ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the United States (US) Africa Command (AFRICOM)’s “humanitarian” ambitions in relation to the Ebola epidemic of 2013–2016. It examines AFRICOM’s Ebola response in relation to two key critical concepts: “disaster militarism” and the “security–development nexus” When it comes to security not all diseases are equal. HIV/AIDS is less communicable, less virulent and more treatable than Ebola. Both popular and technical discursive constructions of Ebola typically frame the disease as endemic to the African context. The US response to Ebola primarily reflects the shifting geographies of security. Contemporary constructions of security on the African continent build upon historical precedents for international and military interventions. The Ebola epidemic provided Northern actors such as the World Health Organization and the US government with an opportunity to reinforce colonial Africanist visions of the continent as diseased and culturally backward, alongside newer liberal–technocratic understandings of disease as security problem.
