Veterans Today: US Military to Maintain low key Presence in Africa!

US military efforts in Africa will remain low keyed and with a small footprint, and will be geared toward building relationships with African nations, a senior Defense Department official has been quoted as saying. US Africa Command is maturing, and running a variety of exercises and operations
with allies to continue the trend, the official said, speaking to reporters on background at the Pentagon this week. The command really has a two fold mission on the continent, the official said. First, there is a very active approach to countering threats to US citizens and US interests in Africa. Second, is the development of "effective partnerships to prevent and respond to conflict and other threats to stability wherever it manifests," the official said. The continent is very much a glass is half empty, glass is half full place, the official acknowledged. In East Africa, there has been tremendous success with Somalia. The nations of the region, under the African Union (AU), banded together to stop extremism, and to give the Somali people some stability. The Au mission, coupled with Combined Joint Task Force 150, the multinational counter-piracy effort, has given the failed state of Somalia a new chance, the American Forces Press Service reports. Across the continent, there's a lot to talk about in terms of what went wrong with Mali, and how might we, as a US government, and as an international community learn from that, the official said. The prerequisites for a successful policy include having "a shared view of a threat environment, and then being willing, as a partner government, to employ your capabilities vis a vis the threats in your environment, the official explained. "I think we can kind of disassemble those elements, and point to some areas, where this did not work out well in Mali." The effort on the continent is diverse, because the continent itself is diverse. Africa is not a one size fits all place, the official noted. It has 54 nations, with hundreds of languages, thousands of tribal affiliations, and a great disparity among the haves and have-nots. The US military relates to each country differently, the official said, and maintains a small footprint. "We have one enduring location on the continent in the form of Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti," the official said. "It's critical to our counter-terrorism operations, and our security and cooperation activities in East Africa."