Enabling a Continent to Help Itself: U.S. Military Capacity Building and Africa’s Emerging Security Architecture

Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 1 (January 2007)

by Benedikt Franke

Introduction

Over the past five years, Africa has made great progress in establishing an institutional architecture in order to tackle the continent’s manifold security problems. The United States has increasingly been supporting this effort through a variety of capacity building programs and initiatives designed to enable Africa to help itself. However, while much has been written about U.S. military capacity building initiatives like the African Crisis Response Force (ACRF) and the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI),[1] academic interest has since shifted both geographically (to the Middle East and Central Asia) and conceptually (to counterterrorism). Consequently, the strategic rationale for and details of the current U.S. capacity building efforts for Africa’s peace and security architecture have not received the attention and scrutiny they deserve.

To this purpose, the article is divided into five parts, beginning with a brief history of the United States’ capacity building efforts in Africa. This retrospective journey is followed by an assessment of Africa’s growing geo-strategic importance to the United States and the resultant rationale for expanding military capacity-building programs. The third part introduces the African Union’s emerging security architecture while the fourth part details the current U.S. initiatives to support it. The final part briefly elaborates on the remaining challenges for effective U.S. military capacity building. The article concludes by arguing that even though the continent’s emerging security architecture holds the promise of high rates of return on U.S. capacity building, the current level of support is still significantly below what is needed to effectively enable the continent to help itself and thus safeguard the growing number of U.S. national interests in Africa.

The History of U.S. Military Capacity-Building in Africa

Historically, the interest of the United States in Africa has been negligible compared to the attention and resources it has paid to other regions. Nonetheless, the continent served as an important proxy battleground in the Cold War and featured prominently in the U.S. strategy of containment.[2] In order to prevent the spread of communism in Africa, the United States supported ideologically correct “anti-communist” regimes through various military capacity-building programs such as the Military Assistance Training Program (MAP) which were envisaged as (comparatively) low-cost, low-risk foreign policy instruments that could provide a valuable channel of communication and influence with African elites.[3] These programs were continued throughout the Cold War despite frequent criticism and accusations that U.S. military assistance increased the likelihood of coups d’état and undercut African development by assisting repressive states, undermining diplomatic goals, and adding to a security dilemma by increasing regional military tensions.

Following the end of the Cold War, however, the United States initially reassessed its policy towards Africa. The National Security Review 30: American Policy towards Africa in the 1990s (NSR 30) concluded that post-cold war developments in Africa provided both “significant opportunities for, and obstacles to, U.S. interests” and that the United States had to remain militarily engaged on the continent.[4] The United States began to pursue a more proactive strategy towards the continent, at least until October 3, 1993, when 18 U.S. Rangers were killed and at least 75 more seriously injured in Mogadishu. The subsequent troop withdrawal from Somalia heralded a shift towards isolationism that was characterized by greater reluctance to become involved in further deployments elsewhere in Africa, notably in Rwanda.

Even though this shift was partially reversed once the scale of the tragedy in Rwanda was revealed and the international community developed a sense of collective guilt over the its inaction, the United States did not revert to direct military intervention when fear of an imminent genocide in neighboring Burundi broke out in 1996. Instead, former U.S. Secretary of State, Warren Christopher fell back on the United Kingdom’s suggestion to create a regional peacekeeping force for Africa organized along the lines of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in order to shift more of the military conflict management burden on Africa’s shoulders.[5] In an address to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in October 1996, Christopher stated that due to the Burundi crisis and its potential impact on other states, “we must develop the capacity for an effective response in any future crisis, and we must find new ways for Africans to work together and for the international community to support you.”[6] Christopher suggested the creation of an African Crisis Response Force (ACRF), an indigenous African military force, trained and equipped with the help of the U.S. military, available for deployment to trouble spots on the continent. While the concept held many attractions for its American sponsors—it could help prevent another Somalia or Rwanda without necessitating the direct involvement of the U.S. military—and even though it was very much in line with the goal enunciated in the United Nations Secretary-General’s peacekeeping report of November 1995,[7] the ACRF proposal was not well received by most African states.

