"DATTs are our link to their government leaders. We are asking them to talk with their leadership, to be a liaison to initiate discussions leading to decisions to work with the United States via AFRICOM."
AFRICOM's website featured an article on a U.S.-led military exercise recently conducted in Botswana that began with this sentence: "With more than 187,000 soldiers based in nearly 160 countries, the U.S. Army presence around the globe points to its commitment to strengthening relationships and assisting with building military capacity in partner nations."
The following day the same site provided details of the statement in June by AFRICOM commander Major General David Hogg that U.S. Army Africa will begin the regular deployment of a brigade of 3,000 or more troops to Africa. [1]
That unit will be the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, which "will be the main force provider for security cooperation and partnership-building missions in Africa."
Citing Pentagon officials, the report added, "The effort is a first step toward fulfilling national strategic and defense guidance that includes military services partnering with allies around the world to build capacity and security capability."
An Army officer was quoted in reference to the shift from the Central Command area of responsibility (essentially from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan in the east) after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, stating, "what we're working on now is the organization of the Army beyond the current conflict to provide the capability required and maintain an expeditionary mindset in the Army."
With most every nation in Europe brought into the Pentagon's fold through NATO expansion and with only a handful of Middle Eastern and Asia-Pacific nations not in the same category or headed in that direction, the consolidation of military control of Africa by the U.S. and its NATO partners has achieved priority status.
1) Pentagon's Last Frontier: Battle-Hardened Troops Headed To Africa
Stop NATO
June 12, 2012
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/pentagons-last-frontier-battle-hardened-troops-headed-to-africa/
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