By Tirthankar ChandaPosted on 04-12-2019Modified on 04-12-2019 at 20:57
For nearly two decades, the African continent has witnessed a concentration of foreign military forces on its soil. The fight against terrorism and the defense of commercial and economic interests are today the main drivers of foreign intervention in Africa. Western powers are no longer alone in trying to assert their influence on African theater.
As the anti-jihadist battle waged by the French " Barkhane " forces in Africa is getting bogged down, French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to re-examine the military strategy of his army in the Sahel. One of the options studied would be to set up a Franco-European coalition to fight together with other Europeans terrorism in Africa. If this option were to materialize, it would increase the number of foreign armies already present on African soil.
A presence that is not without cause debates within the local populations, as evidenced by the rise of anti-French resentment in the Sahel countries hosting French military bases. The African Union (AU) does not look favorably on increasing the foreign military presence in its member countries. The AU Peace and Security Commission has for years called on African governments to be "cautious" when signing agreements authorizing foreign states to set up military bases in their countries.
In the wake of the colonial past of the African continent, Western armies continued to play a vital role after the independence of their former colonies in the 1950s and 1960s. This has been particularly true for France. Perceived as the " gendarme of Africa ", she was for a long time the only power to maintain troops on the continent, thanks to the military cooperation agreements or defense signed with its former colonies. During the Cold War period , the presence of the French army kept the French-speaking African countries in the western sphere of influence. From the 1990s, the concern for the defense of national interests, coupled with the imperatives of the war against maritime piracy on the one hand and terrorism on the other, led western countries to strengthen their presence on the continent. The emerging powers were quick to join them in an unprecedented game of influences, reflecting the geostrategic balance of forces in the world.
Is Africa becoming a new military issue? Which are the countries of origin of the foreign military present in Africa? How many are they ? What are their missions ? Elements of answers, starting with France and the United States having the most elaborate and structured military devices on the African continent.
The French military apparatus in Africa
" Sub-Saharan Africa is an important strategic space for France, because of our political, geographical and cultural proximity, our strategic interests on the continent and open crises that threaten stability," says the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. its website dedicated to France's military interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. It is precisely to put an end to the threat that the jihadists who occupied northern Mali were weighing on the integrity of the country, that France launched on January 11, 2013 the operation " Serval ", with 1,700 soldiers, planes fighting and helicopters.
"Serval" has been replaced since 1 August 2014 by the "Barkhane" force of 4,500 soldiers whose scope of action has been extended beyond Mali to cover the entire Sahel-Saharan belt, including five countries in the region, namely, Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and Chad. If the Chadian capital N'Djamena hosts the headquarters of the Barkhane force, it has provisional bases scattered over the other countries of its system, including the Niamey base which serves as an "air hub" housing aircrafts. hunting and drones. "Barkhane"'s mission is to carry out operations against terrorism and organized crime in the Sahel-Saharan belt, while waiting for the rise and operationalization of the G5 Sahel joint force created by the five Sahelian countries.
In addition to the contingents deployed in the framework of temporary external operations ( Opex ), such as the "Barkhane" operation, the French military apparatus in Africa is officially made up of two advanced operational bases, namely the French Forces stationed in Djibouti (1,450 men) and in Côte d'Ivoire (900 men), and two former bases demoted to "operational cooperation poles" with a regional vocation, namely the French elements in Senegal (350 men) and Gabon (350 men).
Positioned on the eastern facade of Africa and having an important logistics including an air detachment, the base of Djibouti constitutes the most important French military base on the continent. Highly strategic base, it is able to accommodate, but also quickly project forces to the Indian Ocean or the Middle East, in case of crisis in the sub-region.
The French forces of Côte d'Ivoire, for their part, have a status of force of presence on the West African facade regarded as an area of strategic interest for France. They are able to intervene on very short notice all over West Africa. The French elements in Gabon and Senegal are reservoirs of prepositioned troops, including ground, naval and air forces, capable of defending French interests and supporting operational deployments in West and Central Africa.
In addition to the French military system deployed in West Africa, the French Navy prepositioned since 1990 a permanent maritime mission called Mission Corymbe in the Gulf of Guinea area. The main missions of "Corymbe" are to preserve the French economic interests in this area and fight against maritime piracy and robbery. The buildings on mission in the framework of "Corymbe", whose strength can be up to 250 military, unfold off the coast of Senegal north of the coast of Angola, including the waters of the coast Ivory Coast, Benin, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon and the islands of Sao Tome and Principe.
Expanding US military presence
The US military presence in Africa began to gain momentum after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Officially, it is to support the fight against militant extremism ( Shebab in Somalia, Boko Haram around Lake Chad as well as Qaeda in the Sahel) and maritime piracy (in the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa) that the United States intervenes militarily on the African theater. The creation of Africom (United States Command for Africa) in February 2007, under the presidency of George W. Bush, responds to the need to coordinate more and more American military operations in Africa. The headquarters of Africom is located in Stuttgart, Germany.
