The members of the ‘Troika’ – Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have commended the South Sudanese people for their resilience in the quest to move the country forward.

South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, marked 10 years of its independence today, without an official celebration.

Just two years later after independence, the young nation descended into civil war in December 2013. The oil-rich country has been mired in fighting that killed nearly 400,000 people and a deteriorating humanitarian crisis.

Even after the signing of a revitalized peace deal in September 2018, South Sudan is still facing many challenges like insecurity, endemic corruption, extreme poverty, economic woes and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The three Western governments, which serve as witnesses of the South Sudan peace agreement, commended the commitment many have shown in working together to build a brighter future, stressing that it is deeply saddening that the promise of peace and prosperity that independence represented remains unfulfilled.

“The first ten years of this young country’s history have seen much suffering, due to conflict-related abuses, famine, flooding, and disease.  Yet through it all, the South Sudanese people have shown resilience,” the three countries said a joint statement on Thursday.

The Troika urges immediate action to ensure access for humanitarian aid and to end violence against South Sudanese and the aid workers who serve them.

The three countries pointed out that the great challenge now facing South Sudan is to recapture the sense of unity, strength, and hope that prevailed on the independence day 10 years ago.

“With reconciliation through compromise and accelerated implementation of the peace agreement, South Sudan can become a peaceful, democratic country, where human rights and the rule of law are respected – a country where all people have food on their table, where businesses prosper, and where the Government truly serves its people,” the Troika said.

The Troika said it remains eager to work in close partnership with the transitional government to implement fully the revitalized peace agreement.  

“We are committed to standing with the South Sudanese people as they work toward their aspirations of peace and prosperity.  We urge the political leadership of South Sudan to take the actions needed to build the country the jubilant crowds of 2011 dreamed was possible,” it concluded.

The United States is committed to supporting the Government of Mozambique to counter the rise in terrorism and violent extremism that has been afflicting Cabo Delgado province, according to Ambassador Andrew Young, Deputy Commander for Civil-Military Engagement, US Africa Command.

Speaking during a telephonic press briefing on 22 June, Young said the US strategy towards supporting Mozambique includes socioeconomic development, community resistance programmes, and security assistance.

“Our strategy is also one that is holistic to promote efforts to respond to this rise in terrorism by, with, and through the partners,” he said. “We try to work with the host nation to develop an appropriate response. We try to work with regional partners, and I appreciate that the Southern African Development Community is looking at questions of insecurity and instability in Mozambique. We try to work with international partners, and I know that our international partner Portugal has sent in some assistance to help develop a national response to the insecurity in Mozambique.”

Lieutenant General Kirk Smith, Deputy Commander, US Africa Command, added that the United States is continuing to monitor the situation in Mozambique. “We did just complete with a press release from the embassy in Mozambique a training exercise there with some Special Operations forces working with Mozambiquan marines to kind of get a sense of how we can potentially understand the situation better.”

Young said that the prosperity on the African continent is a US national security objective. “We need to best understand and address root causes that contribute to the insecurity on the African continent and advance governance issues as well so that we help create the conditions for long-term stability on the continent.

“As we engage on African partnership and strategy, we do so with the diplomatic – through the diplomatic lens, we do so through the defence lens, and we also do so through the developmental lens. So our command includes a senior USAID representative to ensure that as we develop strategies, as we work with partnerships, we bring all those elements together to address the challenges on the African continent.

“Our motto in Africom and our philosophy is to work by, with, and through our partners, be they our African partners on the continent, our regional partners, and our international partners. In working with these partners, we look – we hope to – we work to advance, as I said, the national security of our partnerships and also the prosperity of the African continent.”

Below is a full rush transcript of the press conference by Special Briefing via Telephone with Lieutenant General Kirk Smith Deputy Commander, U.S. Africa Command And Ambassador Andrew Young Deputy Commander for Civil-Military Engagement U.S. Africa Command.

Ambassador Young:  Hey,  First, I’d just like to acknowledge and offer my deepest condolences to those who have been affected by this COVID-19 pandemic.  Parts of the world are beginning to see some progress over the last few months.  There is still a long, long way to go.  The U.S. is pleased to be a part of the solution by increasing our partnerships with those who are facing this challenge that has affected all of us so much over this past period of time.

And then similarly, I’d like to express our solidarity with the people of Africa taken from us in terrorist attacks on various places on the continent.  They were taken too soon, and I think that’s a big motivator for how this command looks to getting after our security mandate by, with, and through our African partners.

We’re really pleased to be speaking to you today from Brussels.  We’re here following the successful G7, NATO, and EU summits.  Lieutenant General Kirk Smith and I have spent this time engaging with our NATO partners, our European Union partners, and our bilateral partners following engagements that we’ve had recently with other key international partners working with us to advance peace and security on the African continent.