Given the unexpected spate of African criticism that greeted the U.S. presentation of ACRF, reaching from accusations of neo-imperial patrimonialism to resentments about the failure to adequately inform or consult with African leaders,[8] the United States quickly agreed to a conceptual shift from creating a force to establishing a capacity-building initiative in order to accommodate the main concerns.[9] The resultant African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) differed from its short-lived predecessor in more than the name. Instead of intending to set up a standing army in Africa, it simply aimed at enhancing existing capabilities of African states to contribute to peacekeeping operations in accordance with sovereign decisions of their governments. Under ACRI, national contingents at the battalion-level received non-lethal peacekeeping training with an emphasis on the development of basic military skills, protection of refugees, operating effectively with humanitarian organizations and the observance of human rights.[10] Members of the U.S. Army 3rd Special Forces Group (3rd SFG) based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (which had been training African armies since July 1990)[11] visited each participating state and embarked on a 70-day training cycle (initially 60-days) with a 6-month follow-up including Field Training Exercises (FTX) and computer-based simulations. By July 2001 such training had been given to about 8,000 troops, comprising forces from Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Uganda and Senegal.[12]

In addition to ACRI, the United States engaged in at least three other notable capacity-building programs in order to counter the escalation of conflicts occurring throughout Africa in the 1990s. One is the Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities (EIPC) program, created in 1996 “to help increase the pool of armed forces capable of participating in multinational peace support operations.”[13] Another is the Africa Regional Peacekeeping Program (ARP) which was created in order to equip, train and support troops from selected African countries that are involved in peacekeeping operations and through which the annual European Command regional military exercise to enhance African armies’ joint operating capabilities, known as “Shared Accord,” is funded. Lastly, the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program offers a variety of military education and training activities to African military officials at facilities in the United States.

While all these programs made a commendable contribution to military capacity-building for non-lethal peacekeeping operations in accordance with Chapter VI of the UN Charter, an inter-agency review carried out in 2001 found that, given the violent nature of African conflicts, there was a growing need to also enhance the ability of African troops to operate in hostile environments and conduct peace enforcement operations in accordance with Chapter VII. Consequently, the Bush administration transformed ACRI into a new program called the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA), which trains military trainers and equips African national militaries to conduct peace support operations and humanitarian relief.[14] In contrast to ACRI, under ACOTA African troops are also provided with lethal military weaponry, including rifles, machine guns and mortars.[15]

Following the G8 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June 2004, ACOTA (as well as EIPC) was incorporated into the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), a new and much larger program to support military capacity-building which aims at training and equipping 75,000 military troops, a majority of them African, for peacekeeping operations by 2010.[16] While the United States spent “just” $154 million on GPOI’s predecessor programs ($121 million for ACRI/ACOTA from FY1997-FY2005 and $33 million for EIPC from FY1998-FY2005), it has committed over $660 million to GPOI from FY2005 through FY2009 in addition to continuing with programs such as IMET and ARP.

The Strategic Rationale for Expanding Military Capacity-Building in Africa

These programs and the level of funding that the United States is dedicating to Africa-specific programs is unprecedented in its foreign policy towards the continent. What explains the shift in the importance accorded to Africa in U.S. foreign policy? In the decade after the Cold War, Africa seemed marginalized by an unhealthy mix of Afro-pessimism, the proliferation of violent and intractable conflicts, and the surfacing of more immediately pressing foreign policy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the conflicts in the Middle East. By the late 1990s, however, as the national security concerns of the United States evolved and the humanitarian challenges posed by Africa have increased,[17] the United States had begun to step up its military capacity-building support for the continent. While a large share of this support goes to counterterrorism initiatives such as the $500 million Trans-Sahel Counterterrorism Initiative (TSCTI), more and more emphasis has been placed on capacity-building for peace operations. This increased commitment to African conflict management capabilities springs from the realization that the continuation of conflicts in Africa is a direct threat to a number of vital U.S. national interests.

