Africom Stands Up 2006-2017

**davidbfpo** · 11-03-2012

Originally Posted by gute

Read this article this morning and the last part had me scratching my head:http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...st.aspx?ID=960

Gute,

You are being polite! I assume you refer to this phrase:

The 1st Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, based in South Korea, will support U.S. Africa Command.

Even I know as a civilian this brigade is "heavy", let alone the distances involved in any deployment to Africa and given the potential for untoward events in NE Asia, could the US ever release even a BCT?

Logic would suggest the independent airborne brigade, long stationed in Italy, would be the RAB of choice.

**Bob's World** · 11-03-2012

The first of up to seven new Army units, created to train and help foreign militaries will be operational by the next fiscal year. The first of these "Regionally Aligned Brigades" will be assigned to Africa Command, but will be stationed in the continental United States....

The brigade will be responsible for working with foreign militaries on stability, security and training operations and should be ready to go by by fiscal 2013....These military cooperation units will be roughly the size as a brigade combat team....

The only demand signal for this is inside the US military. "Building Partner Capacity" is the new "COIN." It is based upon a very flawed understanding of why certain countries are hot beds of instability, with associated insurgent groups among their populaces and exploiting UW actors working among them for reasons of their own. It also is much more about what we want to do rather than about what needs to be done.

As often as not, these countries are not unstable because they lack the "will or skill" (a term that we love to use that is so inaccurate, but that validates our perceptions), but rather because of the excess application of security forces to keep dissatisfied populaces in check.

If a family is in chaos because a man abuses his wife and children, you don't solve the problem by issuing the guy a bigger baseball bat and teaching him how to use it with greater efficiency. Or by providing "ops-intel fusion" to tell him which of her friend's homes she is hiding at for refuge from his abuse. Yet this is the general premise behind "BPC."

Rotating entire brigades in and out of deployment windows to perform this task is a recipe for disaster. This is why the Army developed its tremendous Special Forces, CA and MISO capacity in the first place. The recognition that some jobs are simply inappropriate for larger combat formations.

I realize the desire to retain force structure is driving much of the rationale behind this. As is the belief coming out of recent operations that conventional forces can and should do these missions. But if everyone is trying to do special operations, who is doing conventional operations?

Some may remember that after the Gulf War the Army decided that the Homeland mission already fully serviced by the National Guard was what they needed to do, so they were busily trying to elbow the Guard out of their way when the Balkans started to heat up. At that point Big Army dropped homeland missions like a hot potato, and ran to doing what they really wanted to do. Same will be true with BPC.

It was suggested to big Army nearly a year ago that they could actually become a major player in FID ( an operation they hate and do not understand) if they would be willing to adopt a true regimental construct and tailor and dedicate a single brigade to each GCC AOR; ideally on a post co-located with the Special Forces Group working that same region. This would allow them to not only develop true expertise and shape their training, manning and equipping to the unique aspects of the mission, but that would facilitate true "SOF-Conventional integration" as current strategies are calling for. But that doesn't validate much force structure, and it does not work within ARFORGEN, and it would most likely keep that conventional BDE in a supporting role as a force provider of conventional capacities to SOF-led operations. Needless to say it was rejected off hand.

No, instead we will attempt to deploy the lion-share of an entire BDE, who will want to own their "battlespace" (I can hear Ambassadors now, "battlespace??") with SOF-conventional integration meaning having that ODA work for the conventional battalion commander who's multi-country "battlespace" he happens to be in.

I hope we have the wisdom and courage to step away from this. It will no server our national interests well, and it will cause as much pain as it cures for the people it affects.

**KingJaja** · 11-03-2012

If a family is in chaos because a man abuses his wife and children, you don't solve the problem by issuing the guy a bigger baseball bat and teaching him how to use it with greater efficiency. Or by providing "ops-intel fusion" to tell him which of her friend's homes she is hiding at for refuge from his abuse. Yet this is the general premise behind "BPC."

i

Great insight!! Can I quote this elsewhere?

This is what most Africans fear about AFRICOM, that it will lead to more violence and more instability.

A few days ago, the Nigerian Army basically executed about 30 young men in the North East (hot bed of Boko Haram). What, exactly, can AFRICOM do except give them better guns and training to do more of the same in future and put the US in an even more precarious position in Nigeria?