Another (usually) good source heard from on AFRICOM

REPORT: "Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests and the Role of the U.S. Military in Africa," Congressional Research Service, updated July 6, 2007

Thanks to Matthew Garcia for sending this.

We'll have more troops in Kurdistan than Africa

ARTICLE: 'No big troop presence planned for U.S. Africa Command,' By John M. Doyle, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 08/02/2007, page 15

Whelan speaks the truth here. As I said on C-SPAN, "franchising" CJTF-HOA four times may get you a couple dozen small forts, but the total number will be less than 10k. On a continent almost 3x the continental U.S. and with more than twice the population, that ain't much.

Hell, we'll have more in Kurdistan after a while.

Red/Blue global family

ARTICLE: Red Family, Blue Family, By Doug Muder, February, 2005

Interesting read that slowly pulls you in. My reader's point, which I endorse: a fascinating glimpse of the Core-Gap ideological mindsets (just transpose Ault's argument globally). To choose connectivity is to choose family. To focus on given family is typically to say the change of connectivity just isn't worth the cost (travel, less attachment to land and tradition, urbanization, women's rights, secularism, etc.).

It reminds me of the old social workers' saw: Every kid grows up thinking that the world is exactly like their family.

Thanks to Bruce Hughes for sending this.

Probably worth viewing

POST: TEDGlobal Premiere: Four talks from "Africa: The Next Chapter"

Ayittay's book is probably the best economically-focused history of Africa I've ever read.

Don't worry about Africom, State

U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing: Exploring The U.S. Africa Command And A New Strategic Relations

A good source on how Africom is shaking out.

Note also State's defensive tone.

But if CJTF-HOA is any indicator, State will remain in control far more than most alarmists assume, simply because Africom, like Southcom, will be severely resource-constrained.

Some automatically assume that means anything Africom does is a drop in the bucket, but that's wrong. The modeled behavior for local African militaries is everything, whereas it's the humanitarian aid that's marginal. In short, don't confuse means with ends.

Intrigued by Hillary

ARTICLE: Would the United States Go to War with China to Protect Taiwan?, Foreign Policy, July 2007

I am intrigued by the Hillary quote ['Clinton once proclaimed that the American people would never go to war with China to protect Taiwan'].

Despite all my fears about more years of the "politics of personal destruction," I think she's really quite sensible when it comes to most security issues.

Good signs in Africa

ARTICLE: China welcomes UN resolution on deploying "hybrid" force in Darfur, Xinhua, August 2, 2007

Good signs on many levels.

First, despite my constant dissing, the Euros can play a crucial door-opening role on African peacekeeping (although one fears a peacemaking precusor role is required, and there we might be back to some of the rules-of-engagement conundrums we see with NATO in Afghanistan, so the size of the force is less crucial than the ROE). I mean, until somebody shows up, the chance of the AU reaching critical mass on its own is near zero.

Second, watch Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa help the AU very quietly and behind the scenes. Anything that triggers movement up that learning curve (for both sides) is very good.

Third, China's approval, while costing nothing, is a step forward. Far more important step would be an Africom or NATO or the UN talking China into its own contingent of troops. If I am Gen. Kip Ward, new head of Africom, I am all over this opportunity.

Finally, note the SysAdmin make-up of the force, which is "hybrid" in more than one way. My only fear? Not enough muscle, which is why my SysAdmin always includes Marines.

Thanks to Jamie Ruehl for sending this.

Risk, danger, and fear mongering

Tom got this question in an email:

Today, I read a column by Pat Buchanan entitled The SWFs are Coming. These are are investment funds controlled by foreign governments desiring to invest money in the US and elsewhere. Pat is worried about these sometimes hostile foreign governments getting control over strategic assets- defense industries, banks and the like.

Is this more chicken little stuff, or is this something of potential concern?

Cordially,
Larry

Tom's reply:

The answer is yes and yes.

Buchanan oversells the danger but there clearly is risk. This is new territory: unprecedence piled on unprecedence (SWFs based on reserves stockpiled in response to the 1990s currency crises: what was a solution to a problem we feared was out of control--but obviously now isn't--created a new positive possibility for higher returns and more FDI in the system but likewise raises new concerns and the need for new rules).

Buchanan puts it all too simplistically in mercantilist terms, which some states will definitely display at first in their immaturity but eventually will move beyond in a maturation process we need to encourage.

So upshot is: sure it's a new danger, but every fix of an old problem will generate both a new danger and a new opportunity. The mutually-assured destruction dynamic of today--as Summers constantly notes--is financial, not nuclear (yet another reason why our fixation on global gun control is quaintly anachronistic), so we must tread carefully, but not out of fear so much as hopeful opportunism: What influence is to be wielded through this new interdependency?

That's what Buchanan, in his zero-sum mindset never appreciates. He sees only vulnerability in connectivity, never opportunity much less power.

He has lived beyond any critical utility, so he masks his analytical impotence with sheer fear-mongering. Sad, but effective with many who crave such fear in their lives (How else to confront this complexity!).

Maps aren't just for elites any more

POST: Wiki Maps

Cool past, cool article, and even cooler dynamic.

Maps, historically, are for elites ("This is mine, that is yours."), with little utility or relevance to individuals except to demarcate contrasting rule sets ("The law here says this!").

Now we have individuals making maps of great individual utility ("These are our things and places!"), and it's fascinating to watch unfold.

Don't waste this opportunity for AFRICOM to do things differently and better

TESTIMONY: AFRICOM: A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?, by Mark Malan, Refugees International, Washington, DC

Before, The Subcommittee on African Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, At the hearing entitled, "Exploring the U.S. Africa Command and a New Strategic Relationship with Africa.", August 01, 2007

A reasonable comment from the NGO community betraying a lot of natural suspicions. They hear too much diplomacy and development coordination ambition in AFRICOM's statements and would prefer to hear more on mil-mil ties to build local military capacity, especially in the realms of improved civil-mil relations inside countries and the building up of the African Union's peacekeeping capabilities.

Here's why you don't hear more of that in the AFRICOM's statements and officially-offered rationales: it's very sensitve stuff. When I was with Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, the subject of their very quiet assistance to the AU, especially over Sudan, was considered largely off-limits for my story, making them even more nervous to discuss than their minimal role in assisting the Special Ops "kinetics" in Somalia.

Why is that?

The African governments and militaries themselves are highly sensitive to being viewed as peacekeeping pawns of the U.S. And the Americans themselves are highly resistant of raising expectations of a heightened U.S. obligation to make peacekeeping happen in the region. Hence the focus on humanitarian stuff, which CJTF-HOA and AFRICOM view as the natural subject matter for improving local militaries' reputations among their own people and thus improving civil-military ties. Easy to do, easy to explain, easy to model good behavior for local militaries to embrace and copy.

So while the comments in this statement are reasonable, they say more about the NGOs' fears than any nefarious intent of AFRICOM. Frankly, these comments simply highlight how far the discussion needs to go to clear up mutual suspicions.

To that end, the NGOs should keep pushing, especially on the basic point that the more AFRICOM becomes a traditional combatant command, the more we waste the opportunity to do things differently and better.