Africa

[don]

China - via Investment...







This map shows what sub-Saharan nations currently have a U.S. military presence engaged in actual military operations.

It should be noted that in most of these countries, there is a pretty small number of troops. But it is a clear sign of the U.S. Africa Command's increasingly broad position on the continent.

[Woodsman]

Re: Africa

China - via Investment...







This map shows what sub-Saharan nations currently have a U.S. military presence engaged in actual military operations.

It should be noted that in most of these countries, there is a pretty small number of troops. But it is a clear sign of the U.S. Africa Command's increasingly broad position on the continent.

I know a youngster of whom I've had the privilege to watch grow from birth to university. She is as smart and capable a young woman as the Creator ever made. Where other young ladies of her cohort are primping and rushing sororities, she is up a oh dark thirty each morning performing PT as the only female in an elite ROTC class:

Now I have my opinions about women in the combat arms, but the old enlisted man in me knows better than to bitch and moan to an officer - even a cadet officer.

She is years away from being exposed to serious danger and still I tremble at the thought of this little child whose hand I could once envelop with mine being put in harms way. I can't think about it too much because the emotion crashes over me like a tsunami wave. But to imagine that our political leaders will send this treasure, this most incandescent and light-filled child to the so-called "dark continent" terrifies me and infuriates me like nothing I ever thought possible.

And now I see the execrable piece of human garbage that is Congressman Alan West spew the vile contents of his diseased and malignant soul upon a decorated and grievously wounded soldier, I find myself shaking and in tears. Because just as the former Colonel Duckorth, this young lady wants nothing more than to fly Blackhawk helicopters into the heat of battle to rescue wounded soldiers.

"They won't let me be in the Infantry, so this is as close as I can get to them, uncle." God damn Alan West. I look forward to kicking him square in the nuts with my steel toed jump boots when the two of us finally meet in Hell.

I sent her this article to give her a look at where she will likely visit in her service to king and country. Thanks, Don.

[Raz]

Re: Africa

...

And now I see the execrable piece of human garbage that is Congressman Alan West spew the vile contents of his diseased and malignant soul upon a decorated and grievously wounded soldier, I find myself shaking and in tears. Because just as the former Colonel Duckorth, this young lady wants nothing more than to fly Blackhawk helicopters into the heat of battle to rescue wounded soldiers.

"They won't let me be in the Infantry, so this is as close as I can get to them, uncle." God damn Alan West. I look forward to kicking him square in the nuts with my steel toed jump boots when the two of us finally meet in Hell. ...

Alan West is hardly a favorite of mine, but your comments are completely over the top. They seem to be more emotional than rational and you once seemed better than most at keeping those in check.

That last comment about steel-toed boots is dangerous for your soul.
I speak as a friend.

[vt]

Re: Africa

I thought we had agreed not to bring political attacks into the forum.

I question how we were involved in Libya in the first place (arms to Syrian rebels?), just as I questioned Iraq in 2003. However Al Qaeda is still at war with the U.S., Europe, and most of the Arab nations. This war may go on for another 100 years.

We are there with troops because Al Qaeda has expanded it's base of operations significantly:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...AbV_story.html


As for China investing and the U.S. sending troops, this may change:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...jiang-23819340

"The knowledge that Muslims elsewhere are rising up against their governments also seems to be contributing to the increased militancy".

China will not hesitate to kill Muslims if it's security is threatened, nor will the Russians. We should be against governments bent on world domination. We should fully support measured efforts to fight terrorism.

We have been asked to come to these locations by the governments fighting terrorists. We either fight terrorism now while it is small, or our children will face a larger war.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Africa

We either fight terrorism now while it is small, or our children will face a larger war.

Alternatively, how about we stop with the Utopian interventionism?

Just as a robust economic system is one that encourages early failures (the concepts of "fail small" and "fail fast"), the U.S. government should stop supporting dictatorial regimes for the sake of pseudostability and instead allow political noise to rise to the surface. Making an economy robust in the face of business swings requires allowing risk to be visible; the same is true in politics.