What we’re trying to do today, and we appreciate this opportunity, is to help inform this important dialogue about regional security in some parts of Africa, particularly in West Africa and the Sahel, and also in the east.

We’re moving forward following these summits, following the vision of partnership affirmed by President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Austin as they engaged with their global partners as we look to get after the challenges on the African continent.

What’s our approach?  Clearly, the U.S. AFRICOM is focused on getting after advancing a core element, which is that the prosperity on the African continent is a U.S. national security objective.  And how do we do that?  We work by, with, and through our African and regional and international partners.  

I’m speaking to you as the Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Engagement, and I think that role is very important to highlight.  When we created AFRICOM so many years ago, we were designed in a way that put two deputies to our 4-star commander.  They bring a civilian, myself at this time in this role, to bring the diplomatic element to our engagement with our partners; and I am joined, and I’m so pleased to be conducting this engagement as I have with so many others, with Lieutenant General Kirk Smith, where we try to refocus our efforts and bring the respective skills, talents, and experience of a career military officer and a career diplomat together to work with our partners. 

And as we work together to address these challenges, we are convinced that we need to best understand and address root causes that contribute to the insecurity on the African continent and advance governance issues as well so that we help create the conditions for long-term stability on the continent.  

I look forward to sharing perspectives with you on this in this call.  I have a deep appreciation particularly for the people in the Sahel region and its challenges having spent about seven years or so in Burkina Faso and Mali, but also having worked with uniformed colleagues in recent engagements on the African continent in Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Mozambique, and other key areas where our partnership is showcased.

Let me just hit a couple of quick facts.  United States AFRICOM is one of six of the Department of Defense’s geographic combatant commands, and we have responsibility for engaging with 53 African nations, a continent that has more than 800 ethnic groups, a thousand languages, vast natural resources, and a land mass three and half times the size of the United States, 19,000 miles of coastland.  These facts reinforce the challenges that we face as we try to advance our mission and also give us pause as we seek to accomplish our objectives in light of the vast challenges that we face in doing so.

For me, I wanted to reinforce one other element before turning over the floor to Lieutenant General Smith.  As we engage on African partnership and strategy, we do so with the diplomatic – through the diplomatic lens, we do so through the defense lens, and we also do so through the developmental lens.  So our command includes a senior USAID representative to ensure that as we develop strategies, as we work with partnerships, we bring all those elements together to address the challenges on the African continent.  

Our motto in AFRICOM and our philosophy is to work by, with, and through our partners, be they our African partners on the continent, our regional partners, and our international partners.  In working with these partners, we look – we hope to – we work to advance, as I said, the national security of our partnerships and also the prosperity of the African continent.

Lt Gen Smith:  Thank you very much, Ambassador.  And Justin, thank you for helping facilitate this and for all of our participants that have dialed in or presented questions.  

So I will echo a couple of comments that Ambassador Young made.  And obviously, the first would be that no coincidence that he and I would conduct engagements together, engagements together with partners.  Obviously, we want to present both a defense optic and a diplomacy optic.  And as he mentioned, we also have representatives on the staff from many of the other U.S. interagencies, principally USAID as well, which helps us certainly address and think about and look at development opportunities.  

Also no coincidence that we would be dialing in from Brussels, the city that hosts both NATO and the European Union, as we see them as invaluable partners as we look at this collectively on what we can do, how we can work with partners, where they have efforts, where we have mutual opportunities to address some of these issues with our African partners as well in these places that we see significant concern.  

The Sahel principally, probably something that we are thinking a lot about right now.  We’ve seen the nonstate actors, the violent extremist organizations, the Islamic State or al-Qaida.  Those groups are affiliated with those groups, absolutely have terrible impacts on those areas where we need to ensure that we can address some of the root causes and look towards addressing some of those root causes again with the African partners and many of our European partners and international partners, organizations, affiliates that are doing these same type of efforts in the Sahel region.

There’s a shared interest there, and therefore I think there’s a shared approach that we will continue to work towards building towards.  And the ambassador touched on the recent engagements at the highest levels of governments between us and partners here recently.

Obviously, the pandemic has had a devastating effect on Africa, as it has around the globe.  And we continue to work through the processes we have in the U.S. Government to best provide that aid in the way that works to ensure that all countries are able to be helped by that, and COVAX is our principal method that we are providing vaccines.  

When we talk about the demographics in Africa, we – the ambassador touched on some of those.  We know that in the Sahel right now it’s probably the globe’s fastest growing population of internally displaced people because of much of the violence and instability that’s happening there, and we absolutely want to help address that as we see those as drivers towards recruiting for the violent extremist organizations as they look at that large youth population that may not see that they have any options, and for migration as well, which many of our international partners absolutely want to pay attention to and ensure that they can understand the impacts and the effects of those as well.  