Given the decline in domestic output, the chronic instability within many of its traditional suppliers in the Middle East and the resultant need to speed up strategic diversification of its oil sources, the United States has become increasingly interested in the vast, largely untapped and relatively easily accessible oil resources in Western Africa.[18] According to the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the United States is likely to draw as much as a quarter of its oil from this region by 2015, surpassing the volume imported from the Persian Gulf. However, continuing conflict in Western Africa pose significant risks to major U.S. investment in the region’s production and refinery infrastructure and thus a reliable oil supply. Therefore, investing in capacity building programs has a longer-term payoff of increased regional stability, which helps to provide for more secure access to West Africa’s oil reserves.

Second, the U.S. government has come to believe that chronic instabilities counteract progress in the global struggle against terrorism. The view here is that the prevalence of conflict and instability in an underdeveloped region potentially fosters terrorism by affording extremist groups with motivating causes, recruitment opportunities and safe havens. With Central and Eastern Africa almost continuously ablaze with seemingly self-perpetuating conflicts, there is thus growing concern that the resultant instability and lawlessness provides an opening for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or the Global Jihad (which have a history of involvement in these predominantly Muslim regions).[19]

Yet in most cases the United States is reluctant to deploy its own troops to these trouble zones. Therefore, the expansion of military aid programs including the provision of U.S. arms, military equipment and technical assistance to enhance African conflict management capabilities is increasingly seen as the most effective means to safeguard the growing number of U.S. national interests on the continent (securing important oil supplies and preventing the spread of terrorism are merely two examples of the latter). Besides promoting stability and eradicating the underlying root causes and force multipliers of terrorism without necessitating a significant U.S. military presence, enabling the continent to help itself holds a number of additional benefits for the United States that transcend humanitarian concerns. For example, given Africa’s ongoing process self-emancipation, efforts to complement rather than supplant indigenous initiatives not only help to avoid the impression of U.S. neo-colonial imperialism, but may also prove important in helping the United States to compete with China and other countries for access to African resources and influence in the region. In light of these strategic considerations, it is hardly surprising that the United States has expanded its capacity building support for Africa’s emerging peace and security architecture, which is described briefly in the section below.

Africa’s Emerging Security Architecture

In the early 1990s African governments made important steps in the direction of collective security. Efforts to create a continental security mechanism were not new, but previous attempts had failed miserably,[20] With the end of the Cold War, however, conditions had changed. The deteriorating security landscape in Africa, the international community’s diminished interest in the continent as well as a discernible change in the continent’s self-perception forced the OAU to reconsider its own role with regard to Africa’s security and development. As early as 1990, Africa’s leaders noted the urgent need for collective action to tackle the continent’s manifold security problems. Following the 1991 landmark all-African Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Kampala, leaders finally appeared willing to overcome many of the hindrances which had plagued previous attempts at continental security cooperation.

The 1992 report of the OAU Secretary-General on conflicts in Africa, entitled Proposals for an OAU Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, subsequently argued for a replacement of the OAU’s obviously inadequate ad hoc approach to conflict management with an institutionalized framework. The African leaders endorsed the report and the OAU began to conceptualize the structure and process by which it could effectively manage conflicts in Africa. Hardly a year later, OAU member states assembled in Cairo to formally establish the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. Over the next seven years, the Mechanism’s activism was to transform the OAU into a more credible organization with an increased visibility and an elevated profile in the conflict management arena.[21]

Finally, in July 2002, leaders from 53 African countries (all but Morocco) decided to replace the Organisation of African Unity with a structurally more promising African Union (AU) modeled after the European archetype. At its first session the assembly of the AU established a Peace and Security Council (PSC) as a standing decision-making organ including “a collective security and early-warning arrangement to facilitate timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis situations in Africa” as well as an African Standby Force and Panel of the Wise to respond to such crises.[22] The incorporation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as well as the formulation of a Common African Defense and Security Policy which delineates the member states’ collective responses to both internal and external security threats in February 2004 completed this institutional architecture (see Figure 1).

