Security Assistance in Africa: The Case for Less

US strategic approaches in the African Great Lakes region are primarily based on security assistance for training and equipping African forces for operations in East, North, and West Africa. This assistance risks causing more incidents of violence. A new strategy, based on a comprehensive approach to the security challenges in the region, as well as the deployment of international “boots on the ground” – American or others – is needed to reduce violence and to minimize the risk of new terrorist safe havens appearing in central Africa. O of the main security interests of the United States in Africa is to counter the violent extremism perpetrated by organizations such as the al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).1 In order to do so, current US military strategy aims at training and equipping African forces for peacekeeping and counterterrorist operations.2 Violent extremism in the Great Lakes region in central Africa (here understood as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda) is rare; nonetheless, over the past seven years, the United States has trained tens of thousands of troops in the region for deployment to other parts of Africa. Burundi and Uganda, for example, have almost 12,000 troops currently deployed as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), and Rwanda has more than 3,500 troops deployed in Sudan as part of the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). The Great Lakes region is highly unstable and characterized by a long history of violence, weak governments, a great number of armed groups, and regional power struggles. The most violent and unstable state is the DRC, where 7 million people currently require humanitarian assistance and nearly 2.8 million are internally displaced.3 After three decades of authoritarian rule and widespread human rights violations by the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko (1965-1997), two regional wars (1996-1997 and 1998-2003), several insurgencies, and 1 Senate Armed Services Committee, “Statement of General David M. Rodriguez, USA, Commander, United States Africa Command Before the Senate Armed Services Committee Posture Hearing,” Senate Armed Services Committee, March 6, 2014. 2 This article is only discussing the military efforts and strategies of the United States in Africa. The United States has, however, a much broader national security strategy. See The White House, National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: The White House, February 2015). 3 United Nations Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2015/172 (New York: United Nations Security Council, March 10, 2015), 5. the Us MilitAry in AfricA Security Assistance in Africa: The Case for Less