Much of this is probably caused by the lack of governance in some of these locations.  This is not an Africa-specific thing.  We see this in many places throughout the globe and where there is not adequate governance, where the population is not resilient to some of these events that can happen, whether they be manmade or humanitarian.  We know that there’s work to be done there, and that’s how I think working with the UN, with MINUSMA, for example, in the Sahel, with the European Union where they have training missions throughout the continent, bilateral and multilateral engagements, us with some of our African partners, and then obviously some European organizations as well and partners, we look towards addressing those issues.  

We want to make sure that we can help these partners that we’re working with on the continent get at some of the underlying causes, the long-term issues that we can help them resolve with respect to governance and allow stability to grow, because we know with stability we will see some economic improvement, we will see educational opportunities, and I think many absolutely recognize the invaluable trading partners that exist on the continent, the resources that exist on the continent.  We just need to ensure that we are able to make sure that those governments there, those nation-states on the continent, are able to control that and manage that that best helps them reach their potential and what they desire to provide in terms of governance.

Question:  When President Biden spoke to the nation April 16th calling for the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan, he said that terrorist groups are dispersed globally.  He mentioned Africa.  I think he might’ve even mentioned specifically the Sahel.  I was wondering if AFRICOM is asking for more resources while DOD goes through its force posture review, resources in terms of manpower, in terms of lift, aircraft, that type of thing, to help partner nations.  You did mention that you’re speaking to one of those partner nations now.  

And also, often when I write about this issue, this static sort of threat idea, I wondered if you could give us a picture of the recent trend line and also touch on the impact of the transition that’s happening in Chad and Mali.  I know that’s a big, multipart question, but I hope you can address it ?

Lt Gen Smith:  Thanks, So I’ll start with as directed by the administration, the Office of Secretary of Defense.  

So Secretary Austin in particular is conducting the global posture review, as you called it.  We obviously participate in that as one of the combatant commands that has a geographic responsibility, as the ambassador previously mentioned.  We are working, obviously, through the Joint Staff and to the Office of Secretary of Defense policy folks to provide our thoughts and our recommendations.  

Obviously, I cannot get ahead of our civilian leadership and OSD policy in terms of the decisions that’ll be made, but we feel confident we have provided our assessment of what is required to address exactly those things that the ambassador mentioned, that I mentioned, and as the President also talked about, where we see terrorism globally distributed, right?  It’s not just in one area.  It’s around the globe.  I think we recognize the threat that emanates from Africa and the potential that that can turn into and therefore why it’s important to us.  Again, like I said, I won’t get ahead of our civilian leadership in terms of those policy decisions, but we are in a process with OSD and the Joint Staff on how we make those inputs, and then we’ll prioritize and we’ll see how we work through the results of that.  

The second parts of kind of how do we see the threat right now, what are we concerned about, we absolutely recognize in the Sahel itself where those challenges are.  And you don’t have to look far to obviously kind of see the impacts in Chad, as we talked about, as there was some activity there recently.  In open source reporting you see some of the things that have happened in Burkina Faso.  We recognize that.  That is kind of why we are partnered where we are with who we are right now, principally those G5 countries, the G5 Sahel, and with the French and other organizations that are in that region.

Our concern is that potentially we see that continue to spread, and I think General Townsend actually mentioned this in some closing remarks he made at African Lion this past week, which was an Exercise Africa Command conducted in this case in Morocco, but it had clearly partners from Europe and from the continent, from Africa, as well.  And he talked about the wildfire, I think, of terrorism that we see.

And as you would expect, you want to fight fire by both fighting the current fire and then a prevention process or thought process as well, where you can harden locations and – not to be too coy or too cute, but where you can put in a smoke detector and a fire extinguisher and those types of things in prevention.  That’s what you want to expend some effort on, rather than fighting the fire once it gets to that location.

Question:  I was wondering if you had any update about the Russian paramilitary presence in Libya.  AFRICOM has put out information about this in the past.  And I was specifically wondering if the Russian paramilitaries known as the Wagner Group have brought in additional hardware or personnel, and specifically if they’ve brought in any additional people from Syria ?

Lt Gen Smith:  Yeah, so obviously you’re familiar with previous releases and statements that AFRICOM has made.  What I’ll say is we continue to monitor the foreign forces that are in Libya.  I think I could let the ambassador speak here in just a moment on what we think from a political perspective, from a diplomacy perspective, what we think the right way ahead is in terms of the future of Libya, and obviously recognizing that I think tomorrow the Berlin conference starts on – and obviously hosted by the Germans with a international forum to talk about the future of Libya that includes the Libyans as well obviously in that discussion.

But the short answer to your question is we continue to monitor it.  We continue to pay attention with the capabilities that are there of all of the forces that are potentially attempting to influence the future outcome of Libya.

