AFRICOM Blues

By now, a lot of ink has been spilled about the placement of the new AFRICOM regional command. Yesterday word came that the HQ was staying Germany, today it seemed Liberia could still ending up being the host country. The fierce opposition to this new command has had many people talking about America's loss of respect and prestige, but this interpretation is misleading in that it overlooks the experiences of other regional command headquarters. A rough measurement of distances between important geopolitical points and the HQ assigned to them reveals that CENTCOM is about 7000 miles from Baghdad and 7700 miles from Kabul. PACCOM is about 4700 miles from Beijing, and SOUTHCOM is 1400 hundred miles from Venezuela. The distance between Germany and Kenya, at 4100 miles, is not so expansive by comparison. And if the failure to gain a foothold in Africa indicates a lack of post-9/11 confidence in America's intentions, then why has CENTCOM spent two decades with its HQ in the wrong hemisphere?

This scuffle over basing rights should not prevent AFRICOM from eventually establishing a presence on the continent after the initial furor dies down. Some of the African protests are patently ridiculous, anyway. Worries about being drawn into the GWOT are moot considering the fact that Sudan hosted Al-Qaeda during the mid-90's and that August will mark the tenth anniversary of the East African embassy bombings. The GWOT has been in Africa for some time, whether its countries acknowledge it or not.

More legitimate concerns about competition with China and additional US military deployments will need to be addressed for AFRICOM to become a success, but it might be a good idea for everyone to take a deep breath and reserve judgment until this young organization has a few years under its belt.