ORCEN AFRICOM Global Power Competition Network Analysis

Abstract

(U//FOUO) United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) is the global combatant command responsible for countering transnational threats and malign actors, strengthening security forces, and responding to crises on the African continent. The commands goal is to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity. AFRICOM has developed lines of effort (LOEs) and strategic objectives that provide direction for the organization to achieve its principal goals. Critical to realizing these goals is to observe and measure performance, both by AFRICOM and by its main competitors. AFRICOM subscribes to the Global Power Competition (GPC) paradigm, which focuses on the desire of rival states to project power and exert global influence on developing regions. China and Russia are considered the United States primary GPC competitors. The purpose of this research is two-fold. First, the study team seeks to determine how GPC actor activities across the African continent positively or negatively align with AFRICOMs stated LOEs and strategic objectives. Second, the study team seeks to develop a network visualization of activities taken by AFRICOM and GPC actors. Using this network visualization tool, the decision maker can then better allocate limited resources using the most appropriate instrument(s) of national power that may yield maximum strategic impact across Africa. The first implication of this work is the development of a clear scoring method for strategic alignment that assesses the ends, ways, and means of activities. This alignment assessment implies the likelihood of success for a given activity. The second implication is that network analysis can help to visualize how activities relate to instruments of national power, LOEs, and strategic objectives. Relationships can be measured using network metrics to determine trends by AFRICOM and GPC competitors.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 14, 2020
Accession Number
AD1119455

Entities

People

  • Dereck Kennedy
  • Jeffrey Demarest
  • Raymond Vetter

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Electronic Warfare
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Combatant Commanders
  • Commerce
  • Department Of Defense
  • Department Of State
  • Doctrine
  • Foreign Aid
  • Governments
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Information Operations
  • International Organizations
  • Military Education
  • Military Operations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Operations Research
  • Personnel Management
  • Private Military Companies
  • Students
  • Systems Engineering
  • Unified Combatant Commands
  • United States
  • United States Africa Command
  • United States Military Academy
  • United States Special Operations Command
  • Warfare

Readers

  • East Asian Political and Security Studies within the Soviet Union
  • International Relations, focusing on Korea-Africa and North Korea-South Korea relations, and Nigeria-Latin American Relations.
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.