Ambassador Young:  I would just add that we have to look back a little bit of time and say look how far we’ve come.  It’s been a difficult road to get to this point, but there’s been a lot of engagement through the UN process, particularly led by some very adept diplomats to help us support the Libyan people as they strive to restore a better path for themselves.

We support the process.  We think that all the foreign forces ought to be out of Libya, and that’s one of the things we’re trying to push forward to.  But I think it’s important to reinforce that we’ve come a long way, we’ve got a long way to go, and we look forward to supporting this process as we go through this Berlin engagement as well as the steps towards the elections on December 24th. 

Question:  Please assess the challenges of maintaining the combat effectiveness of Somali security forces when limited to virtual training and periodic engagement since the U.S. withdrew military advisors from Somalia in January ?

Lt Gen Smith:  Yeah, I’ll take that.  In fact, I kind of see in my notes here that there are several media outlets that have similar questions.

So we continue to maintain our presence there, and this was reiterated multiple times that the mission didn’t change when we went through the process of repositioning.  Has it made the way we effect that mission or the way we conduct that mission different?  The obvious answer is yes, but I will get to here in just a second what I think maybe is something that we have learned in the process of doing this.

So obviously, we continue to conduct – I think we’re on our fifth right now – periodic engagement, we call them, where we will go back in from where our forces are currently located outside of Somalia, and I won’t go into any details in terms of where that is or where they will go.  Obviously, we conduct those episodically but also not on a routine basis, and we look to partner with our historic partners, the Danab special battalions that we have been working with.  

And what we have discovered, obviously, is we leave and come back; the Danab has continued to maintain their training, they’ve continued to maintain their equipment, they’ve continued to maintain their allegiance to Somalia.  And we take great satisfaction, I think, in understanding and seeing that even with some of the recent upheaval, delay in elections, and other issues that have happened within the politics and the policies of Somalia, the partners that we have been working with have stayed apolitical – to use that term – and continue to work on disrupting al-Shabaab, preventing al-Shabaab from gaining any ground, preventing al-Shabaab from being able to have any further or continued disruption, which allows the political process to work.

So does it make it a little bit more challenging?  In some cases it does, but we have also learned a lot as we have stepped through this process, and we will see where policy decisions go in the future. 

Question:  I do understand your focus on North Africa, the Sahel, and some of these other regions, but I am also keen to get better clarification – you talked about how some of the fragile states may have governance issues.  These are things we know.  But, for example, we know that Mozambique has one of the longest coastlines, and I understand that Africa-21 was more a land exercise, right?  But we’ve got Mozambique with more than 2,000 kilometers of coastline space; we’ve got South Africa, for example, is the third-largest coastline in Africa, more than 2,798 kilometers long; and these are emerging – they’re emerging threats in that region. ?

And we’ve known from the past with, for example, the U.S. takes its eye off the ball on emerging issues.  I just want to understand what is next after Africa Lion 21?  What else might you be doing so that you’re not taking off – your eye off the ball on emerging threats that you say might be national security threats to the United States.  And where there might be local beneficiaries to the local population, where does the man in the street visibly have and understand this is what benefitted us from this relationship?

Ambassador Young:  First, let’s get to the element about Mozambique.  The United States is committed to supporting the Government of Mozambique to counter the rise in terrorism and violent extremism that has been so horrifically put into our vision with the attacks in Cabo Delgado, and our strategy includes socioeconomic development, community resistance programs, and security assistance.

Our strategy is also one that is holistic to promote efforts to respond to this rise in terrorism by, with, and through the partners – that theme that I shared with you in the past.  And then who are those partners that have the primary responsibility to develop and address those challenges?  We try to work with the host nation to develop an appropriate response.  We try to work with regional partners, and I appreciate that SADC is looking at questions of insecurity and instability in Mozambique.  We try to work with international partners, and I know that our international partner Portugal has sent in some assistance to help develop a national response to the insecurity in Mozambique.  So that’s the kind of the approach in which we look at these emerging threat challenges to work by, with, and through our partners to enable national responses in a way that really builds on partnership.  And that’s how we look at these questions.

And then broadly speaking, the question about our engagement.  We have a very broad range of engagement exercises.  We just talked about African Lion, for example, the preeminent largest exercise in Morocco.  We have another series of exercises that are focused on land forces and special operators called Flintlock, but we also do maritime engagements through our express series of training and partnership opportunities with those forces on the African continent, those partners with whom we can work to address issues of common security.  So that’s how we work at these issues, and we look to drive the knowledge base and work in partnerships and develop strategies in ways that build our respective expertise and competence.  

