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06 February 2007

While You Were Sleeping

The snow fell overnight. Not much, a dusting for hardier people in the upper Mid-West, but enough to throw the capital into the usual cocked-hat automotive chaos that attends any deviation from the norm.

Which is, perhaps, why people are not as startled by the news that the world was divided while they slept, and that a new Proconsul has been established to manage a continent.

The Romans set the model for how to divide the world. They sent out a senior officer with the full authority of Caesar to manage the affairs of the Provinces.

We are no Roman Empire, don't get me wrong. That institution lasted, one way or another, for eleven hundred years. The last great real Empire, that of Britannia, had a much shorter, though durable run. I think we are down to our fifteen minutes of fame, but that is the Internet era for you.

Anyway, dividing the world is not the act of hubris you would think. It is just American efficiency. It is something the Department of Defense has been doing for a long time. Since World War Two, the Unified Command system has parsed out the world into geographic and functional areas of responsibility.

There used to be more to it, and down at the VFW you can find some of us old codgers muttering about the Unified and Specified Commands, which included the old Strategic Air Command of General Curtis LeMay. But that institution is long gone, and now we just have the regional Combatant Commands, supported by the Functional Commands that watch the heavens, and deliver the beans, bullets and nuclear weapons, if required.

The revision of the Unified Command Plan has been going on for a while. Secretary Rumsfeld approved the idea a while back, and the President OK'd it, and new Secretary Gates just announced it.

There will be a new Command for Africa, headed by an American military officer and assisted by a State Department Officer. It is all quite novel, and unique in the annals of the Department. In addition to security, the Command will worry about famine and plague.

The mission was split out of the existing European Command, which had become a little schizophrenic, dealing simultaneously with the integration of the former Warsaw Pact into café society and the depredations of rampaging marauders out of the Sudan.

The Administration is raising the profile for Africa, and Nigeria in particular, since that is where fully a quarter of America's oil imports are supposed to come from over the next decade. As the world's largest energy consumer, the US intends to counter growing Chinese influence on the continent, and secure the sea approaches to the strategic oil terminals in the Gulf of Guinea.

AFRICOM is supposed to have an initial operational capability by the end of September 2008. The location for the Headquarters is unknown. I can just imagine how tempting a target a large command installation swarming with American troops would be in the region. You would also have to wonder about the general sanity of any African nation who would accept the presence, since they do not generally get to vote on the Unified Command Plan.

Other regional commands are headquartered in exotic Tampa, Florida (CENTRAL COMMAND, SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND) and near the pulsing salsa beat of Miami's South Beach (SOUTHERN COMMAND).

This is actually a logical continuation of existing programs. EUCOM began counterterrorism training in West and Central Africa in 2002, teaching local armies basic techniques to help them locate and take out militant cells. The program is known as the Trans Sahara Security Initiative and has a ten-year funding stream. It was the brainchild of a fighter pilot I know, and it is a good idea.

There will be announcements from the Pentagon on the new command today, and I hope to talk to people on the Joint Staff about it, if I can get to it through the snow.

The Deputy Commander at EUCOM traditionally had responsibility for the Africa mission, although the Indian Ocean littoral has been the responsibility of PACOM, and the Horn of Africa mission has belonged to CENTCOM. The new command is expected to unify American efforts.

Africa in general, and the approaches to Nigerian oil terminals in the Gulf of Guinea in particular, do not have the security mechanisms present elsewhere. AFRICOM is intended to provide the presence and the technology to link all the regional players and enable the flow of information, intelligence and communications.

I think it is about time to take this all seriously, and I think it is a good idea. I am pleased that I am retired. How would you like to get tapped for a new job, arrive at your fancy office and look at the in-box to see what is on top.

The first folder would be labeled “DARFUR,” and the next one “CHINESE EXPANSION.” Under that would be ones with yellow sticky tabs marked “AIDS,” “ZIMBABWE IMPLOSION,” and “FAMINE.”

I don't know who they are going to find to lead the new Command, though they will probably announce the lucky winner today. Whoever it is, I wish him a lot of luck.

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