1st Edition
US Strategy in Africa AFRICOM, Terrorism and Security Challenges
This book outlines the construction, interpretations and understanding of US strategy towards Africa in the early twenty-first century.
No single issue or event in the recent decades in Africa has provoked so much controversy and unified hostility and opposition as the announcement by former President George W. Bush of the establishment of the United Stated Africa Command – AFRICOM. The intensity and sheer scale of the unprecedented unity of opposition to AFRICOM across Africa surprised many experts and lead them to ask why such a hostile reaction occurred.
This book explores the conception of AFRICOM and the subsequent reaction in two ways. Firstly, the contributors critically engage with the creation and global imperatives for the establishment of AFRICOM and present an analytical outline of African security in relation to and within the context of the history of US foreign and security policy approaches to Africa. Secondly, the book has original chapter contributions by some of the key actors involved in the development and implementation of the AFRICOM project including Theresa Whelan, the former US Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. This is not only an attempt to contribute to the academic and policy-relevant debates based on the views of those who are intimately involved in the design and implementation of the AFRICOM project but also to show, in their own words, that ‘America has no clandestine agenda for Africa’.
This book will be of interest to students of US foreign policy/national security, strategic studies, international security and African politics.
David J. Francis is Chair of African Peace & Conflict Studies in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.
Part 1: AFRICOM and US Security Policy in Africa 1. Introduction: AFRICOM: US Strategic Interests and African Security David J. Francis 2. Africa: A new Strategic Perspective Theresa Whelan 3. AFRICOM: What is it and what will it do? Daniel Volman 4. AFRICOM: Terrorism and Security Challenges in Africa J. Peter Pham 5. AFRICOM and Challenges to African Security Mohamed Salih 6. Solutions Not Yet Sought: A Human Security Paradigm for the 21st Century Shannon Beebe Part 2: African Responses: Threats and Opportunities 7. AFRICOM: Its Reality and Future Jeremy Keenan 8. African Union and AFRICOM Tom Teiku 9. Into Africa - Always Something New: AFRICOM and the History of Telling Africans what their Security Problems Are David Chuter 10. AFRICOM and the New Aid and Security Partnerships Josephine Osikena Conclusion: AFRICOM and the future of US Africa Relations David J. Francis
Biography
David J. Francis is Professorial Chair of African Peace and Conflict Studies in the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.
'This book provides an admirable account of the state of play in US Africa strategy and helpfully sketches the possible contours of future improvements.' - Survival, 53 (2) 17