Lt Gen Smith:  Lieutenant General Smith.  the ambassador touched on some of the maritime exercises.  So our naval component, Naval Forces Africa, has just recently completed a couple of exercises, maritime exercises.  Those are obviously focused on helping the partners that we’re working with understand their maritime domain security, how do they have security, understanding of what’s happening in their territorial waters.  We would like those to be law enforcement type things, obviously, where we can rely on – those nations rely on some type of a coast guard or a police force or a customs force that’s monitoring smuggling, illegal fishing, all of those types of things that we see that these nations need to be concerned about and should be concerned about and understand how to manage that themselves with our help as we work through those processes.

I will also say that we just recently – and I say recently; it’s been within probably the past three months.  One of the naval vessels that is assigned to U.S. Africa Command, the Hershel “Woody” Williams, circumnavigated the African continent.  So it started in Souda Bay, Greece, went down the – what would be the eastern coast by way of the Suez Canal, all the way around, did port calls along the way.  And I think that gets to your question of where does the man on the street see that.  We hope we see it in engagements we do in things like port calls where we go, we visit.  You see a little bit of what the U.S. can provide in terms of assistance, but really more importantly working with the African partners to help them work on maintaining security of their maritime territory, if you will, as you talk about coastlines.  And then the Hershel “Woody” Williams continued up the west coast back into the Mediterranean.  So those are the type of things that we want to continue to do.  General Townsend, our commander, is very interested.  Our naval component is very interested in doing those things.  

And with respect to Mozambique, probably nothing really to add from the ambassador’s comments other than we are continuing to monitor it.  We did just complete with a press release from the embassy in Mozambique a training exercise there with some Special Operations forces working with Mozambiquan marines to kind of get a sense of how we can potentially understand the situation better.  

Question:  This question is for Lieutenant General Smith.  How have the limits on counterterrorism missions imposed by the Biden administration affected AFRICOM operations this year?

Lt Gen Smith:  if it’s kind of similar to I think the question that Eric submitted in terms of where we are located, obviously there’s – we have to get ourselves to and from where we’re doing our periodic engagements, and we have worked through that.  It has actually given us the opportunity to learn a little bit about how successful we have been at training our partners in terms of what they can maintain themselves when we come back and forth.  And again, Somalia is a good example of that.  

In terms of other authorities, typically we’ll not get out in front of a matter of policy, won’t talk about those type of discussions and authorities.  But you can be sure that we do have the full array of authorities and range of tools available to us to assist our partners and obviously to make sure that we maintain force protection for U.S. forces and our international partners that are working with us.  

Moderator:  France’s President Emmanuel Macron has invited the U.S. to take part in an international counterterrorism force battling militants in the Sahel.  What role could the U.S. play in such a force?  Who can fill the space in the Sahel military as France is set to end Barkhane in the coming months?

Lt Gen Smith:  Yeah, thank you very much.  So we very much appreciate France’s leadership in the Sahel.  They have had a significant number of forces there for a period of time trying to address exactly those issues that both the ambassador and I started off with, kind of the underlying causes – helping, working by, with, and through our African partners in that region.

So we already participate with the French.  We provide support to them in terms of logistics, in terms of information sharing, in terms of air refueling for aircraft, and we have forces and then liaison officers kind of on the military and on the civilian side that maintain very regular contact with our French counterparts.  So we will wait, obviously, as France has made some internal decisions, and we’ll see how that plays out over time and what that means for our military continued involvement.  I absolutely expect that we will continue to stay involved with France.  They are great partners and have been leading for a very long time in the Sahel region.

Ambassador Young:  Lieutenant General Smith.  I think you covered all the issues that are important.  One way or another we will continue to work with our African, French, and regional and international partners to address these issues of common concern.  

To AFRICOM, to our partners, AFRICOM is a continent of opportunities.  African prosperity is in the U.S. national security interest.  AFRICOM is committed to advancing this prosperity working by, with, and through our partners in ways that reinforce that shared objectives.

The United States is working continuously toward helping with security and prosperity across Africa through military trainings and Exercises by the United States Africa Command, Major General Andrew M.Rohling, Deputy Commanding General of U.S.Army Europe and Africa, said on Thursday.

Below is a full rush transcript of the press conference by Special Briefing via Telephone with Major General Andrew M. Rohling Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Army Europe and Africa.

Major General Rohling:  Good afternoon, everyone. I am going to talk just for a few quick minutes about the African Land Forces Summit, the ninth iteration of that exercise that we concluded yesterday, and then I would be, in fact, glad to take most of your questions.

So with the establishment of the United States Army Africa, USARAF, in 2008, the U.S. military leaders, we quickly realized and recognized the importance of establishing relationships with the chiefs of the land forces from our partner nations in Africa.  The United States Army Africa realized the best way to achieve that goal was to conduct a summit for African partners and their chiefs of their land forces.  So the inaugural African Land Forces Summit, or ALFS, A-L-F-S, was held in Washington, D.C., in 2010.  The theme then was building and maintaining strong relationships and was attended by 23 of the land forces of the African continent.  