 Figure 1: The African Peace and Security Architecture

While the creation of this arrangement in itself constitutes a major achievement in institutional reform, it is the AU’s underlying acceptance of the normative commitment to protect that distinguishes it from its feeble predecessor. Where Articles II and III of the Charter OAU had placed a premium on sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in member states’ internal affairs, the AU’s Constitutive Act imposes important limitations on state sovereignty.[23] Under the AU, member states enjoy the privileges of sovereignty such as the non-interference in its internal affairs only as long as they fulfill their responsibility to protect their citizens.[24] If, however, states fail, for whatever reasons, to honor this responsibility, the AU reserves itself “the right to intervene [in a member state] pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.”[25] The significance of this shift in the non-interference norm cannot be understated: one of the core principles of the OAU had been that states would not interfere in the internal affairs of other African states. This core principle had not only prevented the OAU from taking action in a number of severe crises in Africa, but it also extended to a continent-wide silence on the abusive tendencies of autocratic leaders. The simple acceptance that sovereignty is not completely inviolable represented a major change.

A second prominent feature of the new peace and security architecture is its multi-layered and symbiotic approach to security cooperation. Likened by some to a “peace pyramid,”[26] the continental security structure rests firmly on Africa’s existing regional security mechanisms, which act both as pillars of and implementation agencies for continental security policy. This structural interdependence not only contrasts starkly with the OAU’s often uneasy relationship with the continent’s regional organizations, but also helps to focus the plethora of African security initiatives onto one common objective. Moreover, it allows the AU to profit from the regional organizations’ comparative advantage in military and security matters, their experience with peace operations and—in the case of western, eastern and southern Africa—their established frameworks and mechanisms for conflict prevention, management and resolution.[27]

At the same time, the cooperative structure does not deny the regional organizations a significant stake and central role in all processes and respects their regional authority and responsibility.[28] Under this system of decentralized collective security, the primary responsibility for peace and security remains squarely with the regional organizations while the AU serves as the clearinghouse and framework for all initiatives, thus filling the conceptual and institutional gap between the global level (the United Nations) and the regional level. The resultant symbiosis ensures that the regional organizations feel ownership in the process of establishing a continental security architecture and virtually eliminates the risk of competition between the various levels of inter-African security cooperation. Furthermore, it increases the stakes all actors have in the process and thereby reduces the chances of failure.

While some critics argue that this decentralized approach merely creates or reinforces additional layers of bureaucracy and thus slows down responses to crises and conflicts, there is ample evidence that the symbiotic relationship between the continental and regional levels is already beginning to bear fruit. Over the past three years, the ambitious dream of a comprehensive security architecture has been taking shape at a remarkable pace and the AU has become deeply involved in the continent’s manifold security problems by building on the experiences and relying on the resources of the regional organizations In Burundi, for example, the African Union Mission (AMIB) stabilized the fragile situation and prepared the ground for a subsequent UN peacekeeping operation. In Darfur, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) has, despite severe financial and logistical difficulties, done remarkably well in alleviating widespread suffering and containing a conflict in which no one else seems prepared to intervene. In Togo, the AU prevented the undemocratic take-over of power following the death of President Gnassingbe Eyadema and on the Comoros the African Union Military Observer Mission (AMISEC) successfully safeguarded a complicated election and reconciliation process.

