[News] America's Empire of African Bases
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Nov 17 11:38:04 EST 2015
Nick Turse, America's Empire of African Bases
By Nick Turse
Posted on November 17, 2015, Printed on November 17, 2015
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176070/
[*Note for TomDispatch Readers:* /Last week, Nick Turse appeared on
/Democracy Now!/to discuss his superb /TomDispatch/work on Special
Operations forces and his new Dispatch book, /Tomorrow's Battlefield:
U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/.
Click here
<http://www.democracynow.org/2015/11/13/tomorrows_battlefield_as_us_special_ops>
to check him out at /DN!/(or here
<http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2015/11/13/part_2_nick_turse_on_us>
for the online extended interview). Then, if you’d like a personalized,
signed copy of his new book, just go to the
<https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1443285?uniqueID=634795889283895124>/TD
<https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1443285?uniqueID=634795889283895124>/donation
page
<https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1443285?uniqueID=634795889283895124>.
For $100 -- and the knowledge that you’ve helped this website roll into
2016 -- it’s yours! Tom/]
As I’ve written elsewhere
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176043/tomgram%3A_david_vine,_our_base_nation/>,
what Chalmers Johnson called America’s “empire of bases” was “not so
much our little secret as a secret we kept even from ourselves” -- at
least until Johnson broke the silence and his book /Blowback/
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805075593/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>
became a bestseller in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In those years,
however, if (like Johnson) you actually wanted to know about the way the
U.S. garrisoned the world, you could profitably start simply by reading
the Pentagon's tabulations of its global garrisons, ranging from
military bases the size of small American towns
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/03/AR2006020302994_pf.html>
to what were then starting to be called “lily pads,” which were small
sites in potential global hot spots stocked with pre-positioned materiel
and ready for instant occupation. It was all there on the record for
those who cared to know. Well, perhaps not quite /all/ there, but
enough of it certainly to get a sense of what the “American Raj” (as
Johnson called it) looked like from Europe to Asia, Latin America to the
Persian Gulf.
And it was impressive, that empire of bases, once you took it in. It
represented a garrisoning of the globe unprecedented in the history of
empires. That we Americans didn’t generally know much about it was, in
a sense, a matter of choice, a matter, you might say, of self-blinding
behavior. To hazard a guess: as a people, we were uncomfortable enough
with the idea of ourselves as a global imperial power that we preferred
not to know what “we” were doing, or at least not to acknowledge what we
had become, even though every year hundreds of thousands of Americans,
military personnel and civilians alike, lived on, worked on, or cycled
through those bases. In this context, it was startling how seldom they
were part of our everyday news cycle. For those in other countries,
they often loomed large <http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1112/> indeed
as the local face of the United States, but you’d never know that if
your source of news was the mainstream media here.
That, of course, hasn’t changed. What has changed is Washington’s
attitude toward the public record. Its latest basing moves are taking
place enveloped in a blanket of secrecy, which means that even if you
want to know, it’s increasingly tough to find out. Washington’s latest
garrisoning strategy is based on a new premise: a “small footprint
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22>,”
meaning a tiny-bases, rapid-deployment, special-ops and drone-heavy way
of war that’s being put into place across Africa in the twenty-first
century, as /TomDispatch/’s Nick Turse lays out today. While the U.S.
has always pursued parts of its imperial strategy in "the shadows," to
use a phrase from my Cold War childhood, in this new strategy everyday
basing, too, is disappearing into those shadows, which is why Turse’s
latest piece on the subject is a small reportorial triumph of time and
effort.
For this site in these last years, Turse has regularly revealed much
that has been out of sight when it comes to Washington’s expanding
military focus on Africa, including the cascading number
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175981/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_the_u.s._military%27s_battlefield_of_tomorrow/>
of U.S. military missions across that continent, a similar spike in
missions to train proxy forces
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176042/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_nothing_succeeds_like_failure/>
there, and soaring deployments
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176060/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_success,_failure,_and_the_%22finest_warriors_who_ever_went_into_combat%22/>
of U.S. Special Operations forces -- that secret
military-within-the-military of 70,000
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176048/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_a_secret_war_in_135_countries/>
that now thrives solely in a world of shadows. It took a year of his
efforts, but today he finishes off his portrait of the garrisoning of a
whole continent in a new way with a look at the basing policies of U.S.