Since then, the African Land Forces Summit has been held in Uganda, Senegal, Tanzania, Malawi, Nigeria, Botswana, Ethiopia last year – in fact, it was the last major event we did last year, in February of 2020, before the pandemic struck.  Shortly after that ALFS, the COVID pandemic has then, of course, changed the way we do business throughout the world, including Europe and Africa, as you well know.  Though the pandemic caused challenges, we continue to support our partners.  In coordination with African militaries, we made appropriate adjustments to our exercises and activities for the safety of all our forces to ensure our commitments to our partners endured during the pandemic.

Despite the challenges, we were determined to bring African land forces together once again for ALFS.  So, yesterday, the African Land Forces Summit – our ninth – was an example of our commitment to strengthening relationships with our African counterparts.  We conducted ALFS virtually with land force commanders from over 40 countries.  This year, the summit’s theme was “Maintaining Security in a Degraded Environment.”  We discussed military pandemic responses, the effects of the pandemic on operations, and its effects on training and exercises.  Though we were not able to meet in person this year, I look forward to next year when I’m  hoping and confident we surely will.

We look forward to training with our counterparts through exercises and security cooperation activities in the near future.  In fact, in June the United States Army Southern European Task Force Africa, the unit which I command, will work alongside our partners in North Africa during exercise African Lion 21, an exercise we had to cancel last year, to be held in Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.  This will increase our interoperability with our counterparts and strengthen relationships.  

Question: In the last few years, you have invited participants of 40 countries to ALFS.  Have those kinds of numbers remained consistent in the 2018 to 2021 period, or the last three years?

Major General Rohling:  The short answer is yes, they’ve remained consistent and, in fact, they’ve been increasing.  So last year – or this year, again, well over 40, and all of them, quite frankly, as we went throughout the day, had the opportunity to speak.  So every single country that logged in yesterday was able to talk and presented really interesting information that was helpful for all of the different regional partners of Africa.

Question: It is noticed that many of the deadly jihadist attacks in sub-Saharan Africa, notably Mali, Chad, and Niger, come from the ground.  How can the U.S. and Europe help vulnerable countries from the Horn of Africa build resilience that can counter such deadly terrorist attacks?So maybe you can talk here about how trainings like ALFS, like African Lion can help countries like the journalist mentioned become more resilient toward these terrorist attacks.

Major General Rohling:  The United States Army is engaged across Africa in helping ground forces become better in capability and capacity.  An example of that – I’ll give you two.  First is that what begins next month in African Lion 21, where we have multiple partner nations – in fact, a contingent from Senegal itself participating – and we will conduct a series of ground exercises with – mainly centered in Morocco, but involving Tunisian forces, Senegalese forces, British forces, American forces, and multiple others to work on interoperability, to work on tactics, techniques, and procedures, and to build a coalition of forces that are interoperable on the ground.

And the second thing I would highlight is the introduction of security force assistance teams, or from the Security Force Assistance Brigade, SFAB as an acronym.  Those elements are now operating on the continent.  They are a game-changer which provides persistent presence of United States Army forces paired with ground forces across – and again, in Senegal specifically there’s a security force assistance team that is working with the Senegalese army to improve interoperability, training, and capability, all of which will help African countries defeat the violent extremist threat that is both in the West and in the East.

Question: We know that last year, around October, the merger happened between U.S. Army Europe and Africa.  How has the merger helped to facilitate training on the continent?

Major General Rohling:  We did indeed merge.  So with – a little quick history.  Up until October of last year there was the United States Army in Europe and the United States Army in Africa, two separate commands – the United States Army in Europe in Wiesbaden, Germany; the United States Army Africa located here in Vicenza, Italy.  And in between was an artificial seam between the two United States combatant commands, and that artificial seam ran between the continent of Europe and the continent of Africa.  As we combined the two headquarters on the Army side, where now it’s the United States Army Europe and Africa, with the headquarters in Wiesbaden, we no longer have a seam that – a division, if you will, between the two – between any headquarters.  So what happens in Europe and what happens in Africa, as it is in real life, is interconnected.

So the opportunities that exist now that we are combined is to make sure that our exercises, our forces, and our readiness drivers are – take into effect and take into account what happens both on the European and on the African continent, and we can synergize those activities into a more realistic and more credible training opportunity.  And African Land Forces Summit – or African Lion 21, another great example is we’re using the same enemy scenario that is being exercised in the European exercise DEFENDER 21, which is ongoing now, that will then carry into the scenario we’re using for African Lion 21.  

So, again, just one small example of how the merger has helped us make training more realistic and more opportunities for both sides of the Mediterranean.  

