Reducing Insecurity in Africa: Roles and Responsibilities of the U.S. Military, U.S. Government and Non-Governmental Communities
Abstract
The workshop titled "Reducing Insecurity in Africa: Roles and Responsibilities of the U.S. Military, U.S. Government and Non-Government Communities" was held in Monterey, California in December 2010. This conference focused on the respective roles of military, civilian government, and nongovernmental actors in bridging security and development processes in Africa. We organized this conference because of the debates that had been ignited over the creation of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in February 2007. An expansive conception of security and the roles that military actors should take in providing security informed the early deliberations over AFRICOM's roles and missions. AFRICOM's creators proclaimed that it would be a new kind of combatant command, one that took a "whole-of-government" approach to Africa, and one in which the Department of Defense (DoD) working in close collaboration with the Department of State (DoS), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other partners. AFRICOM would engage in a wide range of activities that extended far beyond the narrow confines of national security, and it would attempt to take an extremely proactive stance in responding to and working with African concerns. To AFRICOM, security included not just the traditional concepts of state-centric national security conceived of in military terms (i.e., arms rivalries, strategic alliances, defense and military training), but also dimensions of human security: individual security and human rights, economic prosperity, societal reconstruction and stabilization, regional organization development, and capacity building for states and their institutions. We initiated this conference to generate concrete discussion of the nature of security and insecurity in Africa, how to address those problems, and assess the programs that AFRICOM has initiated that bridge the development-security divide.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA565880
Entities
People
- Gustav Jordt
- Jason Neal
- Jessica Piombo
- Laura Perazzola
- Matthew Dearing
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School