US Army-Libya Army try to advance relations

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="462" caption="TRIPOLI, Libya - Major General William B. Garrett, commanding general, U.S. Army Africa (front row, center), meets with key Libyan military leaders during a trip to Libya to discuss the emerging relationship between U.S. Army and Libyan land forces in early May 2010"][/caption]

The US and Libyan armed forces of both countries are trying to establish new military ties after years of being enemies.

The U.S. Army Africa commanding general made a historic trip to Libya to discuss the emerging relationship between the U.S. Army and Libya's land forces in early May 2010.

Major General William B. Garrett III visited Tripoli, where he held talks with key Libyan military leaders. The visit indicates the U.S. Army's commitment toward building a cooperative relationship with Libya's land forces and increasing regional security.

Garrett's visit was coordinated through the U.S. Embassy Tripoli, and U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz greeted Garrett at Mitiga International Airport.

"We are gradually opening a dialog that has not existed between our land forces in a long time," Garrett said. "Times have changed and relationships must change too."

The general's first stop was the headquarters of the North African Regional Capability (NARC) to meet Major General Ahmid Auwn, Libya's chief of staff for Army Mechanized Units and Executive Director of the NARC. The NARC is part of the African Standby Force, which consists of five regional brigade-size commands that can support the African Union during times of crisis. Libyan willingness to open a dialogue with the U.S. Army is in an important part of increasing regional cooperation.

"We will look to the NARC leadership to work together on future events that are mutually beneficial," Garrett said.

The general also toured the Libyan Bureau of Technical Cooperation and National Committees and the Libyan Military Staff College, where he met with the director, Major General Ahmid Mahmud Azwai. These visits emphasized the importance of material standardization, training and education in developing future leaders.

Garrett's visit follows a military cooperation committee meeting held in Tripoli in late-February, where delegations of Libyan and U.S. military officers discussed areas of common interest and planned future partnership events, said Major Philip Archer, U.S. Army Africa's North African Regional Desk Officer. "Proposed events include inviting Libyan officers to visit Army schools in the United States, holding discussion on border security, conducting medical exchanges and sharing helicopter procedures," Archer said.

One of U.S. Army Africa's goals is to help Libya and other members of the NARC build the brigade into a capable force that is interoperable with other regional standby forces and can be used for peace support operations.

"U.S. Army Africa's discussions in Tripoli are a positive step toward working together with Libya's military," Garrett said. "We now have a better understanding of each other's goals and can work together to achieve increased security, stability and peace in North Africa."

Garrett concluded his trip to Libya with a wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of fallen American sailors, who perished when their ship exploded in Tripoli harbor in 1804.

This is a continuation of Africa's new importance to the US. The US lifted the embargo that was in place while Libya was developing its Nuclear program uptill 2004.

Sept. 20, 2004 - President Bush revoked the United States trade embargo on Libya on Monday and took other steps aimed at eventually establishing normal relations with the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in return for its keeping a promise to give up nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.....

Among the steps taken by Mr. Bush were the removal of economic restrictions on aviation services, permitting direct flights between the United States and Libya; unfreezing $1.3 billion in assets; and providing what Mr. McClellan said would be "a level playing field for U.S. businesses in Libya" by allowing them to secure American economic benefits for foreign investment.....

With the lifting of most economic sanctions, the way is clear for American oil companies to try to secure contracts or to revive previous contracts for Libya's vast oil reserves.

US companies were the big winners in lifting of the sanctions. They won most of the new contract bids.

US oil companies have been awarded most of the contracts on offer at the first open licence auction in Libya.

More data in us oil imports from Libya.

The West must approach Africa in a new light

French President Nicholas Sarkozy said it well this past week at the France-Africa summit when he said this about Africa in today's world: “Africa’s formidable demographics and its considerable resources make it the main reservoir for world economic growth in the decades to come.”

Chatham House has a new report that states the relationship between the West and Africa should be looked at in a new prism. Asian countries seemed to have caught the changing winds especially countries like China, Japan, India but many western countries have yet to fully adjust to the changing reality. Russia has a renewed interest, Brazil as well.  France due to historical reasons will always have interest in Africa and the lastest summit hosted by French President seems try and a new course with Africa.  Reuters has a similar take:

For the past ten years, fundamental change has been taking place across large parts of Africa. Growth rates and stability have increased. Political, regulatory and security reform have deepened. Increasing investment from China, but also Brazil, India, Turkey, South Korea, Argentina and other ambitious emerging powers has acted for the most part as an accelerant.

Even the global financial crisis has in some ways hastened this process, for while in the short and medium term it had a devastating impact on millions across Africa, it has also revealed the true ebb of power from East to West, and encouraged the new economic actors of the G20 to chase access to the 40 percent of the world’s mineral resources, and 1 billion consumers gathered in Africa. Almost as important is the 25 percent of UN General Assembly votes that are represented by the continent’s 53 countries.

Meanwhile, many Western countries seem trapped in a humanitarian conception of Africa.

Popular media coverage and policy judgement is overwhelmed with a perception that Africa is simply a problem continent with little strategic value, except as a space where largess is shown and good things done to make up in some small way for the messy reality of international diplomacy.

This is not only delusional and self indulgent, but damaging. For emerging power interest is showing that Africa is not a space distinct from the rest of the world. Many of their investments are valuable and welcome, but others are as exploitative and damaging as anything under colonialism.