Question: Regarding what U.S. Army Africa and Europe is doing in respect to the security challenges across the continent, can you speak to that about what SETAF specifically is doing regarding many of the security challenges across the continent?

Major General Rohling:  Sure, So tied to your previous question on the merger, SETAF, formerly this headquarters, as you know, was the United States Army Europe – or United States Army Africa; now it’s the United States SETAF, Southern European Task Force Africa – wakes up every morning, as we did before, thinking about maintaining security, prosperity, and stability on the African continent.  

So this headquarters participates in numerous ways to enhance that.  First, as I already discussed, we have introduced security force assistance teams to several countries across the continent that are providing persistent presence with our key partner nations on the continent, and they are training with those armies to help improve their capabilities and capacity.  Second, we’re conducting exercises across Africa, African Lion being but one; we’re conducting multiple medical readiness exercises, we’re conducting IED training, and several other forms of training across the continent to help increase the capacity and capability of many of our partners as well.

And lastly, in exercises or events like yesterday’s African Land Forces Summit, this headquarters brings together the commanders of the land forces across the continent to discuss the tactics, techniques, procedures, lessons learned and opportunities for interoperability amongst the African partners to increase the stability across the continent.  

Question: In Ghana, are you able to share what you define as emerging threats and border security and to promote regional stability in Africa, in West Africa, on your website?  How do you define that?

Major General Rohling:  Sure.  Well, thank you, Ms. Matibe, Pearl.  Thank you again for another question.  So, yes, Ghana – I mean, all you have to do is look at where Ghana sits in the geography to recognize that the northern side of Ghana is in an area where the threats from the Sahel continue to push down and eventually will become if – and can threaten Ghana in several different ways.  And so as we look at that threat, how do we help Ghana prepare itself for violent – the expansion of violent extremist organizations if they were to come into Ghana, and to help make sure that Ghana’s army is capable of dealing with those threats when they arrive?

So that’s really what our efforts in Ghana are.  Our security force assistance team, which will be arriving there soon, will focus on ensuring that Ghana army is capable of dealing with all that when it arrives. 

Question:  The challenges are growing on the African continent, especially in terms of security.  We are talking about a degraded environment.  What very specific measures are planned by the U.S. armed forces to counter this?

Major General Rohling:  Well, thank you, we are, in fact, doing many specific activities, some of which I’ve already mentioned in the past.  So I will again remind you that we’ve done African Land Forces Summit yesterday to help bring together all the commanders of all the 54 countries of Africa to work lessons learned and opportunities.  We’re conducting African Lion 21 beginning on the 7th of June in Morocco, which involves multiple countries across the continent to help interoperability and capacity and capabilities and work partnerships.  We’ve conducted several exercises in the – in terms of medical readiness, IED training.  Outside the Army, the Special Operations Forces are paired with many forces across the country conducting operations.  We have introduced security force assistance teams across the continent that will help increase the training and capability and institutional capacity of our partners.

So these are some of the specific things that we are doing to help increase the security across the continent.  

Question: Now, you’ve stated because of the global pandemic, the U.S. military and many other agencies have had to revert to virtual training.  What is the U.S. military able to do via virtual training and what kind of outcomes do you expect with this change to a virtual style training?  And the other caveat to that is about the partner countries?  How does the U.S. military work with the host country to develop these virtual trainings?

Major General Rohling:  Well, I’ll tie you a little bit to our conversation we had yesterday at the African Land Forces Summit.  And as we were talking with our partner nations about if anybody can help identify anything good that came of the pandemic, and in fact the one – one of the things that came out as a good lesson that we learned of the pandemic is how to conduct virtual activities.  Virtual training is one, virtual engagements for sure, and virtual collaboration being another.  

Your question in regards to virtual training is really a good one.  We have, the United States Army writ large, both in Africa and across the globe, has helped expand our virtual training capabilities at the command post level and a collaborative level to a point where we were not before.  In many cases our previous training for headquarters looked a lot like bringing two or three hundred people under one tent and working an exercise by being physically side by side.  And what we’ve been able to do over the course of the pandemic is decentralize that activity to a point where what used to be side-by-side mission planning is now being done on collaborative tools such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and in fact, and like we are doing today, where we’re having a press conference in a virtual manner, it’s the same variety of ways that we’ve been able to turn training into the same. 

Make no mistake.  There’s still, for Army forces, a requirement to be physically on the ground and shoot real bullets at targets and do other training.  And we’ve been able to do that as well by taking specific measures to safeguard the troops and the countries we’re training with.  But virtual training has definitely increased through the use of collaborative tools, and I think it’s here to stay. 

