A New Training Model Needed for African Militaries
Abstract
The best part of my deployment to Djibouti, Africa, during the summer of 2004 was any opportunity to escape the 130 degree summer heat for temporary additional duties (TAD) in one of the surrounding countries. This is why I relished the thought of two weeks TAD to support training a Battalion of Ethiopian military peacekeepers. Like many Americans, I had never heard of ACOTA, which stands for Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance. But ACOTA was the reason I traveled over 600 miles to a remote base in Bilate, Ethiopia, to instruct crowd control to the Ethiopian military. I was the only active duty Marine on a team of 11 people. The others were 9 contractors from Northrop Grumman Technical Services (NGTS) and a Corpsman who deployed with me from Djibouti to teach basic first aid. We were all there to train the Ethiopian battalion on how to conduct peacekeeping operations under the State Department-sponsored program ACOTA. At the end of the 2-week training period, I concluded that ACOTA was not an effective allocation of resources for a long-term capacity building program because it does not combat the root causes of insecurity in Africa, which are poverty, illiteracy, and disease. The inherent costs of travel to each country for the contractors, the cost of the contracting itself, and the per diem costs for military members who support the instruction all added up. A more efficient way to conduct ACOTA training would be to establish permanent facilities in a centralized location where African countries could send their forces for instruction. Soldiers would be removed from the squalid conditions of their home countries, food could be provided at the school and, most importantly, there would be a hospital to treat sick soldiers. If it is going to make significant breakthroughs, ACOTA will have to divert resources to a central training Academy where real mentoring, training, and learning can occur.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 21, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA510986
Entities
People
- Emmanuel T. Carper
Organizations
- Marine Corps University