A prayer for Marie: creating an effective African standby force

Parameters, Winter, 2004 by Mike Denning

Once the standardized equipment block and sustainment supplies are sourced, the location of the central logistics facility, the Brigade Logistics Site, should be determined. The most significant criterion for rapid deployment is the maturity of the site's lines of communications, namely the condition of area ports, airfields, road networks, and telecommunications. While the composite sum of these criteria may seem hard to fill, there are eligible locations. For example, the United States has a long-held formal agreement with Kenya for the use of local military facilities. The port of Mombassa, and airfields at Embakasi and Nanyuki, supported US intervention in Somalia in 1992-1994 and have been used recently to support forces involved in Combined Joint Task Force HOA. Other potential sites that should be considered include Cape Town, South Africa, the ports of Luanda and Lobito in Angola, the port of Dakar in Senegal, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Synchronizing the International Community and American Leadership

The African Standby Force initiative is a unique opportunity for the international community to engage the African Union and achieve a consensus solution to a vexing problem. Conversely, once this capability is achieved, it is not an excuse for its disengagement from Africa. Even with the successful training and fielding of an African Standby Force, any long-term success will ultimately succumb to international disengagement. Many requirements will remain for the international community--requirements that African countries do not have the capacity to meet. For example, strategic airlift, early warning, limited technical and logistical capacities, and AU command and control are all gaps that the African Union has identified as requiring international assistance. (39)

The United States should not feel compelled to fill every void, nor take on this daunting initiative alone--but it is one in which we should actively participate. For much of the 20th century, the international community, as well as the American people, carne to expect US moral leadership in humanitarian work as a reflection of our national character and status as a great power. Participating in the development of the ASF perpetuates that expectation. Moreover, it provides an opportunity for the United States to achieve an intriguing result--expending a relatively miniscule amount of American hard power for a potentially significant gain in American soft power.

When US policymakers begin to examine our leadership role, they should not fall victim to American hubris. Currently, many members of the international community, inside and outside Africa, are already extensively engaged in helping African states expand their capacity for peacekeeping. For example, the French trained peacekeepers under their RECAMP program; the British have long been involved in training African peacekeepers: the Netherlands has provided peacekeeping training to ECOWAS; and Belgium participated with the United States in the African Crisis Response Initiative. Although not specifically involved in peacekeeping initiatives, China has become very active on the continent and recently developed the China-Africa Cooperation Forum, a program designed "to conform to the changing international situation." (40) Undoubtedly, each of these countries' programs has unique strengths. However, if individual countries continue with separate and nonintegrated proposals, the result will be redundant programs, nonstandard equipment and training, and lost efficiencies. Current ad hoc arrangements are insufficient to guarantee credibility, speed, and effectiveness. What is lacking is the venue to integrate these disparate activities under a single umbrella. Offering the African Union the civil and military expertise to assist in creating an African Standby Force that captures the "best and brightest" international programs under a single, synergistic initiative is an example of the leadership role the United States should take.