AFRICOM again

True to form we not only repeat the TicTacs but also the referrals to MountainRunner who's got the latest inside info on the new African Command. E.g.:

I attended USC's AFRICOM conference earlier this month and between panel discussions and offline conversations, I came away with a new appreciation (and hope) for the newest, and very different, command.

This is not like the other Combatant Commands (one DOD representative said they dropped "Combatant" from the title, but depending on where you look, all commands have that word or none of the commands include that adjective).

Also unlike other commands, this is "focused on prevention and not containment or fighting wars." This is, as one speaker continued, is a "risk-laden experiment" that is like an Ironman with multidisciplinary requirements and always different demands [...]. The goal, he continued, was to "keep combat troops off the continent for 50 years" because the consensus was, once troops landed on Africa, it would be extremely difficult to take them off.

Dracobs has been covering Africom of course from the early start - so check out the earlier posts, including those that project the Shaping JOC to be of central relevance for Africom. Shaping aims to do conflict prevention in the shape of grievance settlement, meaning that Pentagon has to do real political development policy.