Variation is information. When there is no variation, there is no information. This explains the CIA's failure to predict the Egyptian revolution and, a generation before, the Iranian Revolution -- in both cases, the revolutionaries themselves did not have a clear idea of their relative strength with respect to the regime they were hoping to topple. So rather than subsidize and praise as a "force for stability" every tin-pot potentate on the planet, the U.S. government should encourage countries to let information flow upward through the transparency that comes with political agitation.

U.S. policy toward the Middle East has historically, and especially since 9/11, been unduly focused on the repression of any and all political fluctuations in the name of preventing "Islamic fundamentalism" -- a trope that Mubarak repeated until his last moments in power and that Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi continues to emphasize today, blaming Osama bin Laden for what has befallen him. This is wrong. The West and its autocratic Arab allies have strengthened Islamic fundamentalists by forcing them underground, and even more so by killing them.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...-swan-of-cairo

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Africa

China - via Investment...







This map shows what sub-Saharan nations currently have a U.S. military presence engaged in actual military operations.

It should be noted that in most of these countries, there is a pretty small number of troops. But it is a clear sign of the U.S. Africa Command's increasingly broad position on the continent.

While I would agree that Africa is slowly shifting towards center stage in global geopolitics, it's worth noting a few things:

Since at least the early 1960's, the US has developed relationships with a military component in Africa. The first that I'm aware of included providing Belgians with air logistics(almost like what the US more recently conducted in support of UK/France in Libya) as well as monitoring Che Guevara's failed attempt at fomenting his form of revolution in Africa.

The US also supported France which was supporting Chad in it's "Toyota War" against invasion from Libya's Qaddafi.

The US also supported Angolan rebels and South Africa covertly in South Africa's was against several hundred thousand Cubans/Soviets/East Germans.

The US also supported both Ethiopia and Somalia in their conflict with each other with a really strange flip-flop change around with the other side supported by the Soviet Union/Cuba.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe was also a strange one as it was a three way battle that had far less to do with race and everything to do with geopolitics. In the three way battle(US/UK, Soviet Union, and China).....the US/UK effectively handed it over, China won as China supported Mugabe/ZANLA, and the Soviet backed ZIPRA lost.

What's interesting about China is that China's presence in Africa isn't exactly new. China's relations with three countries in particular go back 40-50+ year in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

Surely there's been a lot of foreign policy failures in Africa by the US.

Zaire/Congo being a big one with the support of Mobutu....I believe largely for strategic minerals not easily found outside the Soviet Union during the cold war.

Since the fall of Mobutu, about a zillion people have been killed in a Congo conflict very few people outside of the region even know about. It probably ranks #1 as the most costly(in human lives) least known conflict on the planet.

People can debate all day about crisis such as Biafra, Ethiopia's famines, Somalia's famines and collapse, Rwanda's genocide, etc.

And a lot of fingers can be pointed at the US, with some decent justification.

But I think it's also worth pointing the other 9 fingers at the other quite culpable parties.

Like the UK and it's decolonialization failures since the 50's/60's as well as more examples of arbitrary boundaries.

Belgium and the Congo....the history there is pretty disturbing.

France and it's attempts to decolonialize a bit differently from the UK, and Ivory Coast being held up as a shining light of decolonialization(under a long-term long strongman).....only to fall into a dark descending spiral.

Portugal's turning out the lights in Mozambique/Angola leaving a massive and dangerous void that caused incredible chaos and loss.

Cuba's military adventures as Soviet proxy which either no one knows about, or conveniently forgets.

And China's long-term focused ongoing commercial colonialization.

There's a lot of blame to go around and certainly the US deserves some of it. But in a temporarily unipolar world, I reckon the US receives a bit more than it reserves if you look at the big picture of Africa with a reasonable time horizon.

With the exception of Djibouti where US forces are able to strike throughout the region(mostly targeting Somalia, Yemen), it's my understanding that US forces in Africa are quite limited and almost exclusively working in support of host nation military capacity building....which has been disrupted a bit by social/political pressure mentioned below.