While all of these examples testify to the AU’s dedicated efforts to develop a continental capacity for peace operations, the most telling indicator of the AU’s commitment is its rapid progress in establishing the African Standby Force (ASF). In line with President Mbeki’s call for Africans “to do everything they can to rely on their own capacities to secure their continent’s renaissance,”[29] African leaders have placed the establishment of the ASF at the heart of the AU’s peace and security agenda in order to enable the Peace and Security Council to intervene in conflict zones and project military power where and when necessary.[30] Not unlike NATO’s Response Force, the EU Battlegroups or the UN’s Standby High Readiness Brigade, the ASF will consist of standby multi-disciplinary contingents, with civilian and military components located in their countries of origin and ready for rapid deployment anywhere in Africa at appropriate notice. As currently foreseen, each of Africa’s five regions (North, East, South, West and Central) is to set up a standby brigade of about 3,000-5,000 troops providing the AU with a combined standby capacity of about 15,000-25,000 troops trained and equipped to common standard and operating to common doctrine. As is the case with the continent’s overarching peace and security architecture, Africa’s regional organizations thus epitomize essential building blocs of the continental effort while the AU bears overall strategic and operational responsibility.

There are many reasons why the establishment of the ASF is by far the most promising attempt to develop an African peace operations capability. First, contrary to its many feeble predecessors, the ASF has emerged as part of a larger effort to enhance African conflict management capabilities and is firmly anchored within an overarching security framework.[31] This framework’s increasing institutionalization as well as the growing continental and international support for its objectives significantly reduces the likelihood of the ASF failing for political reasons. Second, the decentralized nature of the ASF utilizes the regional organizations’ military and institutional structures rather than attempting to supplant them. Over the last decade, Africa’s regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) or the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have made great strides at establishing regional conflict management mechanisms and using them in regional peacekeeping or mediation activities. While the three ECOWAS operations in Western Africa (Liberia 1990, Sierra Leone 1997-8 and Liberia 2003) are certainly the most well-known such activities, the 1998 intervention in Lesotho by SADC, the successful mediation of IGAD in the Sudanese civil war or the ongoing mission of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) in the Central African Republic are equally insightful signs of the growing potential (and willingness) of Africa’s regional organizations to deal with the continent’s manifold security problems. By building the ASF on regional pillars, the AU profits from these experiences and ensures that the regional organizations feel ownership in the process of establishing a continental standby force. These promising characteristics of the ASF as well as the resultant institutional prospects for the continental peace and security architecture provide the context for U.S. military capacity building for peace operations in Africa today.

U.S. Support for Africa’s Emerging Capabilities

The question then becomes, how exactly is the United States enhancing Africa’s emerging peace operations capabilities? In essence, the U.S. capacity-building strategy is twofold. First, the United States is aiming at improving the capabilities of individual states to field well-trained and well-equipped troops for peace operations. Secondly, the United States is supporting the development of multilateral command and control capacities to lead these troops and ensure their interoperability. Geographically, even though the United States continues to support a large number of African countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia via programs like EIPC, ACOTA (both now part of GPOI) and International Military Education and Training (IMET), it has, for obvious strategic reasons, increasingly focused its military capacity building support on the Western African region and its efforts to establish a regional standby brigade as part of the ASF.

West Africa’s strategic primacy has in many ways been evident ever since the United States first engaged in capacity building support for peace operations via ACRI in 1996. While the initiative’s support was not officially limited to a particular region, five out of seven long-term recipients were countries from Western Africa (that is, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Senegal). Moreover, the United States has for long shown a particular interest in developing a military capacity building program with ECOWAS. Encouraged by the latter’s notably successful regional intervention in Liberia in 1990 and the subsequent acknowledgement of the “potential utility of Africa’s regional organizations for the achievement of U.S. foreign policy objectives” through the 1992 NSR 30,[32] at one point the ACRI Interagency Working Group (IWG) was even evaluating the advisability of having a Presidential Decision Directive issued that would allow ECOWAS to receive direct assistance at substantial levels.[33] Even though such a directive never materialized, the consistent United States support for the region’s peace operations capabilities helped ECOWAS to conduct what many analysts saw as a greatly improved second intervention in Liberia in 2003.

