The US military presence in Africa has received increased press attention in recent months, as DOD has commenced a review of troop deployments in line with the Administration's defense priorities. There is sometimes confusion about where those forces are and what they are doing.
The bulk (3k-4k) of the 6,000 or so US military personnel in Africa are in Djibouti at Camp Lemonnier, one of AFRICOM's two enduring locations (aka Foreign Operating Site, FOS) - what many would call a base, with permanent living facilities.
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AFRICOM (headquartered in Germany) has one other FOS, on Ascension Island.
Then there are Cooperative Security Locations (CSLs): these are enduring sites (often at a host country's military facilities) periodically used by US forces, but at which there is little to no permanent presence. They may be used for building partner capacity (training/advising)
and some can support an increased US presence during contingencies - for example to support a US military evacuation of US embassy personnel or US citizens in a neighboring country.
The third type of site used by the US military in Africa are Contingency Locations (CLs). Like CSLs, these sites may be used to support contingency operations, but they are non-enduring sites.
AFRICOM hasn't typically made a list of those CSLs and CLs public, though some are fairly well known. There are sometimes host country political sensitivities, and in some cases force protection concerns.
In testimony yesterday, Secretary Esper said "My sense is right now we are focused maybe too much on [CT] so I want to get the balance right with regard to forces." He also said "there are no plans to completely withdraw all forces from Africa and that has been misreported...
...and repeated over and over again." He highlighted the recent decision to replace a regular infantry unit that was deployed on the continent with elements of a security force assistance brigade (unclear if a similar # of troops went in & out).
It does appear that, in keeping with an earlier "optimization" excercise under Sec. Mattis, that current DOD leadership may be leaning toward a reduction in the number of US troops in Africa. But really unclear what that reduction will look like & how it will impact engagements.
DOD has received concerns from various Members of Congress about the impact of a potential drawdown - that may play into the decision. Will a drawdown result in the US military pulling out of the Sahel entirely? Unlikely.
DOD/AFRICOM has spent the years since Benghazi trying to better position itself to respond to potential crises involving U.S. facilities and personnel. There are 15 "high threat, high risk" posts (embassies) in Africa.
Given size of the continent & distance from US military facilities in Europe & Djibouti, those CSLs (sometimes called lilypads) are considered important for crisis response. Some are also useful locations for AFRICOM in terms of supporting security cooperation priorities.
Might some of those CLs close up in the event of a reduction in troops? Sure. They weren't considered enduring sites to begin with. And it is possible some new CLs could be established as perceived threats evolve.
On @alexmello02's great question about whether the facilities DOD built in Agadez (Niger) count as an FOS:
