Expanding US Military Command in Africa

Elites, Networks and Grand Strategy

Tshepo Gwatiwa, Justin van der Merwe, Tshepo Gwatiwa, Justin van der Merwe, Tshepo T. Gwatiwa, Justin van der Merwe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367652968
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429832079
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

This book discusses the systematic expansion of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) across the continent of Africa.

This book posits that AFRICOM expansion in Africa is part of a broader system of accumulation based on a government-business-media (GBM) complex. Applying the concept at both structural and descriptive levels, the GBM complex is a function of the synergy between the state's quest for power, businesses' need for expansion, and the informational and hegemonic functions of media actors. The United States' GBM complex in Africa is supported—and in some locations spearheaded—by its military, with dispossessing effects on local actors. Drawing from African case studies, analytical accounts and empirical case studies, this book explores AFRICOM's role within this broader strategy. The volume maps both the methods and the scope of this expansion, as well as local resistance to this process, and comprises perspectives from the five regions of Africa, key sub-regional organizations and voices from Africa's regional hegemons.

This book will be of much interest to students of security studies, strategic studies, African politics and International Relations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Figures, Maps, and Tables
• Chapter 1: Introducing US AFRICOM expansion in Africa
• Chapter 2: Expanding the US Africa Command: Reintegrating Africa within the US’s system of accumulation
• Chapter 3: Multilateral diplomacy in the formation of the US Africa Command: Reflections on US Africa policy and engagement from Bush through Obama, 2000–2016
• Chapter 4: The genesis and origins of US AFRICOM
• Chapter 5: AFRICOM’s military base in Djibouti: A history of its advancement
• Chapter 6: Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the expansion of AFRICOM: Africa in America’s “Panopticon”
• Chapter 7: Security, circulation and biopolitics: US Africa Command’s response to Ebola
• Chapter 8: The economic and business side of US AFRICOM on the continent: Agreements, land lease, aid, corporations and base expansion in Djibouti
• Chapter 9: The US Africa Command and (under)development in Africa: An appraisal of US securitization of development in Africa
• Chapter 10: Agenda-setting or reinforcement?: The African media’s reporting and its impact on AFRICOM’s soft power
• Chapter 11: Conclusion: Imprinting infrastructural and affective labour in Africa
• Index