Special Operations Forces Requirements for Africa Command

<p>Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority of this Administration. It is a place of promise and opportunity linked to the United States by history culture commerce and strategic significance. In order assist the U.S. in meeting these growing promises and opportunities President Bush directed the establishment of the United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) on February 6 2007 with the intent that it would be fully operational by the end of fiscal year 2008. Under this new command a sub-unified command Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA) will emerge with geographic responsibility for Special Operations Forces (SOF) and SOF missions in the USAFRICOM Area of Responsibility (AOR). Furthermore under the umbrella of its global responsibility for planning synchronizing and executing global operations against terrorist networks United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) will also conduct operations in this AOR. At issue is the best way for SOF from both SOCAFRICA and USSOCOM to be employed across Africa. Based upon a research method of literature search of current sources particularly of open source news articles press releases reports policy directives and doctrine this paper is presented to provide key requirements and recommendations for SOF in Africa.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>