[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 10, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S352-S354]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CREATION OF A U.S. AFRICA COMMAND

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, as the Defense Department continues its 
planning for the creation of an Africa Command, it is important to 
realize that the creation of a new regional combatant command focused 
exclusively on Africa will have a profound impact on our country's 
presence, policies, and engagement in what is becoming one of the most 
critical regions of the world. New bases, new personnel, new missions, 
new efforts, and new relationships will be created, and our potential 
to have a positive impact throughout the continent will be enhanced 
greatly.
  We have to be strategic and forward-thinking as we create this new 
organization, though. Because we are making such a profound change to 
our posture on the continent, we need to ensure that the new 
organization will contribute to, not define, the U.S. Government's 
overall strategy and objectives for the continent. We also need to make 
sure that the U.S. military's activities and involvement on the 
continent do not overshadow, skew, or otherwise hinder our Government's 
other key objectives.
  It is clear that challenges in Africa are diverse and complex. We 
have a number of security-related concerns there, ranging from 
terrorist organizations and safe havens to large-scale corruption, 
regional conflicts, and the disruption of global energy markets. 
Continuing to establishing firm and productive military-to-military 
relations with a number of African nations is also critical.
  But we have learned that the way to address the underlying causes of 
the security challenges throughout the continent is not generally 
through military power. In fact, the best way to address the full range 
of security-related concerns in Africa is to focus on the underlying 
conditions that plague governments and societies throughout the 
continent. Security threats and instability stem from corruption, 
absence of human rights, poverty, disease, lagging economies, and 
joblessness. Weak governments are incapable of addressing the dynamics 
that often contribute to lawlessness or violence, and are often left 
without any capacity to help defeat trans-national threats.
  Our focus as a government, therefore, must be on strengthening 
African governance capacities and legitimacy, as well as the commitment 
to the rule of law, sound democratic mechanisms, and human rights. We 
must continue to help alleviate the humanitarian suffering that exists 
throughout the continent, and we must work hard to assist African 
countries develop sound democratic institutions that are credible and 
capable, and that have the technical capacity to provide for their 
people and to govern fairly. Only then will we start to see real 
returns--real, long-term returns--for our national security.
  This isn't to suggest that continued military involvement throughout 
the continent isn't essential. It is. But only if it is a component of 
a broader strategy to address these underlying causes of instability. 
U.S. military activities throughout Africa must help support a larger 
framework that seeks to strengthen African governments and balance the 
need for good governance and security capacity. Our security assistance 
to African nations, and more broadly, the work of the U.S. military 
throughout Africa, must not interfere with, create an imbalance in, or 
skew the necessary political, economic, and social work that must be 
done if we are going to see any long-term improvement in areas of 
critical concern.
  Accordingly, establishing a new combatant command for Africa presents 
an opportunity to strengthen our national security focus in Africa, but 
it also presents an opportunity to create a military command with the 
primary mission of supporting diplomatic, development, humanitarian 
assistance, and regional initiatives led by the Department of State, 
USAID, and other agencies. This command, if designed right, will be 
able to serve as a contributor to broader U.S. Government efforts 
throughout the continent, and will help provide an additional platform 
for regional thinking, strategizing, and activity that will advance the 
strategic interests of our country throughout Africa.
  To be effective, of course, this command will take careful planning. 
It will also take a considerable amount of planning on the part of the 
Department of State, USAID, and other departments and agencies that 
will have to adjust to this new organization. It will take intensive 
coordination and adjustments throughout the civilian interagency and it 
will be crucial that State, USAID, and other departments and agencies 
are playing a full role in the creation of this command.
  The mission of this command will need to be relatively broad. Africa 
Command should establish strong security-oriented relationships with 
our partner nations throughout Africa. These relationships should be 
coordinated with our embassies and with Washington, but should only be 
part of our broader efforts with any given country. The command's 
efforts should be balanced and should take into consideration the scale 
and scope of diplomatic, development, humanitarian, and human rights 
efforts in each country.
  The command should also prepare to deal with international 
organizations--particularly the African Union and subregional 
organizations that often play leading roles in regional and continental 
peacekeeping efforts, conflict mitigation activities, and humanitarian 
response. Establishing a strong relationship with the AU and other 
organizations will be essential to unlocking the potential for Africans 
to address security challenges throughout their continent.

