New Fronts Call for New Capacities

As a longtime advocate for the creation of a unified regional combatant command for Africa; an idea for which, in a column published in this very space last year, I argued “the time is now”; I was more than pleased with the Bush administration's February 6 decision to stand up just such a structure.

Of course, as I pointed out in another column after the announcement of the creation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), “we have to do more than just create the new command; we now have a narrow window – barely eighteen months – to get its stand-up right.”

Much of the discussion these past few months has focused on the need for AFRICOM to be different from the existing regional commands, transforming itself into a platform which integrates, in addition to the U.S. military's unmatched “hard power” capabilities, the diplomatic resources, development assistance, humanitarian relief, and other instruments of America's “soft power.” While this is all well and true, it should not be forgotten that what is being established is a combatant command, not a civilian interagency working group. Consequently, at least as much time and energy as have been dedicated to considering AFRICOM's non-military, civil society engagement needs to also be allocated to considering what new military capacities need to be developed if the new entity to achieve its desired strategic effects. While Africa offers many opportunities found nowhere else, it also presents certain challenges for which, frankly speaking, the United States has not previously needed to cultivate the adequate capacities to successfully confront.

Let me give one example among the many that can be adduced.

In my September 14 column, I pointed out that despite the increasing importance of Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically West Africa along the Gulf of Guinea, as a supplier of North America's hydrocarbon needs, “this supply is at far greater risk than most policymakers may think especially if one takes a careful look at the risk equation and its three elements: threat, vulnerability, and cost.” Lamenting that post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism initiatives in Africa have largely ignored the maritime threat, I argued that “if Osama bin Laden is serious about waging economic war against the United States – and, from his record, there is no reason to dismiss his pronouncements out of hand – and if his minions heed his advice about hitting one of America's vital arteries, then we can expect at some point a maritime threat, most likely to West African production facilities, but also possibly targeting shipping in the waters off the Horn of Africa.”

Confirmation of this assessment came last week from a researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Akiva J. Lorenz, who published a report entitled Al Qaeda's Maritime Threat.

Lorenz argues that while U.S. and other officials reviewed shipping and port security in recent years, the organization's operatives, “acting in a fast learning and maximizing terrorist network, have learned to adapt to this rapidly changing environment,” managing largely “to have stayed one step ahead of security services.” Thus he concludes that, because “carried by a heterogeneous fleet of vessels, the maritime transport sector is one of the most vulnerable points in today's interdependent societies,” not only will we “witness more maritime attempts to disrupt the flow of oil” in the near future, but, since “it is only a matter of time until al-Qaeda once more will succeed in attacking the West,” more likely than not “maritime terrorism is positioned to be their method of choice.”

While it is not inconceivable that the attack will come on the high seas given the relative proliferation of anti-ship missile technology – witness Hezbollah's use of a C-802 (or possibly a C-701) missile last summer against the Israeli Sa'ar-5 class corvette, the I.N.S. Hanit (a vessel whose officers hosted me and several colleagues the year before) – it is also unlikely that any actor, state or non-state, will seriously challenge the U.S. Navy's dominance of the “blue waters” for some time to come.

The Navy has also made progress towards assuring its command of the coastal waters as well with the development of its “littoral combat ship” (LCS), next generation surface vessels which are designed with operational flexibility to execute focused missions in the “green waters” close to shore. However, it is unlikely that many naval engagements which AFRICOM will undertake will necessarily involve much of either of these two capacities. Rather, the likeliest challenge which AFRICOM's naval component will be called upon to tackle will be in the “brown waters” of delta and other riverine environments.

Take Nigeria which, in addition to its many other problems, faces an insurgency in the southeast where increasingly tactically-sophisticated attacks by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) have slashed Nigerian petroleum production by an estimated 500,000 barrels per day, a margin of approximately 25 percent of output capacity without which cut the West African nation would have already surpassed Saudi Arabia as a supplier of America's energy needs. I have previously discussed both this simmering crisis in the Niger Delta and the increasing evidence of outside Islamist penetration of what was originally a local grievance not without its poignancy. However, the point here is that Nigeria has not been able to cope with this challenge – its clumsy efforts are hardly helped by its being saddled by a navy with more flag officers than vessels.

More worrisome, however, is that it is not clear that the U.S. Navy is necessarily in much of a position to help the critical West African state – to say nothing of those African partners much more poorly off – to build their capacity to control this riverine battle space. Of course the Navy disposes of some extraordinary units which, together with their counterparts in the other services, can potentially contribute to AFRICOM's innovative integrated approach to helping allies resolve conflicts, improve their security environment, preempt or defeat terrorist networks, and respond to crises in Sub-Saharan Africa's weak states.

While thinking of the special reconnaissance and direct action capabilities of a Navy SEAL team or the projects – both “hearts-and-minds” and directly military-related – which Seabee units have and will undertake in the African theatre, one is at a loss as to what the Navy may bring to bear in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in places like the Niger Delta where the tactical experience and operational skills of units like Army's Special Forces have rather limited applicability and where the firepower of the “blue” and “green” water naval forces is largely irrelevant. In short, what might be needed is a new naval COIN force that can provide both security training and assistance to allies in the region while at the same time being operationally capable of undertaking counterterrorism missions of its own in the small African conflicts which may well prove to be the new front in America's global war on terrorism.

The inauguration of AFRICOM – arguably the most significant institutional transformation for the U.S. military since the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 created the regional and functional combatant commands – represents a unique opportunity not only to engage a heretofore largely neglected but geostrategically important region, but also an occasion to creatively cultivate some of the new capacities which will ensure our forces ultimately triumph in our “long war” of the 21st century.

– J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C.