Africa Command. It’s a piece that couldn’t be more important or
hard-won, and it offers us our first look at how a continent is being
prepared for what Turse, in his latest book, has called “tomorrow’s
battlefield
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>.” /Tom/
*Does Eleven Plus One Equal Sixty? *
*AFRICOM’s New Math, the U.S. Base Bonanza, and “Scarier” Times
Ahead in Africa*
By Nick Turse <http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/nickturse>
In the shadows of what was once called the “dark continent," a
scramble has come and gone. If you heard nothing about it, that was
by design. But look hard enough and -- north to south, east to west
-- you’ll 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’s 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.
So how many U.S. military bases are there in Africa? It’s a simple
question with a simple answer. For years, U.S. Africa Command
(AFRICOM) gave a stock response
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175574/>: one. Camp Lemonnier in
the tiny, sun-bleached nation of Djibouti was America’s only
acknowledged “base” on the continent. It wasn’t true, of course,
because there were camps, compounds, installations, and facilities
elsewhere, but the military leaned hard on semantics.
Take a look at the Pentagon’s official list of bases, however, and
the number grows. The 2015 report on the Department of Defense’s
global property portfolio lists Camp Lemonnier and three other
deep-rooted sites on or near the continent: U.S. Naval Medical
Research Unit No. 3
<http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmrc/Pages/namru3.htm>, 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.
That’s only the beginning, not the end of the matter. For years,
various reporters
<http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/01/mapped-the-u-s-militarys-presence-in-africa/>
have shed light on hush-hush outposts
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/contractors-run-us-spying-missions-in-africa/2012/06/14/gJQAvC4RdV_story.html>
-- most of them built, upgraded, or expanded since 9/11 -- dotting
the continent, including so-called cooperative security locations
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175743/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom%27s_gigantic_%22small_footprint%22>
(CSLs). Earlier this year, AFRICOM commander General David
Rodriguez disclosed
<http://www.stripes.com/news/africa/staging-sites-enable-africom-to-reach-hot-spots-within-4-hours-leader-says-1.345120>
that there were actually 11 such sites. Again, 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.
“In all, AFRICOM has access to 11 CSLs across Africa. Of course, we
have one major military facility on the continent: Camp Lemonnier in
Djibouti,” Anthony Falvo, AFRICOM’s Public Affairs chief, told me.
Falvo was peddling numbers that both he and I know perfectly well
are, at best, misleading. “It’s one of the most troubling aspects
of our military policy in Africa, and overseas generally, that the
military can’t be, and seems totally resistant to being, honest and
transparent about what it’s doing,” says David Vine, author of /Base
Nation/
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1627791698/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/: How
U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World/.
Research by /TomDispatch /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. Some are
currently being utilized, some are held in reserve, and some may be
shuttered. These bases, camps, compounds, port facilities, fuel
bunkers, and other sites can be found in at least 34 countries --
more than 60% of the nations on the continent -- many of them
corrupt <https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/niger>,
repressive
<https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2015/djibouti> states
<https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/chad> with poor
<https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/central-african-republic>
human rights
<https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2014/ethiopia>
records. The U.S. also operates “Offices of Security Cooperation
and Defense Attaché Offices in approximately 38 [African] nations,”
according to Falvo, and has struck close to 30 agreements to use
international airports in Africa as refueling centers.
There is no reason to believe that even this represents a complete
accounting of America’s growing archipelago of African outposts.
Although it’s possible that a few sites are being counted twice due
to AFRICOM’s failure to provide basic information or clarification,
the list /TomDispatch/ has 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.**
*/Click here to see a larger version
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/areasofaccess_large.jpg>/*
/U.S. military outposts, port facilities, and other areas of access
in Africa, 2002-2015 (Nick Turse/TomDispatch, 2015) /
*AFRICOM’s Base Bonanza*
When AFRICOM became an independent command in 2008, Camp Lemonnier
was reportedly still one of the few American outposts on the
continent. In the years since, the U.S. has embarked on nothing
short of a building boom -- even if the command is loath to refer to
it in those terms. As a result, it’s now able to carry out
increasing numbers of overt and covert missions, from training
exercises to drone assassinations.