  The command should also prepare to conduct missions that have often 
taken a backseat to higher profile or less military-focused efforts. 
Humanitarian assistance--often one of the best ways to win hearts and 
minds in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster or conflict--
will need to be at the top of the command's list of priorities. So too 
should efforts to help rebuild societies after conflict. This might 
take the form of logistical assistance for humanitarian or development 
personnel, or potentially a direct role for U.S. military personnel, 
when appropriate. Other critical components of the new command's 
mission should include anticorruption efforts, leadership training, 
strengthening civilian oversight of national militaries, preventing the 
spread of HIV/AIDS, demobilizing or reintegrating ex-combatants, and 
being on standby for rapid response to new conflicts or challenges.
  The Department of Defense does a lot of this already. Many of these 
missions have been carried out by dedicated men and women in uniform 
who are stationed in places like Nigeria, Uganda, or at the Combined 
Joint Task Force--Horn of Africa. The challenge, though, is to 
establish a command that places these initiatives on its priority list, 
and to ensure that these efforts are resourced appropriately, are 
coordinated with the appropriate departments and agencies, and that 
they do not distort or disrupt other key initiatives throughout the 
continent.
  With this new mission and these challenges in mind, I would like to

[[Page S353]]

raise a series of issues that I believe to be important as our 
government begins developing this new command.
  First, as the Department of Defense plans for the creation of an 
Africa Command, it is essential that it think outside of the 
traditional model of the regional combatant command. While this new 
command will help us defeat terrorist networks that operate, recruit, 
stage, or otherwise seek haven throughout the continent of Africa, this 
new command should not have combat as its primary mission. It should 
have as its core mission the task of supporting bilateral, regional, 
and continental diplomatic and development efforts. It also should be 
focused on bolstering State, USAID, and other government activities--
providing resources, information, and logistical support for programs 
that have often been slowed or stopped because of the very absence of 
these things.
  Second, the creation of an Africa Command and the design of its 
mission, objectives, and capacity, must be done in concert with the 
Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and 
other departments and agencies that are active in Africa. This new 
organization--the first regional command to be focused exclusively on 
Africa--will obviously be military in nature, but it must cast a new 
mold for regional combatant commands that incorporates interagency 
interests and responsibilities from the outset, as well as personnel 
from throughout the government that can help advance the mission of the 
U.S. Government in Africa. The Department of State and USAID personnel 
should be embedded deeply into the command and should play important 
leadership roles in the various components of this command. Formal 
coordination mechanisms, too, must be established between the new 
command, our embassies, Washington, and other pertinent regional and 
functional commands around the world.
  Given its potential impact throughout the continent, we should make 
every effort to ensure that the command represents a unified U.S. 
Government effort, and that in the early planning phases of this 
command that civilian interagency requirements are absorbed and 
incorporated into the final organization.
  Third, and more specifically, the planning process for the creation 
of an Africa Command must be met with parallel--and equally 
aggressive--discussions within the Department of State. The Department 
of State must realize that an Africa Command will have a significant 
impact on how it does its business and how it coordinates and 
collaborates with the Defense Department. It should begin planning for 
internal bureaucratic changes, as well as posture changes throughout 
the continent, to account for the fact that the Defense Department's 
presence and focus will be regional, while the Department of State's 
efforts will remain largely bilateral.
  Africa Command will help alleviate many coordinate challenges between 
departments that have existed to date. But it won't change the fact 
that the State Department still focuses on bilateral relationships and 
often has trouble organizing, coordinating, or planning for regional 
initiatives or programs. Closer State-DOD relations will come about as 
a result of the creation of Africa Command if and when the State 
Department begins addressing how it can better organize itself to 
address regional conflicts, transnational counterterrorism efforts, 
humanitarian emergencies that spill over borders, and ungoverned 
spaces.
  We must also recognize the resource disparity between the Defense 
Department and the Department of State. This will most likely be an 
important issue as this new command is created. But short of 
dramatically increasing the State Department's budget in the next few 
years to account for an additional and needed focus on Africa, it will 
be essential that the State Department maintain a leadership role 
throughout this entire process, and that it adjusts itself to better 
manage and coordinate all U.S. government efforts throughout the 
continent. The State Department should apply its best Africa and 
political-military minds to DOD's efforts to create this new command, 
and it should view its role as both client and patron, knowing well 
that the creation of this new command will require new leadership 
efforts within the State Department.

