Violence in Africa After Over Ten Years of AFRICOM

Violence in the African continent plays a rather interesting role when tied into the military operations of the United States through AFRICOM.

The United States African Command (AFRICOM) has been around for over ten years since its establishment and activation on October 1, 2008. Its goal, according to the White House during the Bush Administration, was to “bring peace and security to the people of Africa” and to pursue the goals of “development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth”.

According to The Intercept, the amount of military personnel in Africa since the inception of AFRICOM has “jumped 170 percent” and the amount of “military missions, activities, programs, and exercises there has risen 1,900 percent, from 172 to 3,500”. They also reported the fact that the number of drone strikes have increased substantially since 2008, especially in the country of Libya.

AFRICOM states to “promote regional security, stability and prosperity”, but according to a recent study done by the Pentagon, this is far from the case. The study done by the Africa Center for Research Studies, an “academic institution within the U.S. Department of Defense”, has consistently researched the amount of militant Islamist activity since 2010. Recent studies show that the amount of “militant Islamist group activity in Africa doubled since 2012”.

That statistic discusses the activities of various militant groups such as Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, ISIS affiliates, and more. If we take a look at the number of violent events that have taken place, “there has been a ten-fold increase” in the last ten years alone.

Data source: Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project from the Africa Center for Research Studies

As we can see, the amount of activities that have taken place in 2009 are next to none in comparison to their respective growth in the represented regions.

If we take the correlation between AFRICOM’s goals in promoting “stability”, then why is there such a substantial decline in the material stability of the continent?

There has been fierce opposition towards the continuation of AFRICOM’s duties throughout the African continent and abroad. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) alongside other organizations that are associated with the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases have been some of the most outspoken opponents of AFRICOM’s current involvement and tactics of outrageous militarism. According to BAP, “a majority of African nations — led by the Pan-Africanist government of Libya — rejected AFRICOM”, which eventually forced the United States to work out of Stuttgart, Germany for the time being.

However, this somewhat changed when the 2011 military intervention of Libya by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) oversaw the destruction and murder of Muammar Gaddafi’s government. Since then, that degree of reluctance has since evaporated and allowed the United States to effectively militarize the continent to levels that have been unheard of in the last decade.

It seems as though simply allocating military resources and personnel to a given territory in the name of stability does not actually provide any sense of stability at all, and instead, it does the opposite. The rise of militarization, especially of a foreign nature, does not appeal to local populations, especially given their history with colonialism and imperialism. It’s a large part of the reason why many anti-war organizations such as BAP, CODEPINK, World Beyond War, and more are still against the implementation of AFRICOM to this day.

Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash

A theory that seeks to understand the nature of instability in Africa through American militarism is that in reality, the United States seeks to keep the African continent less stable in order to have further access to resources and materials that are necessary in regards to the production of various technologies and cosmetics such as gold, mica, and more.

Back when Libya was self-sufficient due to the prosperity from oil under the government of Gaddafi, stability and control over natural resources was rather prominent in the country, as a result of the lack of foreign interference. When Gadaffi’s government fell apart as a result of the military intervention that was brought about via United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, that sense of control was eradicated entirely.

With a lack of national and domestic control over resources in Africa, various foreign governments and multi-national corporations are allowed the extraction of resources that are deemed necessary for production by corrupt leaders and international economic organizations. AFRICOM is only an element of how this all occurs, but it is substantial nonetheless in regards to regional cohesion and regulation.