Africa is important, and will become increasingly more so in the decades ahead.

What bothers me a bit is all the social media memes such as:

Stop Kony

Get our girls back

It's dangerously naive.

A decent chunk of the US military presence in Africa(outside of Djibouti) at the moment have been building capacity to counter Kony, and I suspect the same will occur in Nigeria due to the kidnappings that reached mass media critical mass.

"Somebody do something" has ramifications as well.

This post isn't an attempt to let the US off the hook....I could write endlessly about failed African foreign policies.....but just to point out the many layers...of which China and the US are but two of them...Africa is a complex place that's far from black and white.

Not only do politicians and special interests need to be contained in some of their efforts towards Africa, but the general public as well needs to have it's naivety and ignorance contained in relation to Africa.

[vt]

Re: Africa

Bush legacy on Africa wins praise.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ven-from-foes/

Bill Gate's foundation has given millions to Africa:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-...al-Development

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media...tion-in-Africa

[Woodsman]

Re: Africa

Alan West is hardly a favorite of mine, but your comments are completely over the top. They seem to be more emotional than rational and you once seemed better than most at keeping those in check.

That last comment about steel-toed boots is dangerous for your soul.
I speak as a friend.

Imagine your loved one dying alone and afraid in some west African shithole. Imagine your beautiful child coming home crippled and maimed, and all to protect BP's and Total's oil fields abroad and our ability to produce more salad spinners, Viagra and Hummers at home.

You're right, Raz. It is more emotional than rational. Rational men are the one who put our children in this predicament. They're the one's who stole our country and their future. They are the ones who force our children to choose between debt serfdom or service in the imperial legions.

I get very irrational when I think of my loved ones under threat. And I am not Abraham.

[Woodsman]

Re: Africa

Bush legacy on Africa wins praise.

And people are worried about my soul. VT, leave me alone today. I'm asking nicely. Please.

[flintlock]

Re: Africa

I dont know nor care about the particulars of the Allen West case, but just want to point out being wounded in action does not put anyone above repproach. Adolf Hitler was WIA serving his country you know? West may be wrong on his facts but the mere questioning of a veterans loyalty does not by itself justify the vitriol. Herman Goering was a decorated WW1 pilot who used that to spring himself into political office. And we know how that turned out. Sorry if the soldier in question doesnt deserve it, but some of this just goes with the territory. I'm 100% with you about the Imperialism.

[Woodsman]

Re: Africa

I dont know nor care about the particulars of the Allen West case, but just want to point out being wounded in action does not put anyone above repproach. Adolf Hitler was WIA serving his country you know? West may be wrong on his facts but the mere questioning of a veterans loyalty does not by itself justify the vitriol. Herman Goering was a decorated WW1 pilot who used that to spring himself into political office. And we know how that turned out. Sorry if the soldier in question doesnt deserve it, but some of this just goes with the territory. I'm 100% with you about the Imperialism.

You guys. I appreciate the history lesson, but I'm not thinking about a depraved, drug addicted narcissist and war criminal. I'm talking about a flesh and blood girl, flesh of my flesh and blood of my own. She's everything you all proclaim as the best of America, the best of our humanity and I want her safe and not wasted for some half-baked adventure or commercial enterprise masquerading as an act of state. And West is a worm; it's not political for me. It's nice that you all feel qualified and entitled to judge me on this, but I could give a rat's tail about Duckworth's politics either. I never heard of her until I saw the story, don't care what she does or who she does it for. She's a politician so immediately I know something's not kosher with the lady.

But sue me if I connect with a wounded war vet that happens to be somebody's daughter. This is somewhat new in my American experience, seeing our girls come back scarred and in pieces. Sorry, but I can't accept that as normal. How can you guys do it?

[vt]

Re: Africa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa%...hina_relations

http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Second-...f=zg_bsnr_3_89



China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa


by Howard W. French

An exciting, hugely revealing account of China’s burgeoning presence in Africa—a developing empire already shaping, and reshaping, the future of millions of people.

