Resident Fellow Mauro De Lorenzo

In October 2008, the United States defence department's Africa Command (Africom) will be established. In Africa, this announcement has caused trepidation and controversy.

Africom is still an enigma. For the US, the creation of Africom is primarily an internal bureaucratic shift, a more efficient and sensible way of organising the US military's relations with Africa. Africa previously fell under three separate combatant commands, making it difficult to harmonise programmes and budgets.

Africa also had to compete for resources and senior-level attention with Europe and the Middle East--and usually lost out. But in Africa, Africom is widely seen as a tool to secure better access to Africa's natural resources, erode China's growing influence on the continent, and establish forward bases to destroy networks linked to al-Qaeda.

Resistance to Africom is fuelled by fears that it signals a militarisation of US policy towards Africa. South Africa has been particularly cool towards the idea.

In reaction to the frosty reception, US defence officials have emphasised the role that Africom will play in humanitarian and development efforts. This rhetorical strategy has actually amplified African concerns about the new structure by creating the false impression that the Pentagon is now in charge of US development policy in Africa.

If it expects co-operation, the US needs to be more frank about what interests it has at stake in Africa. When the US defines a military command in terms of development and humanitarianism, African leaders inevitably suspect that the "true" story is being kept from them.

If combined with an ingrained ideological aversion to the US inherited from the Cold War shared by some African leaders and intellectuals, this mistrust could result in the failure of the US's attempt to deepen its security ties with the continent.

Yet some African leaders--notably Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf--have expressed a cautious optimism that Washington is finally taking the relationship between African security and development seriously.

"Africom is undeniably about the projection of American interests," she wrote last month, "but this does not mean that it is to the exclusion of African ones."

Washington hopes that all African leaders will come to share this perspective. But convincing them that Africom is also in their interest will not be easy.

The key to winning over pessimists lies in demonstrating how well the US understands and responds to the security priorities of Africans. It needs to direct the attention and resources of Africom robustly at the African security dilemma.

Africa's security dilemma is building professional security forces that keep individuals and business safe, while keeping those forces under democratic, civilian control.

In too much of Africa, the state is a predator rather than a facilitator, and the military is the most extreme example of rapacious behaviour. While the political will for reform can ultimately only come from within, external assistance can be of enormous benefit if it is aimed at the right people and programmes.

This is where Africom should direct its attention and resources. If it does so, it will over time be easier to achieve real co-operation on other areas of mutual concern, such as terrorism, narcotics and energy security.

Much current debate has focused on where Africom will be based. In current thinking, the interim headquarters will be in Stuttgart, Germany, and small bases will be created in North (possibly Tunisia), West (either Ghana, Liberia or Senegal), East (likely around the current US taskforce in Djibouti), and southern Africa (perhaps Botswana) with a further chapter in Addis Ababa. But Africom's location is less important than what it does.

How can the US articulate the focus of Africom so that it addresses African interests as fully as it does US interests?

We propose four priorities.

First, educational opportunities for African officers should be expanded, and the training should focus on civil-military relations, strategic planning, doctrine development and logistics.

Second, the equipment offered to African militaries should prioritise the logistical hardware required to support disaster relief and peacekeeping missions.

Third, Africom should help increase the peacekeeping capabilities of African militaries, a number of which, such as Rwanda, Nigeria and Ghana, are already playing leading roles in peacekeeping forces on the continent.

Fourth, don't neglect the local security forces that have the greatest capacity to disrupt or protect African lives: the police and border protection forces.

US engagement in Africa is adjusting to new security and economic environments. Africom is thus a work in progress, where greater joint African and US cooperation could decisively shape the continent's future--for better or for worse, depending on how the relationship is managed.

Africom can serve the interests of both partners only if it is a genuinely transformational institution that does what is most needed by Africa: helping to build security institutions that support democratic statehood.

Mauro De Lorenzo is a resident fellow at AEI. Greg Mills is the director of the Brenthurst Foundation. Terence McNamee is a director at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.