ABSTRACT

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.

chapter 2|19 pages

Expanding the US Africa Command

Reintegrating Africa within the US’s system of accumulation

chapter 3|12 pages

Multilateral diplomacy in the formation of the US Africa Command

Reflections on US Africa policy and engagement from Bush through Obama, 2000–2016

chapter 5|21 pages

AFRICOM’s military base in Djibouti

A history of its advancement

chapter 6|19 pages

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in the expansion of AFRICOM

Africa in America’s “Panopticon”

chapter 7|18 pages

Security, circulation and biopolitics

US Africa Command’s response to Ebola

chapter 8|21 pages

The economic and business side of US AFRICOM on the continent

Agreements, land lease, aid, corporations and base expansion in Djibouti

chapter 9|10 pages

The US Africa Command and (under)development in Africa

An appraisal of US securitization of development in Africa

chapter 10|11 pages

Agenda-setting or reinforcement?

The African media’s reporting and its impact on AFRICOM’s soft power

chapter 11|4 pages

Conclusion

Imprinting infrastructural and affective labour in Africa