A prizewinning foreign correspondent and former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa, Howard French is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China in Africa. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting—conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages—French crafts a layered investigation of astonishing depth and breadth as he engages not only with policy-shaping moguls and diplomats, but also with the ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this seismic geopolitical development. With incisiveness and empathy, French reveals the human face of China’s economic, political, and human presence across the African continent—and in doing so reveals what is at stake for everyone involved.

We meet a broad spectrum of China’s dogged emigrant population, from those singlehandedly reshaping African infrastructure, commerce, and even environment (a self-made tycoon who harnessed Zambia’s now-booming copper trade; a timber entrepreneur determined to harvest the entirety of Liberia’s old-growth redwoods), to those just barely scraping by (a sibling pair running small businesses despite total illiteracy; a karaoke bar owner–cum–brothel madam), still convinced that Africa affords them better opportunities than their homeland. And we encounter an equally panoramic array of African responses: a citizens’ backlash in Senegal against a “Trojan horse” Chinese construction project (a tower complex to be built over a beloved soccer field, which locals thought would lead to overbearing Chinese pressure on their economy); a Zambian political candidate who, having protested China’s intrusiveness during the previous election and lost, now turns accommodating; the ascendant middle class of an industrial boomtown; African mine workers bitterly condemning their foreign employers, citing inadequate safety precautions and wages a fraction of their immigrant counterparts’.

French’s nuanced portraits reveal the paradigms forming around this new world order, from the all-too-familiar echoes of colonial ambition—exploitation of resources and labor; cut-rate infrastructure projects; dubious treaties—to new frontiers of cultural and economic exchange, where dichotomies of suspicion and trust, assimilation and isolation, idealism and disillusionment are in dynamic flux.

Part intrepid travelogue, part cultural census, part industrial and political exposé, French’s keenly observed account ultimately offers a fresh perspective on the most pressing unknowns of modern Sino-African relations: why China is making the incursions it is, just how extensive its cultural and economic inroads are, what Africa’s role in the equation is, and just what the ramifications for both parties—and the watching world—will be in the foreseeable future.


http://www.amazon.com/By-All-Means-N...d_bxgy_b_img_y

[don]

General Linden on Africa

American Green Berets and Uganda People’s Defense Force soldiers at an airstrip in Obo, Central African

On a searing morning this spring, Brig. Gen. James B. Linder leaned against the red-webbing seats of a C-130 as it flew over the Sahara. On his camouflaged knee, he balanced two dog-eared Moleskine notebooks and a map of Africa. Linder, who is in his early 50s, commands the United States Special Operations forces in Africa. He was on his way to visit a detachment of 12 Army Green Berets training with African troops to fight Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Niger. Through the plane’s scratched plexiglass portholes, dunes crested like waves in an ocean of sand, and hot blasts of wind buffeted the fuselage. An hour’s flight to the south, his team of Special Forces was deployed along the Nigerian border, where the militant group Boko Haram was targeting children in its bid to establish an Islamic state.

“My job is to look at Africa and see where the threat to the United States is,” Linder said as he unfolded his map and traced circles around the territories where he knew extremist groups were operating. “I see Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Libyan problem set, Al Shabab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, Benghazi and Darna.”


The United States Africa Command, known as Africom, was established in 2007 but stepped up its operations after the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, when the overthrow of dictatorships from Tunisia to Libya to Egypt allowed militants and criminal networks to spread. In 2012, Al Qaeda and its affiliates seized control of Northern Mali and held a territory the size of Texas for nearly a year. With American support, French and Chadian forces managed to dislodge them, but they are still active in the region. In 2013, some 30 militants took over the Tigantourine gas facility in Algeria and killed 39 hostages. That same year, Somali militants raided the Westgate shopping center in Kenya’s capital, leaving 67 dead.