In order to carry out its anti-terrorist missions, the US Command for Africa has 7,200 military and civilian personnel, two permanent bases, 12 other non-permanent sites ("cooperative security locations") and 20 sites that have not no continuing US presence ("contingency rentals"). The two permanent bases of Africom in the region are located, one in Djibouti and the other in the British island of Ascension.
The largest US military garrison on the continent is Camp Lemonnier , located near the Djibouti International Airport. Formerly a French Foreign Legion base, this 200-hectare site, which the Americans acquired in 2001 under long lease from the Djiboutian government, is home to 4,000 soldiers and civilian personnel. Housed as a true "hub" of US military activities in the Horn of Africa, Camp Lemonnier is equipped with infrastructures adapted to accommodate the large jet aircraft of the US Air Force. It is from this base that the drones that target al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen and the Islamist Shebab insurgents in Somalia are also taking off.
Distributed between secondary sites and smaller non-permanent sites, the thirty or so other American bases on the continent are scattered throughout the continent. They are organized around three theaters of anti-jihadist operations, namely the Horn of Africa, Libya and the Sahel. In the Sahel, cooperation between Africom and Niger has proved to be particularly dense, with the latter having no less than five US bases, including two security cooperation centers. The density of the US military presence in this country of West Africa, described as a " crossroads of regional instability " between Libya, Lake Chad and the Sahel, as the former commander of the Africom, General Waldhauser, was unveiled in October 2017 following the death of four US soldiers in an ambush at the Malian border.
The incident also uncovered the United States' ongoing construction of its most advanced UAV base in Agadez at a cost of some $ 100 million. This site should ultimately supplant the Djiboutian base in terms of importance and logistical capabilities. According to the American online magazine "The Intercept", which has revealed to the general public the rise of the US military presence in Africa based on declassified documents of Africom, Africa is the second theater of strategic operations after the Middle East.
The new military partners of Africa
With the rise in influence in Africa in recent years of emerging powers such as China, India, Turkey or post-Soviet Russia to name but a few, the situation is changing on the continent. in the field of security-military cooperation. Thanks to their arms delivery offers or training proposals and joint exercises with their African partners under particularly competitive conditions, these new powers have become troublesome competitors for Western states, which have a long tradition of presence in Africa. Africa.
The turning point dates from 2017 when China inaugurated its first overseas military base in Djibouti, near Camp Lemonnier which hosts the US Expeditionary Force. Officially, the Chinese base is expected to house only 400 men to provide logistics for the Chinese naval forces operating in the Gulf of Aden. However, according to analysts, it is more than 10,000 men who could settle there eventually, probably from 2026, with the planned transformation of this enclave into China's military outpost in Africa.
The installation of its Djiboutian base is a new stage in Chinese military involvement in Africa, since Beijing has so far focused on peacekeeping operations within the UN framework and the evacuation of its nationals in the event of a crisis. . This development goes hand in hand with China's rise as Africa's trading and economic partner. Having become the continent's largest trading partner since 2009, China is also leading investment in many areas such as infrastructure, energy and mining. Of the 54 African states, 39 are now part of China's new Silk Road Partnership project, linking Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa through an extensive network of road, port and telecommunications infrastructure.
These ambitious prospects proposed by China to its African partners are perceived by the Americans as " a real threat to (their) interests of national security ". According to analysts, growing rivalries between Washington and Beijing over the African theater have the potential to destabilize the entire continent, especially the strategic Red Sea area through which passes one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
Russia is also in the sights of the Americans. The Trump administration blames Moscow for " its predatory practices " that " interfere with US military operations ." Soviet Russia had important strategic relations with African states during the Cold War period. These relations had diminished after 1989, but in the last ten years there has been a renewed interest in Africa by Russia. Moscow has indeed relaunched spectacularly its military cooperation with countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Angola, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique. , establishing itself as one of the leading arms suppliers to these countries.
Russia's military and security ties with Africa, however, go beyond arms exports. They also involve sending Russian instructors. This is particularly the case in Central Africa, where 200 instructors from the Russian special forces have been involved since 2018 in the training of the Central African armed forces, faced with rebellious groups that are otherwise better-seasoned. In fact, according to the Americans, they would be Russian mercenaries with ties to the Kremlin who would be used in Bangui, as in Khartoum or in Libya to ensure the security of governments and the safeguarding of essential economic assets. (diamond mines, gold and oil reserves ...).
Other non-Western countries militarily engaged in Africa include Turkey, which established a base in Somalia in September 2017 in Mogadishu as a training center for Somali troops. Ankara dispatched 200 Turkish officers and instructors to train 10,000 Somali soldiers in war against the Shebab militia. The Horn of Africa region also has a logistics center (in Eritrea) built by the United Arab Emirates, engaged in Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen. As for the Japanese base in Djibouti, in place since 2011, it houses a contingent of 180 soldiers, who participate in anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden and the waters off the Somali coast.
Finally, India, which has seen its commercial and economic profile improve in Africa since the turn of the century, has also engaged militarily on the continent. Since 2007, it has a listening post in the north of Madagascar to monitor the movements of ships and protect its shipping lanes. As proof of its growing ambition in the security field, the Indian Navy has proposed joint exercises with its African partners next March, particularly with Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa.
In the African security theater, strategic competition between old and new is just beginning.
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