Following Africa’s return into the geo-strategic limelight and the subsequent decision to establish GPOI in order to train 50,000 peacekeepers on the continent, U.S. support to the region has reached new levels. In FY 2006, for example, the administration dedicated $114 million to GPOI out of which West Africa’s states have received most of the $14 million devoted to training, exercises and equipment. In addition, the administration also used funds from the ACOTA program accounts ($37 million in FY 2006) and the Africa Regional Peacekeeping account ($41 million in FY 2006) in order to strengthen the peacekeeping forces and headquarters capabilities of ECOWAS.[34]

In essence, U.S. military capacity building in Western Africa takes two forms, bilateral capacity building through the ACOTA program and multilateral capacity building through the GPOI program. On the bilateral level, the United States aims at enhancing the peace operations capabilities of individual partner countries. In 2006, for example, it trained and equipped several new battalions for peace operations and continued ACOTA training programs in countries such as Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Mali and Niger. Such training is generally conducted by the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) or the U.S. Special Forces Command (SOCOM) and heavily emphasizes the train-the-trainer concept in order to enhance the participating countries’ ability to train their own troops.[35] Topics of instruction are tuned to the specific needs of the recipient country and can include tasks such as convoy escort, logistics, protection of refugees, negotiations, robust force protection and the cooperation with humanitarian, nongovernmental and international relief organizations. Taught through a combination of classroom instruction, field training and computer-assisted exercises, the courses usually conclude with a U.S.-sponsored joint exercise. The equipment provided by the United States also comes in country-specific packages (usually worth around $2 million) and includes deployment supplies such as Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation equipment, uniforms, office supplies, communications equipment, portable lights and water purifiers.

On the multilateral level, the United States aims to enhance the regions’ collective capacity for peace operations. Building on years of experience developing institutional capacities to field more efficient and well-led peacekeeping units through the Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capabilities program, GPOI provides multi-national training in common peacekeeping doctrine, supports the development of regional headquarters and enhances command and control interoperability at the battalion and higher levels. The standard GPOI package includes support for headquarters personnel and infrastructure, training through classroom and mobile training teams, training exercises to practice command control and equipment to improve regional interoperability. By supporting the development of strong planning and organizational units (both military and civilian) as well as a transportation and logistics support arrangement (TLSA) designed to address the current gap in Africa’s deployment and logistics capacity, GPOI directly aids the establishment of the African Standby Force and its regional brigades. Through GPOI, the State Department also promotes the exchange of information among donors on peace operations training and exercises in Africa. This is accomplished through donors meetings which serve as a “clearinghouse” to facilitate coordination.[36]

Taken together, both levels of U.S. capacity building seem to go a long way in achieving the stated objectives of U.S. support to Africa’s emerging peace operations capabilities, namely, to train and equip African militaries to conduct peace operations, to build and enhance sustainable African peace operations training capacity, to develop effective command and control and to promote commonality and interoperability.

Challenges to Effective U.S. Military Capacity Building in Africa

However, despite the improvement in framework conditions following the emergence of a promising African peace and security architecture and the increase in U.S. commitment, there remain significant challenges to effective U.S. military capacity building for peace operations on the continent. Like their predecessor programs, the current initiatives are threatened by inadequate funding and political commitment, insufficient interagency coordination as well as a failure to harmonize activities with international partners.

Africa’s growing geo-strategic importance to the United States has resulted in an increasing commitment to several highly valuable military capacity building programs, all of which warrant continued support to ensure that they remain robust and effective. However, despite the impressive-looking budgets mentioned in the previous section, actual funding is sporadic, heavily dependent upon supplemental appropriations and more responsive to immediate crises than longer-term capacity building. While saving the African Union Mission in Sudan from bankruptcy and financially supporting the ever growing number of other African-led peace operations are surely worthy causes, no funds should be diverted from long-term capacity building projects in order to meet the associated expenses. Admittedly, it may be difficult to muster political support for further increasing the African regional peacekeeping budget(s), however, only by supporting both immediate demands as well as long-term needs will African capacity be enhanced in a sustainable manner and thus be able to safeguard the growing number of U.S. national interests on the continent.