These attacks underscore how the threat to U.S. interests has shifted from Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen and Africa. Linder arrived at Africom just after the storming of the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. “Instability in Libya is causing a lot of the instability in West Africa,” he said. But it isn’t simply a matter of dots on a map. “I see the enemy, and then I look for connective tissue.” With his index finger, he traced how the conflicts in Libya and Syria are flooding Africa to the south with weapons and fighters. “Foreign fighters coming out of Syria are a serious problem,” he added. As terrorists move around and try to build networks between cells and like-minded organizations, Linder looks to break them apart.

“We have a real global threat,” Linder continued. “The problems in Africa are going to land on our doorstep if we’re not careful.” Linder opened one of his battered notebooks and riffled through a stack of graphs and statistics he clipped from The Economist and other publications. He pulled out an international flight schedule. “From Nigeria to the United States, there are eight direct flights a week.” Boko Haram hadn’t yet succeeded in wreaking much havoc beyond Nigeria’s borders, but had signaled their intent to do so. In July 2010, their leader, Abubakar Shekau, declared the group’s allegiance to Al Qaeda and said to America: “Jihad has just begun.”

Linder swept his palm over the map from Latin America to Africa and onto Europe. All three were increasingly linked through illegal trafficking in cocaine, weapons and people. As avenues for drug smuggling closed down in Europe, they opened up in Africa along some of the world’s oldest trade routes, where Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb meet. Smugglers made deals with militants to protect their trafficking routes and their product. “Thirteen percent of the European cocaine trade flows through Africa,” Linder read. “That’s about $4.2 billion a year.”

A gentleman farmer from Fort Lawn, S.C., Linder speaks with a drawl that does little to soften the blade of his critical intelligence. He also speaks with the precision of a man used to giving orders and having them followed. Before taking up his post at Africom, he educated himself on the countless problems facing the continent. “I went around Washington to three-letter agencies and asked people how they saw Africa. Some saw Africa through a lens of AIDS, others through climate change.” All of these require serious attention, he said. “On time-lapse satellite imagery, you literally can watch the desert moving south.”

Linder is “myopically focused” on seeing the continent through the lens of threat: “Africa is the battleground of the future.” The future of war is about winning people, not territory, he explained. Nowhere is this truer than in Africa, where most national boundaries began as lines drawn on colonial maps and make little sense in terms of tribal allegiances or religious affiliations. Terrorists pay no attention to national borders, so combating them requires leaving behind an outmoded view of nation-on-nation warfare.


Linder turned to the notebook in his lap. He’d scrawled some statistics on the inside cover: Africa’s current population of one billion was projected to double by 2050. By then, nearly one in four people on the planet will be an African. “In Africa, it’s never about seizing terrain,” he said. “Tanks won’t get us there. Jet planes won’t get us there. Massive naval armadas won’t get us there.”

The shift in American military strategy from huge, expensive weaponry to a lighter, more flexible approach reflects a sharp decline in the American appetite for foreign engagement. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left nearly 7,000 Americans dead and carried an estimated price tag of $4 trillion to $6 trillion.

Conventional warfare is viewed by many Americans as too costly. As a whole, the military has moved away from deploying large numbers of troops and now favors targeted action like drones and raids. Increasingly, it is looking for ways to deploy groups like Linder’s: small teams of men, in fleece jackets and sneakers, quietly fanning out across the African continent.

On any given day, there are 700 Special Forces in Africa, part of a larger U.S. military presence that ranges from 5,000 to 8,000 people on the ground. These Special Operations teams, which can be as small as one commando, deliver aid to places where it has generally been too risky to dig wells or hand out eyeglasses, don ties to work at U.S. Embassies and train with African commandos. They also coordinate with the diplomatic corps of the U.S. government and Africom. They are adaptable enough to shift as the nature of the threat shifts, fighting the kind of asymmetrical warfare that special operators have been fighting since World War II. “This is what S.O.F. is trained to do,” Linder said.

“This is why they built us.”

[LazyBoy]

Re: General Linden on Africa

On any given day, there are 700 Special Forces in Africa, part of a larger U.S. military presence that ranges from 5,000 to 8,000 people on the ground.

There's a lot of there, there.