ESTABLISHING AFRICOM: PRESSING QUESTIONS, POLITICAL CONCERNS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Abstract

In the post-Cold War period, Africa did not constitute a top strategic priority
for the U.S. A 1995 report by the Department of Defence (DoD) listed Africa at the
bottom of the world’s regions in strategic terms. In 1998, the National Security
Strategy of the U.S. confirmed that America’s security interests with regard to
Africa were limited. Hence the tendency in the past was to relegate Africa to the
periphery of American strategy.1
However, as Metz rightly argued some years ago, such an approach would not
be wise: the U.S. does indeed have strategic interests in Africa. After all, from a
U.S. point of view, serious transnational threats emanate from the region, including:
state-sponsored terrorism, narcotics trafficking, weapons proliferation, international
crime, environmental damage, and pandemic disease. Furthermore, Africa has been
the scene of recurrent humanitarian crises, often as a result of intra-state armed
conflict.