AFRICOM and the Geopolitics of African Oil

On 1 October 2008, the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) officially became operational as America’s newest combatant command, with its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, to oversee U.S. military activities on the continent. Until the creation of AFRICOM, U.S.-African military relations was conducted through three different commands: the European Command, which had responsibility for most of the continent; the Central Command, which oversaw Egypt and the Horn of Africa region along with the Middle East and Central Asia; and the Pacific Command, which administered military ties with Madagascar and other islands in the Indian Ocean. This reflected the fact that Africa was chiefly viewed as a regional theater in the global Cold War, or as an adjunct to U.S.-European relations, or—as in the immediate post-Cold War period—as a region of little concern to the United States.

But since the late 1990s, Africa has become an increasingly important source of American oil imports. World oil production has peaked and, as production from older fields declines, there are only two parts of the world where significant new fields will come into production over the next 10-15 years: Central Asia and Africa. Africa now supplies more oil to the United States than the Middle East; it currently provides some 15-20% of total U.S. oil imports and is expected to provide at least 25% by 2015. In 2002, the Bush administration declared that access to Africa’s oil supplies would henceforth be defined as a “strategic national interest” of the United States. As a result, Africa’s status in U.S. national security policy and military affairs rose dramatically.

Administration officials have sought to portray AFRICOM as a demonstration of America’s commitment to help Africa and its benign intentions toward the continent. But the military officers who will run AFRICOM are under no illusions about the purposes of the new command. According to General William Ward and Vice Admiral Robert Moeller—the commander and deputy commander of AFRICOM respectively—the primary mission of AFRICOM are to protect access to oil and other resources, to make Africa a major front in the Global War on Terrorism, and to counter China’s growing economic and political involvement in Africa.

The creation of AFRICOM, thus, represents the globalization of the “Carter Doctrine,” the pledge made by President Carter in his final State of the Union Address in 1980 that the United States would use all necessary means “including the use of military force” to ensure the free flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. This pledge has now been extended to the entire world, driving the growing U.S. military presence not only in Africa, but in South America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia as well. It is important to recognize that the United States is not the only country that is responsible for the militarization of African oil production and that China, India, Russia, and other countries are also playing significant roles.

So, what will AFRICOM actually do to fulfill its mission? When AFRICOM became operational in October it took over the implementation of a wide range of ongoing military, security cooperation, and security assistance programs that have already led to a series of U.S. air raids on Somalia as well as the establishment of a new U.S. military base in Africa—located at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti—and a vastly enlarged U.S. naval presence, particularly in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea. It will also manage the delivery of increasing quantities of U.S. arms to Africa and a host of new programs that have been created in recent years to provide weaponry and military training to African allies. Over the past seven years, the value of U.S. security assistance to Africa has risen from about $100 million each year to an annual level of approximately $800 million.

The Pentagon would like to avoid direct military intervention in Africa whenever possible, preferring to bolster the internal security capabilities of its African friends and to build up the military forces of key states that can act as surrogates for the United States. But it is also preparing for the day when a disruption of oil supplies or some other crisis will lead to further direct military intervention. Washington has substantially increased the size and frequency of U.S. military exercises in Africa and has negotiated agreements to guarantee that U.S. troops will be able to use local military bases in a number of African countries, including Algeria, Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia.

It is now up to the Obama administration to decide whether or not to follow the path marked out by the Bush administration—a strategy based on a determination to depend upon the use of military force in Africa and elsewhere to satisfy America’s continuing addiction to oil—or to chart a new path based on an international and multi-lateral partnership with African nations and with other countries that have a stake in the continent (including China and India) to promote sustainable economic development, democracy, and human rights in Africa and a new global energy order based on the use of clean, safe, and renewable resources.

Daniel Volman (dvolman@igc.org) is the Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars (www.concernedafricascholars.org). He is a specialist on U.S. military policy toward Africa and African security issues and has been conducting research and writing on these issues for more than thirty years.

From The Geopolitics of Petroleum ACAS Blog Series

U.S. Military Activities in Kenya

Now that President George Bush’s special envoy to the Kenyan crisis, Jendayi Fraser (US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs) has admitted that the elections in Kenya were seriously flawed (a polite way of saying they are fraudulent) and ordered President Mwai Kibaki to meet the opposition leader, Raile Odinga, it is easy to forget that the United States Ambassador in Kenya only weeks ago declared the elections free and fair.

But neither position is contradictory as the US is heavily invested in stability in Kenya.

Kenya has long been a key military partner of the United States and a major African recipient of U.S. military assistance.

The Pentagon gave Kenya $1.6 million worth of weaponry and other military assistance in 2006 and an estimated $2.5 million in 2007 through its Foreign Military Sales Program. In 2008 the Bush Administration expects to provide Kenya with $800,000 in Foreign Military Financing Program funds to pay for further arms purchases. Kenya has also been permitted to make large arms deals directly with private American arms producers through the State Department’s Direct Commercial Sales Program. Kenya took deliver of $1.9 million worth of arms this way in 2005, got an estimated $867,000 worth in 2007, and is expected to receive another $3.1 million worth this year.

In addition, the Bush Administration intends to spend $550,000 in 2008 to train Kenyan military officers in the United States through the International Military Education and Training Program at military academies and other military educational institutions in the United States.

The United States is also providing training and equipment to Kenya’s military, internal security, and police forces through several global and regional programs. These include, the:

• The East Africa Counter-Terrorism Initiative established in 2003 as a multi-year program with $100 million in funding to provide training to Kenya as well as to Uganda, Tanzania, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.

• The Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) Program was created in 1983—under the administration of the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security—to provide training, equipment, and technology to countries all around the world to support their participation in America’s Global War on Terrorism. The largest ATA program in Africa is targeted at Kenya, where it helped created the Kenyan Antiterrorism Police Unit (KAPU) in 2004 to conduct anti-terrorism operations, the Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2004 to coordinate anti-terrorism activities (although the unit was disbanded by the Kenyan government in 2005, and is now training and equipping members of a multi-agency, coast guard-type unit to patrol Kenya’s coastal waters. Between 2003 and 2005 (the most recent years for which this information is available), ATA provided training both in Kenya and in the United States to 454 Kenyan police, internal security, and military officers.

The creation of the KAPU was financed with $10 million IN 2003, along with $622,000 from ATA; the ATA spent $21 million on training for Kenya in 2004, $3.5 in 2005, and another $3.2 in 2006. The Bush administration requested $2.9 for 2007 and an additional $5.5 in 2008.

• The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) was created in October 2002 to conduct naval and aerial patrols in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the eastern Indian Ocean as part of the effort to detect and counter the activities of terrorist groups in the region. The CJTF-FOA used military facilities in Kenya as well as in Djibouti and Ethiopia to launch air and naval strikes against alleged al-Qaeda members involved in the Council of Islamic Courts in Somalia in January and June of 2007.

In addition, the Bush administration has negotiated base access agreements with the government of Kenya—along with the governments of Gabon, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia—that will allow American troops to use their military facilities (know as Cooperative Security Locations and Forward Operating Sites) whenever the United States wants to deploy its own troops in Africa.

The Bush Administration has built a close military relationship with the government of Mwai Kibaki and has played a central role in the creation of his internal security apparatus, now being deployed with such bloody results throughout Kenya.

The United States, thus, has a direct responsibility for what is going on in Kenya and for bringing it to an end. Jendayi Frazer has certainly surprised many outside the US with her most recent comments, but one can be sure that also has US military priorities in mind when she urges Kenyans to end the violence.

Daniel Volman is Director of the African Security Research Project in Washington, DC, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. He is a specialist on U.S. military policy toward Africa and African security issues.