Insufficient interagency coordination is another impediment to effective U.S. military capacity building in Africa. Even though the subsumption of EIPC and ACOTA into the GPOI framework has streamlined parts of the institutional structure, U.S. support still comes from a variety of independent budgets and offices including at least three in the Department of State, several in the Department of Defense, and more from SOCOM, EUCOM and other overseas U.S. commands. In order to avoid duplicating efforts, the United States should develop a single point of coordination for enhancing Africa’s conflict management capabilities.

Also, even though the G8 Africa Action Plan called for better harmonization of bilateral training programs in Africa and GPOI has subsequently begun to institutionalize a clearinghouse for international capacity building initiatives, coordination between the United States and European training and support activities such as the French program Renforcement des Capacités Africaines de Maintien de la Paix (RECAMP) or the European Union’s African Peace Facility (worth €250 million) is still weak.[37] Widely differing agendas and political rivalries among the donors have inhibited efforts to overcome this problem which thus continues to undermine the development of strategic approaches and multiplies transaction costs for the AU and other recipients. Moreover, coupled with the current lack of capacity of African institutions to present their requirements as clearly-defined and specific proposals, this problem leads to an undue emphasis on training at the expense of equally important requirements such as logistical support. Addressing all the above challenges is a fundamental requirement for effective progress.

Conclusion

It was the purpose of this article to evaluate U.S. capacity building efforts for peace operations in light of Africa’s growing importance to the United States. In conclusion, it is worth reiterating that even though Africa’s move from ad hoc security initiatives to permanent structured cooperation holds the promise of higher returns on current U.S. military capacity building programs, today’s level of U.S. support as well as the number of unresolved issues stands in no relation to the prevalence of conflict and growing number of vital U.S. national interests on the continent. If the United States is serious about capacity building in Africa as means to safeguard its interests in Western Africa, eradicate the underlying root causes and force multipliers of terrorism and increase its political and military influence in the region it has to increase its commitment to match its objectives and grasp the many opportunities.[38] Over the past years, Africans have been undertaking impressive initiatives to resolve their continent’s manifold perils, but without such an increased U.S. commitment these initiatives will fail and so too will many of the U.S. hopes and objectives for the continent.

 About the Author

Benedikt Franke is currently completing his Ph.D. studies in the Centre of International Studies of Cambridge University (UK). Previously he gained a Master's in International and Strategic Studies from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies. Mr. Franke has worked for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs of the German Federal Ministry of Defence in Berlin, and is a member of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s Working Group on Foreign and Security Policy. Mr. Franke was born in Munich, Germany.

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 References

1. See, for example, Emmanuel Aning, "African Crisis Response Initiative and the New African Security (Dis)Order," African Journal of Political Science 6, no. 1 (2001): 2-3; Dan Henk and Steven Metz, The United States and the Transformation of African Security: The African Crisis Response Initiative and Beyond (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1997); Jeremy Levitt, "The African Crisis Response Initiative: A General Survey," Africa Insights 28, no. 3 (1998); Mark Malan, "U.S. Response to African Crises: An Overview and Preliminary Analysis of Acri," in ISS Occasional Paper No. 24 (Pretoria: 1997); Marshall McCallie, "Acri: Positive Engagement with Africa," USIA Electronic Journal 3, no. 2 (1998); Paul Omach, "The African Crisis Response Initiative: Domestic Politics and Convergence of National Interests," African Affairs 99 (2000).

2. See Daniel Volman, "Africa's Rising Status in American Defence Policy," The Journal of Modern African Studies 22, no. 1 (1984).

3. Ernst Lefever, "The Military Assistance Training Program," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 424 (1976).

4. NSR 30, quoted in Aning, Op. Cit., 45.

5. Financial Times, 21 September 1994: 4

6. Warren Christopher, Speech to the OAU, Addis Ababa, October 11, 1996.

7. See UN Document S/1995/943, Report of the Secretary-General on Standby Arrangements for Peacekeeping, November 10, 1995.

8. Dan Henk and Steven Metz, The United States and the Transformation of African Security: The African Crisis Response Initiative and Beyond (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1997), 24.

