Thread by @NateDFAllen

Pleased to announce my article assessing a decade of U.S. military strategy in Africa is now available online for download at @FPRI Orbis. What follows is a failed attempt to briefly summarize the highlights. sciencedirect.com/science/articl… 1/n

I’d like to thank readers for their patience, as well as @sh_grewal, @naunihalpublic, @afhdc, @SteveJFeldstein, Risa Brooks, Travis Sharp, @MatthewTPage, @natkpowell and others at @isanet and ASA panels for encouraging this paper and/or pushing my thinking on this topic. 2/n

The article builds on and expands this short piece I wrote for @WPReview in 2016. worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/19995…. 3/n

Questions/answers:

1) How has U.S. military strategy in Africa evolved? / A lot

2) Is it effective in confronting terrorist groups? / Somewhat

3) Does it contribute to political stability? / Probably not

4/n

On 1), there has been vigorous debate over whether @USAfricaCommand's presence in Africa has militarized U.S. policy towards the region. Analysts can't even agree whether the U.S. military footprint is "light and adaptable" or large and unprecedented. 5/n

The answer depends on your reference point. From a historical perspective, there's no denying that the U.S. military presence is massive. At around $1bn, Military aid to SSA is over three times what it was during any past period. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 6/n.

In the late 90s, U.S. had virtually no African military presence. Now, it has a military base, drone/air facilities in 8 nations, 90+ spec ops operations at any given time, and 9K military personnel assigned to Africa. By contrast, 13K @StateDept FSOs staff the whole world 7/n.

As vast as this increase is, it's small potatoes for @DeptofDefense. MENA, for example, receives reliably 5 times the military assistance Africa does. There are more active duty U.S. soldiers stationed in both Qatar and Italy than in all of Africa. 8/n.

Personally, I think the militarization debate detracts from attention from how radically the U.S. strategic approach to Africa has shifted in recent decades. 9/n

The combination of drones, air bases, military assistance, and special forces deployments gives the United States unprecedented intelligence and quick strike capabilities. And at minimal risk to U.S. personnel. 10/n

It may seem obvious that these capabilities developed in response to Iraq/Afghanistan, but Somalia is also extremely important precedent. In 93/94, US briefly had ~ 30k troops there, more in Africa than ever before or since. 11/n

In fact, May 2017 death of U.S. soldier during Somali spec ops mission was the FIRST U.S. military death in combat in Africa since the Black Hawk Down incident in '93, when 18 soldiers were killed and 72 wounded during a peacekeeping / humanitarian assistance mission. 12/n

I think it's reasonably clear that current strategy is meant to confront sub-state threats and promote regional security at minimal cost and risk to U.S. troops. I think it's reasonably effective at the latter two objectives, especially compared to previous approaches. 13/n

2) But what about the former two? Is the U.S. successful in confronting militant groups? Is U.S. military engagement stabilizing? 14/n

2017 U.S. military posture statement quite reasonably identified al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the Islamic State in Libya as among the most important threats. In each case, U.S. military support has been helpful in containing these groups. 15/n

Case where U.S. had most impact is Libya. In late 2016, the U.S. launched 495 precision air strikes that evicted the Islamic State out of the city of Sirte. I have no idea why this didn’t get more attention, especially from Africanists. longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/…. 16/n

U.S. support to AMISOM, including special forces raids and air strikes, were also crucial in rolling back al-Shabaab, which in 2011 controlled parts of Mogadishu.
cfr.org/interactives/g… 17/n

U.S. hand has been less evident in efforts to counter Boko Haram. But intelligence and military assistance to Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and especially Chad were important. 18/n

Despite these tactical successes, the U.S. military presence has not prevented the spread of terrorism and conflict into Africa. Since AFRCOM was founded, conflict related deaths in Africa are up five-fold, and deaths from terrorist attacks up twenty-fold. 19/n

3) Is this lack of strategic success because of the U.S. military presence? TBH, I don't know. But I would encourage those eager to pass judgment to be cautious. 20/n

Expanding U.S. military presence could be a) a response to or b) a cause of rising political instability and terrorism in Africa. I personally think that internal factors here are probably more important than external ones. 21/n

Nevertheless, there is a consensus among Africanists, and some empirical evidence that the U.S. military presence is doing little to contribute to the continent's political stability and may be making things worse. 22/n

At least two plausible mechanisms: support of repressive regimes / armies (and not just repressive authoritarian ones) and military support to fragile states. 23/n

For example, 71% of those who join extremist groups do so because of arrest or killing of friend or family member, according to a recent @UNDPAfrica survey of African extremists. See also: Cameroon right now.
journey-to-extremism.undp.org/content/downlo… 24/n

And great work by @RANDCorporation shows no relationship between security assistance and fragility, conflict, political violence, or terrorism in the post-CW period. Performance particularly bad in fragile, repressive states.
rand.org/pubs/research_… rand.org/pubs/research_… 25/n