Although the operations get a lot less press than Iraq or Afghanistan, operations in and around Africa continue to be important. Obviously piracy receives periodic bursts of media attention; more important but less likely to penetrate the American mediaspace are the shoreside conflicts driving and supporting the piracy. We've had several recent roundtables on the subject of Western responses to this unstable region. Navy CAPT Bill Finn spoke about Camp Lemmonier, where the Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa is located. Although he spoke mostly to base operations, it's possible to understand something of the multinational and interagency effort from his description of just who his base supports. For example, JTF-HOA works with the US State Department/USAID, but only a single political advisor is co-located with their headquarters, the rest of State's people being at the embassy. That suggests a significant interagency "break" compared with the PRT/ePRT model in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, though of course physical communication is much easier in Djibouti. There is a sizable coalition of African partner nations, in addition to other partners including the Japanese and the nearby French. (Camp Lemmonier is a former Foreign Legion base.) MG William B. Garrett III spoke about the Natural Fire '10 exercise, in his role as commander, US Army Africa. One of the exercises included pandemic flu preparation. Our operations in Africa are mostly civil affairs / civil-military operations, more focused on diplomacy and development than on kinetics. That focus applies to how we train, and how we train with others. Offshore, Combined Task Force 151 works the anti-piracy piece. We spoke with RADM Scott Sanders, vice commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, and British Navy CAPT Keith Blount, chief of staff for the task force commander. If you're interested in the offshore piece, I don't know any better place to stay up on it than Eagle1's site. A retired US Navy captain, he is always informative. One thing we learned from admiral Sanders was that he is in close communication with JTF-HOA. The seam between USCENTCOM and USEUCOM/AFRICOM is less problematic for that reason, though these seams always create some friction even when there is close cooperation and personal friendship, as there appears to be here. The seam has to fall somewhere, though, so this is likely as good as it gets.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/PpfEjUjVkXc/off-and-on-the-horn-of-africa.html
Posted
Oct 20 2009, 03:19 AM
by
BLACKFIVE