“AFRICOM, as a new command, is basically a laboratory for a
different kind of warfare and a different way of posturing forces,”
says Richard Reeve, the director of the Sustainable Security
Programm <http://oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/ssp>e
<http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/ssp> at the Oxford Research
Group <http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/>, a London-based think
tank. “Apart from Djibouti, there’s no significant stockpiling of
troops, equipment, or even aircraft. There are a myriad of ‘lily
pads’ or small forward operating bases... so you can spread out even
a small number of forces over a very large area and concentrate
those forces quite quickly when necessary.”
Indeed, U.S. staging areas, cooperative security locations, forward
operating locations (FOLs), and other outposts -- many of them
involved in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance
activities and Special Operations missions -- have been built (or
built up) in Burkina Faso
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/05/21/map-the-u-s-currently-has-troops-in-these-african-countries/>,
Cameroon
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-setting-up-drone-base-in-africa-to-track-boko-haram-fighters/2015/10/14/0cbfac94-7299-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html>,
the Central African Republic
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hunting-joseph-kony/2012/04/29/gIQACS07pT_graphic.html>,
Chad
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/opinion/dealing-with-boko-haram.html>,
Djibouti
<https://theintercept.com/2015/10/21/stealth-expansion-of-secret-us-drone-base-in-africa/>,
Ethiopia
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html>,
Gabon
<http://www.stripes.com/news/africa/staging-sites-enable-africom-to-reach-hot-spots-within-4-hours-leader-says-1.345120>,
Ghana
<http://www.stripes.com/news/africa/staging-sites-enable-africom-to-reach-hot-spots-within-4-hours-leader-says-1.345120>,
Kenya
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national-security/drones-and-spy-planes-over-Africa/>,
Mali
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22>,
Niger
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-set-to-open-second-drone-base-in-niger-as-it-expands-operations-in-africa/2014/08/31/365489c4-2eb8-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html>,
Senegal
<http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20140930/NEWS08/309300058/Marines-establish-three-new-staging-locations-West-Africa>,
the Seychelles
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904106704576583012923076634>,
Somalia
<http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/02/exclusive-u-s-operates-drones-from-secret-bases-in-somalia-special-operations-jsoc-black-hawk-down/>,
South Sudan
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national-security/drones-and-spy-planes-over-Africa/>,
and Uganda
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national-security/drones-and-spy-planes-over-Africa/>.
A 2011 report by Lauren Ploch/,/ an analyst in African affairs with
the Congressional Research Service, also mentioned U.S. military
access to locations in Algeria, Botswana, Namibia, São Tomé and
Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, and Zambia. AFRICOM 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.
“A cooperative security location is just a small location where we
can come in... 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,” explained AFRICOM’s Rodriguez. As he
implies, the military doesn’t consider CSLs to be “bases,” but
whatever they might be called, they are more than merely a few tents
and cases of bottled water.
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
<http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/01/31/marine-corps-merges-european-based-spmagtfs/22589509/>).
Its forces are based
<http://archive.militarytimes.com/article/20140930/NEWS08/309300058/Marines-establish-three-new-staging-locations-West-Africa>
in Morón <http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=129069>,
Spain, and Sigonella, Italy, but are focused on Africa. They rely
heavily on MV-22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor
<http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104531/cv-22-osprey.aspx>
aircraft that can take-off, land, and hover like helicopters, but
fly with the speed and fuel efficiency of a turboprop plane.
This combination of manpower, access, and technology has come to be
known in the military by the moniker “New Normal
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175844/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_how_%22benghazi%22_birthed_the_new_normal_in_africa/>.”
Birthed
<http://www.stripes.com/news/nato-s-trident-juncture-exercise-ends-with-marines-storming-the-beach-1.377174>
in 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 “a reach that extends to just about every country in West
and Central Africa.”
The concept was field-tested
<https://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/2014/04/filling-gap> as
South Sudan plunged into civil war and 160 Marines and sailors from
Morón were forward deployed to Djibouti in late 2013. 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.
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.
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. “What the
CSL offers is the ability to forward-stage our forces to respond to
any type of crisis,” Lorenzo Armijo, an operations officer with
SPMAGTF-CR-AF, told a military reporter. “That crisis can range in
the scope of military operations from embassy reinforcement to
providing humanitarian assistance.”
