of the war against al-Shabaab there.\u00a0 This month, AFRICOM confirmed that dozens of soldiers from the Army\u2019s 101st Airborne Division, a storied light infantry unit, would be deployed<\/a> to that same country in order to train local forces to,\u00a0as a spokesperson put it, \u201cbetter fight\u201d al-Shabaab.<\/p>\n

Many other sites previously identified as U.S. outposts or staging areas are not listed in AFRICOM\u2019s 2015 plans, such as bases in Djema<\/a>, Sam Ouandja<\/a>, and Obo<\/a> in the Central African Republic that were revealed, in recent years, by the Washington Post. \u00a0<\/em>Also missing is a newer drone base in Garoua, Cameroon<\/a>, not to mention that Tunisian air base where the U.S. has been flying drones, according to AFRICOM\u2019s Waldhauser, \u201c<\/em>for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some bases may have been shuttered, while others may not yet have been put in service when the documents were produced.\u00a0 Ultimately, the reasons that these and many other previously identified bases<\/a> are not included in the redacted secret files are unclear due to AFRICOM\u2019s refusal to offer comment, clarification, or additional information on the locations of its bases.<\/p>\n

Base Desires<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJust as the U.S. pursues strategic interests in Africa, international competitors, including China and Russia, are doing the same,\u201d laments AFRICOM in its 2017 posture statement. \u201cWe continue to see international competitors engage with African partners in a manner contrary to the international norms of transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since it was established as an independent command in 2008, however, AFRICOM itself has been anything but transparent about its activities on the continent.\u00a0 The command\u2019s physical footprint may, in fact, have been its most jealously guarded secret.\u00a0 Today, thanks to AFRICOM\u2019s own internal documents, that secret is out and with AFRICOM\u2019s admission that it currently maintains \u201c15 enduring locations,\u201d the long-peddled fiction of a combatant command with just one base in its area of operations has been laid to rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the size of Africa, because of the time and space and the distances, when it comes to special crisis-response-type activities, we need access in various places on the continent,\u201d said AFRICOM chief Waldhauser during his March press conference.\u00a0 These \u201cvarious places\u201d have also been integral to escalating American shadow wars, including a full-scale air campaign against the Islamic State in Libya, dubbed Operation Odyssey Lightning, which ended<\/a> late last year, and ongoing intelligence-gathering missions and a continued U.S. troop presence in that country; drone assassinations<\/a> and increased troop deployments<\/a> in Somalia to counter al-Shabaab; and increasing engagement in a proxy war against Boko Haram militants in the Lake Chad region of Central Africa.\u00a0 For these and many more barely noticed U.S. military missions, America\u2019s sprawling, ever-expanding network of bases provides the crucial infrastructure for cross-continental combat by U.S. and allied forces, a low-profile support system for war-making in Africa and beyond.<\/p>\n

Without its wide-ranging constellation of bases, it would be nearly impossible for the U.S. to carry out ceaseless low-profile military activities across the continent.\u00a0 As a result, AFRICOM continues to prefer shadows to sunlight.\u00a0 While the command provided figures on the total number of U.S. military bases, outposts, and staging areas in Africa, its spokespeople failed to respond to repeated requests to provide locations for any of the 46 current sites.\u00a0 While the whereabouts of the new outposts may still be secret, there\u2019s little doubt as to the trajectory of America\u2019s African footprint, which has increased by 10 locations — a 28% jump — in just over two years.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s \u201cenduring\u201d African bases \u201cgive the United States options in the event of crisis and enable partner capacity building,\u201d according to AFRICOM\u2019s Chuck Prichard. \u00a0They have also played a vital role in conflicts from Yemen to Iraq, Nigeria to Somalia.\u00a0 With the Trump administration escalating its wars in Africa and the Middle East, and the potential for more crises — from catastrophic famines<\/a> to spreading wars<\/a> — on the horizon, there\u2019s every reason to believe the U.S. military\u2019s footprint on the continent will continue to evolve, expand, and enlarge in the years ahead, outpost by outpost and base by base.<\/p>\n

____________________________________<\/p>\n

Nick Turse is the managing editor of\u00a0<\/em>TomDispatch<\/a>,\u00a0a fellow at the Nation Institute, and a contributing writer for the\u00a0<\/em>Intercept. His latest book,\u00a0<\/em>Next Time They\u2019ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan<\/a>, was a finalist for the 2016 Investigative Reporters and Editors <\/em>Book Award<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 His website is <\/em>NickTurse.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2017 Nick Turse<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Secret U.S. Military Documents Reveal a Constellation of American Military Bases across That Continent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-militarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91400","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=91400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}