Vet News: DoD Mulls Proposed 'Africa Command'

Defense officials are seriously considering the creation of a new combatant command to contend with the variety of issues in Africa.

The proposed command, aptly called “Africa Command,” would include most of Africa, but would leave countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti to fall under the U.S. Central Command umbrella. Africa is currently divvied up between Central Command and U.S. European Command. Defense officials and observers have long considered the value of adding a new combatant command to the Pentagon’s list of five, but the issue has yet to take hold.

Now, however, it appears the Pentagon is making headway. The plan would require redrawing the lines of the Unified Command Plan, or UCP, which delineates U.S. Northern, Southern, Central, European and Pacific commands. Now add to that the possibility that there would be an “AfCom.”

The outlines of a command for Africa appeared on a PowerPoint slide handed out at a briefing in the Pentagon on Tuesday. That briefing, about a major reorganization of the Pentagon’s policy branch, included a slide of a UCP Model that included the command, shown in orange. The map shows that several countries in eastern Africa would remain with Central Command, effectively creating the new command with all of what now belongs to European Command in Africa.

The briefing was led by Eric S. Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy. Edelman is leading an effort to make his branch better reflect the way other government agencies are organized for global operations. The Pentagon’s policy branch will reorganize in a number of ways, but also restructure the way its offices are organized for dealing with operations around the world. The slide with the map of Africa Command appeared by way of explaining how the building’s new policy areas would better mirror the way other U.S. agencies organize themselves across the world.

Edelman would not comment on the map shown on the slide, which he said was shown prematurely because no decision has been made on the issue.

“We have not completely figured out how those lines are going to run between CentCom and EuCom’s part of Africa,” he said. “That part we’re still trying to sort through.”

Spokesmen at the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who have declined to comment on the creation of a new command in the past, were not available to comment Tuesday.

Time magazine recently published an article that said the Pentagon would soon announce the change, attributing that information to defense sources. The article also indicated that Gen. William “Kip” Ward, recently named deputy commanding general of European Command, would head the new command. As deputy general at EuCom, Ward is already tasked with heading that command’s issues regarding Africa.

For as much as a year, discussion about an African Command included the possibility that the headquarters for the new command could be in Djibouti, now home to Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. But the proposed map shown at the policy briefing indicated that Djibouti would remain under Central Command and therefore not likely to be used as headquarters for the new command.

SOURCE: Army News