AFRICOM - Selecting A Headquarters

Selecting A Headquarters

The 1,300 person command is headquartered at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany for the foreseeable future and a further administrative presence on the continent will only occur via "full diplomatic consultation and agreement with potential host nations".

It was reported in June 2007 that African countries were competing to host the headquarters because it would bring money for the recipient country. However, of all the African nations, only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to host AFRICOM's headquarters. The U.S. declared in February 2008 that Africa Command would be headquartered in Stuttgart for the "foreseeable future". In August 2007, Dr. Wafula Okumu, a research fellow at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, testified before congress about the growing resistance and hostility on the African continent. Nigeria announced it will not allow its country to host a base and opposed the creation of a base on the continent. South Africa and Libya also expressed reservations of the establishment of a headquarters in Africa.

The Sudan Tribune considered it likely that Ethiopia, a strong U.S. ally in the region, will house USAFRICOM's headquarters due to the collocation of AFRICOM with the African Union's developing peace and security apparatus. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi stated in early November that Ethiopia would be willing to work together closely with USAFRICOM. This was further reinforced when a U.S. Air Force official said on 5 December 2007, that Addis Ababa was likely to be the headquarters.

On 18 February 2008 General Ward told an audience at the Royal United Services Institute in London that some portion of that staff headquarters being on the continent at some point in time would be "a positive factor in helping us better deliver programs." General Ward also told the BBC the same day in an interview that there are no definite plans to take the headquarters or a portion of it to any particular location on the continent.

President Bush denied that the United States was contemplating the construction of new bases on the African continent. U.S. plans include no large installations such as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, but rather a network of facilities – the so-called 'cooperative security locations,' etc., mentioned above, at which temporary activities will be conducted. There is one U.S. base on the continent, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, with approximately 2,300 troops stationed there having been inherited from USCENTCOM upon standup of the command.

However, Basil Ibebunjo says there are some contradictions on the issue of the establishment of a Headquarters for AFRICOM on the African soil. According to him, "during his official announcement of the establishment of AFRICOM on 6 February 2007, the last paragraph of President Bush's press release read": "We will be consulting with African leaders to seek their thoughts on how Africa Command can respond to security challenges and opportunities in Africa. We will also work closely with our African partners to determine an appropriate location for the new command in Africa." This change of policy must have been occasioned by the rejection of the planned establishment of AFRICOM's Headquarters in Africa by Africa's politico-military leadership. It was purported that AFRICOM was expected to reach full operational capability on 1 October 2008; including the establishment of a headquarters in Africa.

In general, U.S. Unified Combatant Commands have an HQ of their own in one location, subordinate service component HQs, sometimes one or two co-located with the main HQ or sometimes spread widely, and a wide range of operating locations, main bases, forward detachments, etc. USAFRICOM initially appears to be considering something slightly different; spreading the actually COCOM HQ over several locations, rather than having the COCOM HQ in one place and the putative 'U.S. Army Forces, Africa', its air component, and 'U.S. Naval Forces, Africa' in one to four separate locations. AFRICOM will not have the traditional J-type staff divisions, instead having outreach, plans and programs, knowledge development, operations and logistics, and resources branches. AFRICOM went back to a traditional J-Staff in early 2011 after GEN Ham took command.