Question: A couple of days ago, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, held a digital press conference with us.  And she talked about peace and security in Africa.  And obviously, Tigray, Mozambique, the Sahel, and Sudan were some of the countries that came up during that briefing.  Will there be similar exercises or trainings near or around conflict areas? 

Major General Rohling:  That’s a tough question that borders a little on policy.  And while I cannot necessarily comment on policy specifically, I will say that we are not, in any – in the near term, planning any training events in Ethiopia, in other countries that are having human rights violations, and others, and we’ll take our guidance from the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army and AFRICOM on exactly where we’ll train on the continent.  But in the main, I would say that the United States Army’s training events will be in areas that are agreed upon by the correct policy officials in the United States.  

Question:  On SETAF and your growing relationship with Kenya, can you speak a little bit about some of the work that you’re doing there?  And are you doing anything similar in engagements with South Africa’s militaries?  

Major General Rohling:  Thank you for your previous questions and this one.  So Kenya is a strong partner of the United States, and in fact, I personally was just in Kenya a few short months ago and visited their infantry school and their officers school and other areas.  And as you know, they host a fair number of our troops in Manda Bay and other areas in the global fight on the violent extremist organizations, specifically in that region against al-Shabaab.

So the United States and Kenya is increasing its – the United States Army, which I can only speak about, and Kenya are increasing its training opportunities.  We are sending a security force assistance team there; in fact, the advanced elements of that element was just there doing a recon and setting the conditions.  And we will partner with Kenya to do institutional-level training at their infantry school and some other areas.  So real forces on the ground doing training with Kenya as partners in the near future, and I think that’ll be important. 

We’re conducting exercise Justified Accord 21, JA 21.  That’ll happen in July and August of this year, which is a command post exercise, which kind of ties us back to a little of the virtual training we spoke of earlier.  That exercise will happen this summer in Kenya.  And then a large, real full-sized exercise next year in ‘22, also in Kenya, Justified Accord 22, another large-scale command post exercise that happens there. 

With South Africa, I think we are looking for ways to partner with South Africa.  In fact, we’re working to try to get some mil-to-mil visits and others there, and we will work with our Department of State counterparts and the South African military to see what opportunities exist into the future. 

Question:  How exactly does U.S. Army Africa and Europe work with AFRICOM on training and exercises on the continent? 

Major General Rohling:  Thank you for your question.  we work with AFRICOM’s exercise section, J7 exercises if you want to talk staff sections.  But they have an exercise directorate.  We work hand in hand with that exercise directorate.  In perfect times, we combine our exercises with the exercises that the United States Air Force Africa, the United States Navy Africa, all want to conduct, and we can make an exercise that is multi-component and multi-country to really maximize the training values for all involved. 

African Lion 21 is a great example of that, where there is a Navy component, there is an Air Force component, there is a Marine component, there’s a Special Operations component, all part of African Lion 21, of which my headquarters, which is an Army headquarters, will overall provide command and control, but really tied with AFRICOM to make that exercise beneficial for all partners, not just U.S. military partners but our African partners across the continent. 

Question: How does the U.S. military or SETAF define success before, during, and after the summit or after the training?

Major General Rohling:  Well, great.  So the first thing we do when we – before we plan an exercise or, as of yesterday, the African Land Forces Summit, is lay out what the terminal objectives are.  What exactly do we want to get out of it?  And we try to keep those objectives down to a handful of really key, achievable, and that are quantitative, end state.  So nothing that “I feel like I got trained,” but “I trained 10 people,” so real events. 

And then we judge ourselves over the course of the exercise to see if we accomplished those objectives and then conduct an after-action review when it’s complete to see which ones we completed and which ones we didn’t, and then provide that as a very objective view of whether or not that exercise was completed as we desired, and then how will we get to those objectives that we did not actually accomplish in either following-year exercises or subsequent exercises over the course of time.  So in this case, we have one or two more engagements today to kind of finish off African Land Force Summit 21, and then this evening my team and I will sit down and say, did we accomplish everything that we had hoped to accomplish?  Take an objective look at it, and then adjust activities to make sure that we can meet those into the future. 

Question: Well, that’s all the time that we have for today.  Major General Rohling, do you have any final words, final remarks? 

Major General Rohling:  Well, Thank you for hosting this today, and thanks for those who attended.  It’s always beneficial for us here in the United States Army Africa and SETAF to be able to share with you things that we are doing across the continent, and to hear from you any of your concerns.  So for me, these media hub events are very important to make sure that I can discuss with you one on one, or in this case, in a group, of exactly what we’re doing here. 

And so I think that the United States Army and its components – or and its partners across Africa are doing numerous things to help security and prosperity across Africa.  I hope I was able to highlight some of those for you today and answer any questions you have.  Clearly, a safe, secure, and prosperous Africa is good for the globe.  We’re committed to that.  And I look forward to working with each and every one of you to that end in the future.