Another CSL, mentioned in a July 2012 briefing by U.S. Army Africa,
is located in Entebbe
<https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=54ef8d869f63c896522b4ee5715ccd3f&tab=core&_cview=0>,
Uganda. From there, according to a /Washington Post/ investigation,
U.S. contractors have flown surveillance missions using
innocuous-looking turboprop airplanes. “The 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,” Reeve says. “To do that they don’t 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’t U.S. troops on the ground.”
*/Click here to see a larger version
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/entebbecsl_large.jpg>/*
/U.S. Army Africa briefing slide from 2012 detailing work at the
Entebbe CSL/
*The Outpost Archipelago*
AFRICOM ignored my requests for further information on CSLs and for
the designations of other outposts on the continent, but according
<http://www.army.mil/article/117849/Overcoming_logistics_challenges_in_East_Africa/>
to a 2014 article in /Army Sustainment/ on “Overcoming Logistics
Challenges in East Africa,” there are also “at least nine forward
operating locations, or FOLs.” A 2007 Defense Department news
release referred to an FOL in Charichcho, Ethiopia. The U.S.
military also utilizes “Forward Operating Location Kasenyi” in
Kampala, Uganda. A 2010 report by the Government Accountability
Office mentioned
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gao.gov%2Fassets%2F310%2F303408.pdf&ei=bLF1VaWbNKTnsAS4u4LoAQ&usg=AFQjCNFWs51vh8Yb_xeuvBhiSPpCvm2Fyg>
forward operating locations
<http://www.hoa.africom.mil/image/6223/cjtf-hoa-photo> in Isiolo and
Manda Bay, both in Kenya.
Camp Simba in Manda Bay has, in fact, seen significant expansion in
recent years. In 2013, Navy Seabees, for example, worked
<http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/united-states-using-local-soldiers-fight-al-qaida-allies-east-africa/>
24-hour shifts to extend its runway to enable larger aircraft
<http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/c-130-c-5-c-17-airlifters-prompt-washington-debate/>
like C-130s to land there, while other projects were initiated to
accommodate greater numbers of troops in the future, including
increased fuel and potable water storage, and more latrines. The
base serves as a home away from home for Navy personnel and Army
Green Berets among other U.S. troops and, as recently revealed
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/> at
the/Intercept/, plays an integral role in the secret drone
assassination <https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/>
program aimed at militants in neighboring Somalia as well as in Yemen.
Drones have played an increasingly large role in this post-9/11
build-up in Africa. MQ-1 Predators have, for instance, been based
in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/31/opinion/dealing-with-boko-haram.html>,
while their newer, larger, more far-ranging cousins, MQ-9 Reapers
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-crashes-mount-at-civilian-airports-overseas/2012/11/30/e75a13e4-3a39-11e2-83f9-fb7ac9b29fad_story.html>,
have been flown
<http://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424053111904106704576583012923076634?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424053111904106704576583012923076634.html>
out of Seychelles International Airport. As of June 2012, according
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/> to
the/Intercept/, two contractor-operated drones, one Predator and one
Reaper, were based in Arba Minch
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-drone-base-in-ethiopia-is-operational/2011/10/27/gIQAznKwMM_story.html>,
Ethiopia, while a detachment with one Scan Eagle
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/us/simple-scaneagle-drones-a-boost-for-us-military.html?_r=0>
(a low-cost drone used by the Navy) and a remotely piloted
helicopter known as an MQ-8 Fire Scout
<http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.display&key=8250AFBA-DF2B-4999-9EF3-0B0E46144D03>
operated off the coast of East Africa. The U.S. also recently began
setting up a base
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-setting-up-drone-base-in-africa-to-track-boko-haram-fighters/2015/10/14/0cbfac94-7299-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html>
in Cameroon for unarmed Predators to be used in the battle against
Boko Haram militants.
*/Click here to see a larger version
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/africabriefing_large.jpg>/*
/U.S. Army Africa briefing slide from 2013 obtained by
/TomDispatch/via the Freedom of Information Act/
In February 2013, the U.S. also began flying
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story.html>
Predator drones out of Niger’s capital, Niamey
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-set-to-open-second-drone-base-in-niger-as-it-expands-operations-in-africa/2014/08/31/365489c4-2eb8-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html>.
A year later, Captain Rick Cook, then chief of U.S. Africa Command’s
Engineer Division, mentioned
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22>
the potential for a new “base-like facility” that would be
“semi-permanent” and “capable of air operations” in that country.
