Combined joint task force-horn of Africa: defense, diplomacy and development

CHIPS, April-June, 2008

The Horn of Africa contains some of the most volatile areas in the world, countries ravaged by poverty, instability, violence, human rights violations, natural catastrophes and piracy. But the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, under the leadership of the State Department and supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), is working to promote regional stability and economic development in this troubled area in partnership with local governments, humanitarian organizations and international agencies.

The area of concentration includes: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Comoros, Mauritius, Madagascar and Yemen.

CJTF-HOA, a unit of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), is about seven years old. The idea behind its standup is that poverty and violence breed not only extremism, but drug and human trafficking, illegal arms dealing, oppression and ignorance. Promoting peace and prosperity in this culturally diverse area of rival tribes, languages and customs is a tall order, but CJTF-HOA is staffed with professionally trained subject matter experts.

To this end, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) led an annual CJTF-HOA Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRX) at its Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Va. The MRX, held in January, and also supported by USCENTCOM, trained personnel to conduct joint operations using realistic scenarios. Most of the scenarios are taken from real-life situations and are recommended by personnel already stationed in the region.

More than 300 participants including Standing Navy Joint Command Element staff and individual augmentees, subject matter experts from USCENTCOM and several interagency organizations, participated. Multinational participation included representation from Djibouti, Republic of Mauritius, United Kingdom and France.

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The mission of the CJTF-HOA is to prevent conflict, promote regional stability and protect coalition interests in East Africa and Yemen through humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, consequence management and civic action programs.

CHIPS spoke with Army Col. Dan Grymes, USJFCOM Joint Warfighting Center operations officer, the new Commander CJTF-HOA Rear Adm. Philip H. Greene and Deputy Commander CJTF-HOA Army Brig. Gen. Sanford "Skip" Holman at a media opportunity during the MRX Jan. 16, 2008. (Col. Roosevelt Barfield assumed the duties of deputy commander CJTF-HOA in March 2008.)

Col. Grymes: Our efforts here at the Joint Warfighting Center support the training of the next CJTF-HOA commander and the nucleus of his staff. The Horn of Africa area is vast and diverse. There are 13 countries spanning an area equivalent to two-thirds of the land mass of the continental United States. The success of our efforts in the region will depend upon an integrated approach that combines diplomacy, development and defense.

Rear Adm. Greene: My staff and I have been involved in the predeployment workups the last four months. It has been a rich experience, we have taken advantage of the iteration of training that the previous two Navy staffs received over the last couple of years and built on the lessons learned and experience from the staffs that have preceded us. The reason we have had such value out of this is because of three important elements.

One is Joint Forces Command, and the experienced team that exists here. From the existing CJTF-HOA staff, we were able to bring back 20 to 30 of the existing members to be with us during different parts of the training program. For the mission rehearsal exercise that is going on right now, we had many of the key individuals that reside in leadership positions to impart their view of what's happening on the ground in Djibouti and the region. That mix of individuals with the new has been very helpful to have ground truth and to blend that with the Joint Forces Command training team.

The third piece is the Senior Mentor Program. I have a retired lieutenant general from the Marine Corps that works in conjunction with me and with the Joint Forces Command training team and with our staff to add value from a commander's experience perspective.

Those three combinations serve as a catalyst to build our knowledge base and gel my team.

On the philosophical side, our main mission in the Horn of Africa and East Africa region is to develop partnerships and forge relationships. It is key for us to do that in the context of what we call the 3Ds, which are development, defense and diplomacy.

Those all serve to support the end states that are important: increasing security, improving stability and enabling sovereignty as we partner with our African counterparts. We are there because they want us to be there. It is about Africans having ownership over the challenges they face and how we are helping them.

Clearly, our success is built around how we develop the capacity and capability for the Africans to be security contributors, which aids in their greater regional stability, stimulates their economies and social development, and contributes to helping us understand those elements that fuel extremism.