9. Eric Sams and Katie E. Berman, Peacekeeping in Africa: Capabilities and Culpabilities (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000).

10. See ACRI Concept and Training Update, 8 November 1997 and ACRI Concept Paper, April 16, 1998.

11. See Daniel Volman, "The Development of the African Crisis Response Initiative," in Africa Policy Report (1998).

12. See Statement by William Bellamy, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State, "African Crisis Response Initiative: A Security Building Block,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, July 12, 2001, 8.

13. See Information Paper, "The Enhanced International Peacekeeping Capability (EIPC) Education and Training Program," Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, 2001, 1.

14. Russell Handy, "The Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance: Developing Training Partnerships for the Future of Africa," Air & Space Power Journal, no. 3 (2003).

15. The only lethal equipment contained in the ACRI package was small arms ammunition for marksmanship training.

16. For detailed information on GPOI see Nina Serafino, The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2006).

17. Council on Foreign Relations, More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach toward Africa (New York: Independent Task Force Report, 2006).

18. See Michael Klare and Daniel Volman, "The African 'Oil Rush' and Us National Security," Third World Quarterly 27, no. 4 (2006).

19. See CSIS, "The Islamist Threat in Sub-Saharan Africa" (Classified Report, August 2004).

20. Benedikt Franke, "A Pan-African Army: The Evolution of an Idea and Its Eventual Realisation in the African Standby Force," African Security Review 15, no. 4 (2006).

21. M. Muyangwa and M. Vogt, An Assessment of the Oau Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, 1993-2000 (New York: International Peace Academy, 2000).

22. See Article 2, Paragraph 1, Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (2002).

23. Articles II and III, Charter of the Organisation of African Unity, 25 May 1963, reprinted in International Legal Materials 2, no. 4, July 1963, 767-78.

24. "The Responsibility to Protect," Report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, December 2001, Paragraphs 6.1-6.12.

25. The Constitutive Act of the African Union, July 2002, Article 4 (Principles), Paragraph h.

26. For the concept of "peace pyramid" see, for example, Mark Malan, The Oau and African Sub-Regional Organizations—a Closer Look at the Peace Pyramid (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 1999).

27. These regional organizations include the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD-East Africa), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

28. Benedikt Franke, "In Defence of Regional Peace Operations in Africa," Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, no. 185 (2006).

29. Thabo Mbeki as quoted in Theo Neethling, "Realising the African Standby Force as a Pan-African Deal: Progress, Prospects and Challenges," Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 8, no. 1 (2005): 10-11.

30. See Article 13(1), Protocol Relating to the Establishment of the Peace and Security Council, July 2002.

31. Benedikt Franke, Op. Cit.

32. NSR 30, quoted in Aning, Op. Cit., 45.

33. Eric Berman and Katie E. Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa: Capabilities and Culpabilities (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000), 278-9.

34. DOS, Congressional Budget Justification, Fiscal Year 2006 (Washington, DC: DOS, 2005), 207-217 and 317-320.

35. Funding constraints, high military turnover in many partner countries, and the perishable nature of the training require that a local training capacity is maintained for continuity and momentum once U.S. trainers depart. See the Henry L. Stimson Center ACOTA Factsheet, "U.S. Support to African Capacity for Peace Operations—The ACOTA Program," Peace Operations Fact Sheet Series, February 2005, 3.

36. Nina Serafino, The Global Peace Operations Initiative: Background and Issues for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2006), 2-3.

37. See Alex Ramsbotham, Alhaji Bah, and Fanny Calder, The Implementation of the Joint Africa/G8 Plan to Enhance African Capabilities to Undertake Peace Support Operations: Survey of Current G8 and African Activities and Potential Areas for Further Collaboration (London: Chatham House, 2005).

38. For example, as recently as December 2006, the Executive Secretary of ECOWAS, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, called for additional training support from the United States in order to improve West Africa’s capacity to perform peace operations. See Andy Ekugo, "West Africa: ECOWAS seeks U.S. support for training of standby force," This Day, Lagos, December 13, 2006.