That September, the /Washington Post/’s Craig Whitlock exposed
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-set-to-open-second-drone-base-in-niger-as-it-expands-operations-in-africa/2014/08/31/365489c4-2eb8-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html>
plans to base drones at a second location there, Agadez. Within
days, the U.S. Embassy in Niamey announced
<http://niamey.usembassy.gov/droneinagadez.html> that AFRICOM was,
indeed, “assessing the possibility of establishing a temporary,
expeditionary contingency support location in Agadez, Niger.”
Earlier this year, Captain Rodney Worden of AFRICOM’s Logistics and
Support Division mentioned “a partnering and capacity-building
project... 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.” And
when the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 was
introduced <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d114:H.R.1735:>
in April, embedded in it was a $50 million request
<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&sid=cp114llNjh&r_n=hr102.114&dbname=cp114&&sel=TOC_1188734&>
for the construction of an “airfield and base camp at Agadez,
Niger... to support operations in western Africa.” When Congress
recently passed the annual defense policy bill, that sum was authorized.
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 “living right next to” local troops in
Diffa, Niger. A 2013 military briefing slide, obtained by
/TomDispatch/ via the Freedom of Information Act, indicates a “U.S.
presence” as well in Ouallam, Niger, and at both Bamako and Kidal in
neighboring Mali. Ouagadougou, 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 “high-risk activities” carried out by elite forces from
Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara.
On the other side of the continent in Somalia, elite U.S. forces are
operating
<http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/02/exclusive-u-s-operates-drones-from-secret-bases-in-somalia-special-operations-jsoc-black-hawk-down/>
from small compounds in Kismayo and Baledogle, according to
reporting by /Foreign Policy/. Neighboring Ethiopia has similarly
been a prime locale for American outposts, including
<http://www.africom.mil/newsroom/photo/3396/US-AFRICOM-Photo> Camp
Gilbert
<http://www.nationalguard.mil/News/ArticleView/tabid/5563/Article/574829/transportation-missions-in-africa-boost-soldier-morale.aspx>
in Dire Dawa
<https://www.facebook.com/NMCB5/photos/a.10150425774194868.384728.265326024867/10150425775434868/?type=3&theater>,
contingency operating locations at both Hurso and Bilate, and
facilities used by a 40-man team based
<https://www.dvidshub.net/video/428388/ilw-contemporary-military-forum-10-army-service-component-commands-applying-army-operating-concept-joint-effects#.VkJFD7-m3nc>
in Bara. So-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’s Resistance
Army (LRA). /Washington Post /investigations have revealed that U.S.
forces have also been based in Djema
<http://www.africom.mil/Newsroom/Transcript/8949/transcript-commander-of-special-operations-command>,
Sam Ouandja
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-military-opens-a-new-front-in-the-hunt-for-african-warlord-joseph-kony/2015/09/29/73ffef96-66a9-11e5-9223-70cb36460919_story.html>,
and Obo
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/contractors-run-us-spying-missions-in-africa/2012/06/14/gJQAvC4RdV_story.html>,
in the Central African Republic as part of that effort. There has
recently been new construction by Navy Seabees at Obo to increase
the camp’s capacity as well as to install the infrastructure for a
satellite dish.
There are other locations that, while not necessarily outposts,
nonetheless form critical nodes in the U.S. base network on the
continent. These include 10 marine gas and oil bunkers located at
ports in eight African nations. Additionally, AFRICOM acknowledges
an agreement to use Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in
Senegal for refueling as well as for the “transportation of teams
participating in security cooperation activities.” A similar deal
is in place for the use of Kitgum Airport in Kitgum, Uganda, and
Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All 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.
Not all U.S. bases in Africa have seen continuous use in these
years. After the American-backed military overthrew
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2008/08/20088695834599264.html> the
government of Mauritania in 2008, for example, the U.S. suspended
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national-security/drones-and-spy-planes-over-Africa/>
an airborne surveillance program based in its capital,**Nouakchott.
Following 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 overrun
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175830/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_africom_becomes_a_%22war-fighting_combatant_command%22>
by rebel forces.
