Jessica Piombo’s useful volume on the U.S. military in Africa discusses its work across the divide separating development and security. Focusing on the era of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), formed in 2007, the book questions the proper role of the U.S. military within the “whole of government” approach to security. Also called the “interagency” approach, it recognizes that good governance and development that addresses peoples’ needs are necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for establishing stability and security. The contributors identify what combination of civilian, military, and private programs can lead to outcomes that embrace all three aspects of the security-governance-development triad to reduce insecurities in sub-Saharan Africa. They assess the role of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as it adapts to initiatives beyond the functions of military training and provision of equipment for national security forces that form the basis of traditional security cooperation.
After an introduction by Piombo, the early chapters discuss the feedback loop among governance, security, and development. Some chapters are thematic, discussing such aspects as the military’s role in development, accountability, and security sector reform; others are case studies of specific programs in individual countries or subregions of the continent. Later chapters return to the thematic approach, discussing, for example, the role of civil society, making development assistance more effective, and integrating security and development.
In chapter 2 Andrea Talentino asks whether the military can adapt to the belief that development is a necessary condition for security. She warns that AFRICOM’s approach to development aims at meeting democracy markers, such as regular elections, rather than creating effective states that engage their populations. She questions whether development has been securitized, that is, bent to the priorities of security; or whether security has been developmentalized, that is, modified to promote the imperatives of development. Such questions, she argues, have dominated academic and practical discourse since the mid-1990s. The result has been the emergence of the security–development nexus, the link between improving the lives of local peoples and improving international security. She concludes, however, that after at first embracing the security–development nexus, AFRICOM, since coming under the leadership of General David Rodriguez in 2014, has moved away from development and from interagency coordination and now evaluates programs primarily on the basis of security priorities.
In chapter 3 Piombo discusses whether military interventions can achieve capacity-building and sustained development. She focuses on the different cultures in the military and in the civilian agencies such as the Department of State (DoS) and USAID, noting that development organizations distinguish between sustained economic development, which may reflect political priorities, and humanitarian aid, which must be politically impartial in order to protect aid workers in politically charged situations. The military, she claims, tends to blur the lines between economic development and humanitarian assistance. She also reviews the background of the DoD’s civil affairs division, which emerged during the Vietnam era but was subsequently deemphasized in the wake of the post-Vietnam backlash against nation-building. But Afghanistan and Iraq have put the U.S. Army back in the business of nation-building with the deployment of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). She notes, however, that SSRT (Security, Stabilization, Transition, and Reconstruction) operations last longer than traditional “kinetic” operations and require their own training, often outside the purview of the military.
In chapter 4 Dustin Sharp analyzes the accountability of national security forces in Africa and their link to the security–development nexus. He argues that African security forces, especially in fragile states, can often become a source of instability through corruption, extortion, criminality, and human rights abuses. If violence perpetrated by the security forces goes unaddressed, an “accountability gap” appears, which leads to a culture of impunity. To forestall predation by security forces, security sector reforms, increasingly a component of development initiatives, must focus on human security, i.e., security of the people, not just traditional and regime security. The dysfunctionality of unaccountable governments, he continues, leads to a fraying of the social contract, resulting in an “impunity state.” In chapter 5 Andrea Walther-Puri discusses the U.S. military’s efforts at security sector reforms in Africa. She argues, however, that overemphasis on DoD initiatives, as opposed to DoS or USAID programs, has skewed the results back toward traditional and regime security to the neglect of human security.
In chapter 7 Alison Rimsky Vernon and Margaux Hoar evaluate maritime security reform with a case study of the Africa Partnership Station (APS) in Ghana. The APS is an AFRICOM naval initiative to build capacity among African naval forces by working with both military and civilian agencies in various littoral states. Ghana’s three main maritime threats are energy security (protecting offshore oil rigs), narco-trafficking, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Sailors learned the requisite skills, but in the long run lacked the equipment, fuel, and spare parts to operate effectively. Vernon and Hoar conclude that Africans appreciated the program and learned new skills, but the APS did not result in better control of the coasts by Ghana or other countries. They blame the APS’s failure to attain its long-term objectives on a culture of corruption in the Ghanaian military, which diverted funds and equipment, along with a failure of the Ghanaian government to prioritize maritime security over traditional land-based aspects of security.
Collectively, the contributors conclude that the military plays a necessary role in the developmental aspects of establishing security and stability in Africa. Indeed, they argue that the goal of interagency cooperation was a driving force behind AFRICOM’s creation. However, they feel that AFRICOM needs to change its approach and learn to work in closer concert with the civilian agencies, especially DoS and USAID. The lack of a comprehensive interagency working model is impeding the reduction of insecurity in Africa. Sustainable development requires not only capacity-building, which is a strength of the military agencies, but also community participation, ownership, and buy-in. These factors take time, and the U.S. military’s in-and-out approach misses much of this community engagement. The case studies conclude that African governments are more interested in state and regime security than in human security. AFRICOM’s security sector assistance approach risks creating highly trained security forces that are stronger than the civilian governments that are supposed to control them. This situation can easily lead to corruption, lack of accountability, and, ultimately, an “impunity state.” The Obama administration has requested significant additional annual funding for AFRICOM’s Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, but most of this money will go to military initiatives, rather than interagency initiatives. Thus the overall picture is one of increasing reliance on the military and on programs targeting security force capacity-building, rather than the interagency approach and the “whole of government” objectives undergirding the policy decisions that led to the formation of AFRICOM.
The contributors’ sources are largely primary documents, including policy statements and performance reviews from the DoD and from civilian agencies, including the DoS, USAID, and various NGOs. Academic sources, including military, policy, and development journals, as well as anthologies, and relevant scholarly monographs are also consulted. The selections are for the most part well researched, effectively argued, and authoritative. The book is recommended to specialists and policymakers with military, civilian, and nongovernmental agencies.