Without a Western strategic and business engagement – bringing with it a focus on sustainability, regulation and transparency, the progress of the past 10 years is unlikely to be sustained. For the truth is that China’s development policy is first and foremost about China’s development, not Africa’s, and as yet the governments of many emerging powers are not focusing enough on ensuring their investments in Africa are sustainable, and therefore equitable.

African leaders have never faced so much choice, but they need to show more foresight as well, for it is only by combining the energy of the emerging East, with the regulation of the West, that Africa’s, and the world’s interests will be served. That needs Western strategic engagement, but more fundamentally it requires more effective leadership from within Africa itself. Post financial crisis, the opportunities for Africa and the world economy, but also the risks, have never been higher.

These are the main highlights of the report by Chatham House:

• African countries are playing a more strategic role in international affairs. Global players that understand this and develop greater diplomatic and trade relations with African states will be greatly advantaged.


• For many countries, particularly those that have framed their relations with Africa largely in humanitarian terms, this will require an uncomfortable shift in public and policy perceptions. Without this shift, many of Africa's traditional partners, especially in Europe and North America, will lose global influence and trade advantages to the emerging powers in Asia, Africa and South America.


• China's re-engagement is for the most part welcome, as is that of the increasing numbers of emerging powers such as Turkey, South Korea and Brazil that see Africa in terms of opportunities - as a place in which to invest, gain market share and win access to resources.


• Economic fortunes across Africa are now diverging, making it less meaningful to treat Africa as a single entity in international economic negotiations. Despite this, it is in the global interest that the African Union should be granted a permanent place at the G20. In turn, a more focused, sophisticated and strategic African leadership is needed.

Nothing to disagree with, as a matter of fact these are the points that we at Stratsis Incite have been emphasizing all along.

American Peace keepers in the Congo?

Analyst Michael O’Hanlon’s proposes that the U.S. send forces to Democratic Republic of Congo to kick-start a new peacekeeping organization that might help rescue the country from scores of overlapping conflicts. The existing U.N. force just isn’t working — and the DRC government wants those peacekeepers to leave.

The UN has had peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a decade. Congolese President Joseph Kabila, hoping to show he’s not reliant on the blue helmets, wants the force to go in 2011.  Almost every outside analyst thinks that this could precipitate a disaster, with militias running rampant, the hopeless Congolese army unable to cope and the country’s neighbors moving in to gobble up territory.

The UN hopes that it will be able to keep at least some troops – maybe about 6,000, compared to the current 20,000 – to protect civilians in the especially vulnerable eastern Congo. This would do some good, but how much? The peacekeepers were thoroughly outmaneuvered by militias in the east in 2008, and I’m not sure that a reduced presence could do more than stifle low-level violence. What is to be done?

O’Hanlon had pleaded his case in an interview for World Politics Review column last week:

Ideally, we’d see an entire American brigade, but that’s not realistic. Barring that, how about a battalion doing a mission along the lines of Special Forces, doing intelligence-gathering and planning? … That would enable a country like France, which is not as globally committed but is afraid to stick its neck out [to deploy troops]. We need more Western forces.

I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, although I applaud O’Hanlon’s advocating an idealistic but unpopular line.

France is trying to cut back its presence in Africa, and there are huge obstacles to it playing a role in the Great Lakes region — the locals haven’t forgotten the questionable French part in the Rwandan genocide.

But I think that there may be a broader fallacy here: the idea that getting new combat forces into the Congo is what’s needed in the first place. Yes, the U.N. has struggled with 20,000 troops — but as I think O’Hanlon himself once noted, you might need up to 200,000 to stabilize somewhere on the scale of Congo. Rather than focus on numbers, I’d try to see if there are any light-weight ways the U.S. can affect the  political decision-making of [DRC President] Kabila and his neighbors (especially the hawkish Rwandans).

Here’s one possible formula. While the U.N. should maintain the 6,000 troops on active protection duties, the U.S. should deploy around 100 military observers to operate in the U.N. framework. Why? The U.N. already has a bunch of observers in Congo, and the U.S. is said to have spooks and special forces in the east. But American colonels and captains publicly monitoring the situation would send a clear message to the Congolese and their neighbors that Washington wants calm. This American mini-presence would also play a tripwire role: it’s one thing to outflank and embarrass standard U.N. infantry, but quite another to play games in front of U.S. observers.

What makes this option half-credible is that the Obama administration has already thought about sending more military staff officers on UN missions – the President said so himself last year – so this idea is not too far from current policy.  That said, the U.S. has just 10 military experts in UN operations at present (the figures are here).  2 of them are in the Congo.  The Pentagon is rumored to be unenthusiastic about  helping the UN – but 100 personnel is not beyond the realms of the possible.  They don’t need to be O’Hanlon’s green berets… though that would be nice.

I don’t think that 100 Europeans would have the same effect.  China, which has invested a lot in the Congo, could send more observers or regular troops and reinforce the American message.  I can see this proposal running into lots of quibbles, but it might be just the low-cost, high-profile help the UN needs in Congo now.

The U.S. Congress has also recently passed a law requiring the U.S. military to craft a strategy for defeating one of Congo’s most dangerous rebel groups.