Most of the new outposts on that continent, however, seem to be
putting down roots. As /TomDispatch/ regular
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176043/tomgram%3A_david_vine,_our_base_nation/>
and basing expert
<http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/investigations/lily-pads/htmlmulti/mapping-growth-bases-africa/>
David Vine suggests, “The 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. Once
they generate momentum, within Congress and in terms of funding,
they have a tendency to expand.”
To supply its troops in East Africa, AFRICOM has also built a
sophisticated logistics system. It’s officially known as the
Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially referred
<http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/MarApril12/New_Spice_Africa.html>
to as the “new spice route.” It connects Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia,
and Djibouti. These 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 forward operating
site <http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/africacommand.htm>
on Britain’s Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.
Germany’s Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of U.S.//Air Forces Europe
and one of the largest American military bases outside the United
States, is another key site. As the/Intercept/ reported
<https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/> earlier
this year, it serves as “the high-tech heart of America’s drone
program” for the Greater Middle East and Africa. Germany is also
host to AFRICOM’s headquarters, located at Kelley Barracks in
Stuttgart-Moehringen, itself a site reportedly integral
<http://international.sueddeutsche.de/post/52323491304/exclusive-us-armed-forces-piloting-drones-from-bases>
to drone operations in Africa.
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 important
<http://www.distribution.dla.mil/news/articles/2010/2010_11_09_dla644.aspx>
logistics
<http://www.distribution.dla.mil/news/articles/2009/articles/2009_12_01_ddsi.aspx>
facility for African operations. The second-busiest
<https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09NAPLES69_a.html> military
air station in Europe, Sigonella is a key hub for drones covering
Africa, serving as a base
<https://www.dvidshub.net/video/329656/drone-assembly#.VW_0rUbD7ag>
for MQ-1 Predators
<https://www.dvidshub.net/video/328981/drone-maintenance#.VW_1y0bD7ag>
and RQ-4B Global Hawk
<http://www.beale.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=19533>
surveillance drones
<https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08ROME398_a.html>.
*The Crown Jewels*
Back on the continent, the undisputed crown jewel in the U.S.
archipelago of bases is indeed still Camp Lemonnier. To quote
<http://archive.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5236>
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, it is “a hub with lots of spokes
out there on the continent and in the region.” Sharing a runway
with Djibouti's Ambouli
<http://www.stripes.com/news/military-responds-to-air-safety-issues-in-djibouti-1.344317>
International Airport, the sprawling compound is the headquarters of
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa and is home
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175844/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_how_%22benghazi%22_birthed_the_new_normal_in_africa/>
to the East Africa Response Force, another regional quick-reaction
unit. The camp, which also serves as the forward headquarters for
Task Force 48-4
<https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/10/03.jpg>,
a hush-hush counterterrorism unit targeting militants in East Africa
and Yemen, has seen personnel stationed there jump by more than 400%
since 2002
<http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=2888>.
In the same period, Camp Lemonnier has expanded
<http://www.stripes.com/news/accompanied-tours-in-djibouti-us-military-looks-at-options-as-it-settles-in-for-the-long-term-1.277526?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter>
from 88 acres to nearly 600 acres and is in the midst of a
years-long building boom
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/world/africa/us-signs-new-lease-to-keep-strategic-military-installation-in-the-horn-of-africa.html?_r=0>
for which more than $600 million has already been awarded or
allocated.** In late 2013, for example, B.L. Harbert International,
an Alabama-based construction company, was awarded
<http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9ra0ajF-kDIJ:www.blharbert.com/about/news/bl-harbert-international-awarded-%24150m-naval-contract-in-djibouti,-africa&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0>
a $150 million contract by the Navy for “the P-688 Forward Operating
Base at Camp Lemonnier.” According to a corporate press release,
“the 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.”
In 2014, the Navy completed
<http://seabeemagazine.navylive.dodlive.mil/2014/04/22/nmcb-74-completes-facility-in-support-of-socafrica/>
construction 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 -- the others being SOCFWD-Central Africa
<https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD0QFjAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fjsou.socom.mil%2FJSOU%2520Publications%2F2015SOFRefManual_final.pdf&ei=blR2VeK2IM7_yQTs3oGgCQ&usg=AFQjCNEYTENURprGNxW9qr0ynIksGaaHJQ&bvm=bv.95039771,d.cWc>
and SOCFWD-North and West Africa -- which, according
<http://www.soc.mil/swcs/swmag/archive/SW2502/SW2502OperationalizingStrategicPolicyInLebanon.html>
to the military, “shape 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.”