  Fourth, it is crucial that the Defense Department and the State 
Department move faster to establish joint planning mechanisms--both 
strategic and financial. It has become widely known that Defense and 
State planning mechanisms are not in sync, and that both organizations 
plan, or don't plan, for events, missions, and strategic objectives 
differently. This needs to be addressed immediately. The creation of 
Africa Command will give both departments an opportunity to begin 
syncing planning capabilities, and may open the window to truly 
interagency budgeting and strategic planning processes that will align 
all U.S. Government resources to address challenges in places like 
Africa.
  This may sound bureaucratic, but it has real implications on how we 
position our government to address the wide-ranging challenges 
throughout Africa, and indeed throughout the rest of the world. The 
State Department develops bilateral strategic plans and generates 
resource requirements largely based on bilateral, and sometimes 
multilateral efforts. The Defense Department views things more 
regionally, establishing regional commands and task forces that can 
evaluate, strategize, and implement programs based on the needs or 
challenges unique to a given region--challenges that often transcend 
national borders or programming allocations. Neither department's 
strategic planning process is perfect, but I would urge both 
Departments--in addition to USAID, the Department of Treasury, Justice, 
Agriculture, as well as others--to begin evaluating how the strategic 
planning process can incorporate departmental or agency-specific 
activities and efforts into comprehensive U.S. Government strategies 
for the continent, subregions, and partner nations. Creating combined 
planning processes would also benefit lawmakers that are constantly 
seeking better coordination and a higher return on taxpayer 
investments.
  Fifth, and in a related vein, the President should make absolutely 
clear that ambassadors--chiefs of mission in any given country--are his 
representatives and must be accountable and responsible for all actions 
taken on behalf of the U.S. Government in any given country. It is 
essential that ambassadors have the ultimate say of what happens in 
country, and that he or she has the ability to ``turn off'' any 
programs, initiatives, or efforts that may adversely affect our 
government's broader goals in or relationship with a given country. 
That said, the Department of State may want to consider creating a new 
position for Africa that can help liaise--at a sufficiently senior 
level--with the senior Africa Command commander on daily issues. This 
position would be more than a political advisor. This person would 
ideally have the ability to make decisions at the traditional three- or 
four-star level, and provide a substantive and management-oriented 
perspective on State and DOD efforts throughout the continent. This 
person would ideally not be based in Washington, and might benefit from 
serving side-by-side with the new combatant commander.
  The Department of State--both in Washington and at our embassies--
must step up and play a stronger leadership role. I would imagine that 
DOD would welcome this. In many countries in Africa the Defense 
Department represents the bulk of U.S. efforts or presence. Our 
security assistance programs are wide-ranging and often overshadow 
development, economic, or political assistance to fragile and poor 
countries. This is not to suggest that the creation of a new command 
for Africa is bad. It is not. I authored a successful piece of 
legislation last year that required the Defense Department to do a 
complete feasibility study on this very issue. I believe that it will 
enhance our ability to do important work throughout Africa, and that it 
will have a positive impact on our national security. But it is 
essential that as we increase our efforts to strengthen the security 
capabilities of our partners in Africa, we do not undermine critical 
human rights and that we work to strengthen democratic institutions. 
The State Department must prepare to exert its authority and influence 
on the new command's activities and ensure that future U.S. Government 
efforts in Africa are balanced and take into consideration the larger 
strategic efforts in any

[[Page S354]]

given country, region, and throughout the continent.
  Finally, the Congress needs to be prepared to support this new 
effort. It will be essential that Congress take into account the needs 
of the Defense Department and the individual uniformed services as this 
new command is created. But it is equally essential that Congress take 
into account the needs of the State Department, USAID, and other 
agencies that are trying to ramp up their efforts throughout the 
continent. If anything, the creation of a new combatant command for 
Africa should signal the dramatically increasing importance of Africa 
to our national security, and that to truly address the range of 
challenges present there we need to look at an equally aggressive plan 
to strengthen our diplomatic, development, humanitarian, and human 
rights work throughout the continent. This may include addressing how 
the Congress allocates funds--both to this new command and to the other 
departments and agencies that will make the spirit and intent of this 
command work.
  In closing, we must focus greater resources on Africa but we should 
ensure that our efforts in Africa do not become primarily military in 
nature, and that the State Department continues to play the primary 
leadership role with respect to our efforts on the continent. Those 
within the Defense Department, the State Department, at USAID and other 
key departments and agencies will need to use this as an opportunity to 
evaluate and enhance the way they do business. The success of this 
governmental effort requires it, and our national security depends on 
it.

                          ____________________