In 2012, according to secret documents recently revealed
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/> by
the/Intercept/, 10 Predator drones and four Reaper drones were based
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/> at Camp
Lemonnier, along with six U-28As
<http://www.hurlburt.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/136/Article/204913/four-hurlburt-airmen-die-in-u-28a-crash-in-djibouti.aspx>
(a single-engine aircraft that conducts surveillance for special
operations forces) and two P-3 Orions
<http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/p3.html> (a four-engine
turboprop surveillance aircraft). There were also eight F-15E Strike
Eagles, heavily armed, manned fighter jets. By August 2012, an
average of 16 drones and four fighters were taking off
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/remote-us-base-at-core-of-secret-operations/2012/10/25/a26a9392-197a-11e2-bd10-5ff056538b7c_story.html>
or landing at the base each day.
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’s Chabelley Airfield
<https://theintercept.com/2015/10/21/stealth-expansion-of-secret-us-drone-base-in-africa/>,
which has seen significant construction of late and has a much lower
profile than Camp Lemonnier, now serves as a key base for America’s
regional drone campaign. Dan Gettinger, the co-founder and
co-director of the Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard
College, recently told
<https://theintercept.com/2015/10/21/stealth-expansion-of-secret-us-drone-base-in-africa/>
the/Intercept/ that the operations run from the site were “JSOC
[Joint Special Operations Command] and CIA-led missions for the most
part,” 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.
*A Scarier Future*
Over many months, AFRICOM repeatedly ignored even basic questions
from this reporter about America’s sweeping archipelago of bases.
In 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
the rise <http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175574/> in the number
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/> of U.S.
troops, special operations deployments
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176048/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_a_secret_war_in_135_countries/>,
and missions
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175981/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_the_u.s._military%27s_battlefield_of_tomorrow/>
in Africa.
“There’s 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,” says the Oxford Research
Group's 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.
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’s
Resistance Army in Central Africa, the build-up of forces near Lake
Chad in the effort against Boko Haram, and the post-Benghazi New
Normal
<http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/briefing_papers_and_reports/sahel_counterterrorism_new_normal>
concept as examples. “But, in practice, what is all of this going
to be used for?” he wonders. After 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.
“Where does this go post-Obama?” Reeve asks rhetorically, noting
that the rise of AFRICOM and the proliferation of small outposts
have been “in line with the Obama doctrine.” He draws attention to
the president’s embrace of a lighter-footprint brand of warfare,
specifically a reliance on Special Operations forces and drones.
This may, Reeve adds, just be a prelude to something larger and
potentially more dangerous.
“Where would Hillary take this?” he asks, referencing the hawkish
<http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417455/hillary-ultimate-hawk-david-french>
Democratic primary frontrunner
<http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary>,
Hillary Clinton. “Or any of the Republican potentials?” He 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’s infrastructure had already been in place. Such 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.
“I think,” Reeve says, “that we could be looking at something a
bit scarier in Africa.”
/Nick Turse is the managing editor of /TomDispatch/and a fellow at
the //Nation Institute/
<http://www.nationinstitute.org/fellows/2904/nick_turse/>/. A 2014
Izzy Award and //American Book Award/
<http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/foundation-news/2014-american-book-awards/>/winner
for his book /Kill Anything That Moves/, his pieces have appeared in
the /New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/29/lessons-40-years-after-the-fall-of-saigon/in-vietnam-callous-use-of-power-led-to-years-of-civilian-misery-3>/,
the /Intercept
<https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/target-africa/>/, the /Los
Angeles Times/, the /Nation/, and regularly at /TomDispatch
<http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176060/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_success%2C_failure%2C_and_the_%22finest_warriors_who_ever_went_into_combat%22/>/.
His latest book is /Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and
Secret Ops in Africa
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/./
/Follow /TomDispatch/on Twitter <https://twitter.com/TomDispatch>
and join us on Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/tomdispatch>. Check
out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turse’s /Tomorrow’s Battlefield:
U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464636/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/, and
Tom Engelhardt's latest book, /Shadow Government: Surveillance,
Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower
World
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1608463656/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20>/./
Copyright 2015 Nick Turse
© 2015 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176070/
--
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