Episode 9. The Stand-Up Of The US Africa Command

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy (00:05): We are here today for a conversation in the Academy of Diplomacy series called The General and the Ambassador. Today we have general William Ward and Ambassador MaRY Carlin Yates And our focus is on Africa and the United States Africa Command. General Ward was the commander of US Africa Command from 2007 to 2011 and Ambassador Yates was the Deputy Commander for Civil Military Activities from 2007 to 2009. Together they helped set up the Africa Command and built its presence throughout the continent. The African Command was born sort of late in our military. To ask you both, why was it established?

Gen. Ward (00:47): It was born as the newest Combatant Command, but the notion of an Africa Command had been around for quite a while. The region that we were given responsibility for had previously been under the purview of three different combatant commands, US European Command, US central command, and US Pacific Command.

Amb. McCarthy (01:08): So it was scattered.

Gen. Ward (01:09): And when you talk about what we did as a military to engage in Africa, it was divided among those three commands and sometimes a commonality of purposes weren't there. And you had a continental organization for the Africans, namely the African Union, you had there on the continent, five regional organizations in Africa, but as they dealt with the US Department of Defense, those same players may be dealing with three different combatant commands. And so therefore it was determined that in order to do a more effective job in delivering sustained security and helping to build a security structure that dealt with the continent of Africa, having a single command would be a more effective and efficient way of doing that. And along with that came this notion of can we do it differently to cause it to be more effective in delivering these things that were designed to enhance our national security interests on the continent and its Island nations as well as to cause the foreign policy objectives that we have for our engagement in Africa to be more cohesively attained. And so the command was designed to do that.

Amb. McCarthy (02:17): And my understanding is you had to put together this bricks and mortar and you had to pull from, as you said, the other commands and I think Mary, at one point you told me that your offices were joining but the phones didn't connect or something along those lines. Tell me more about that process.

Amb. Yates (02:32): We laugh when we think back on it because they put us at Kelly Barracks, which was in Stuttgart, a different part of the city from where the European Command was, and these were old barracks left over from the forties so we were just kind of this moveable feast all over the [inaudible] of Kelly barracks. And then I remember we, it was a big deal that we were going to get to move into our offices, you and I, and Admiral Mueller and we had desks and phones and computers, but they didn't seem to connect anything. So we walked out of our offices and looked at each other and thought, well, we've made some progress here in this building, but...

Amb. McCarthy (03:09): You can always meet in the hallway.

Amb. Yates (03:11): Exactly. I think it was important that we as a nation, were looking at Africa in the same way Africa looked at it, you know, they were one continent. They have their African Union. And so for us to start having our military relations through this same prism, the way we deal with it diplomatically. But that wasn't easy. We were blocked at every stage almost. On the continent, there were big headlines saying, no, we don't want an Africa Command. They thought it was neo-colonialistic. No, we don't want more military training, which is of course what they really wanted. And then American academics began weighing in, and we were busy explaining first to our allies in Europe, we were on the continent trying to explain exactly what General Ward was, explaining of the purpose of the command. And always we said that it was to support our diplomatic initiatives, our foreign policy objectives. The military was going to stay in their lane, but we were there to help and support, which of course we did. And, and that was proven over and over again. We have to remember that with the exception of the military who had served as defense attaches in embassies. This was not a place where the military had spent much time, unlike the Middle East, unlike Europe or East Asia, we had a lot of Africa education going on inside the Africa Command that first year. It was fascinating to me how quickly the military absorbed and got very interested in the subject matter and understood the difference of the regions because again, look at Africa as one continent, but it is so diverse and so complex and it was very impressive how quickly the military understood this.

Gen. Ward (05:05): You know Mary, that's exactly right. One of the things that we tried to inculcate into the military staff was the fact that even though this continent was Africa, it had at the time 53 nations, to include its island nations and each of these sub regions, there was a different culture, the history, the aspect of languages, 850 languages and dialects, all different. And the borders that were established were the borders imposed by the Europeans that transcended the tribal delineations. Understanding that construct was really important so, as Mary said, we spend a lot of time doing our best to cause our military staff to understand that. I can recall we brought in cultural anthropologists to help us understand the nature of the varying peoples on the continent. We couldn't go there and do what we wanted to do from our own lens, our own viewpoint. I used to use a little saying, "get out in your foxhole and go down range and look back at what you're doing from the perspective of others". For me that was so critical because we had a sense of applying a solution based on our perception of the situation and that was absolutely not what we needed to do. We needed to understand from the perspective of the Africans and then based on their perspective, not that we had to listen and do everything that they said to do, but we had to understand their point of view as well.

Amb. McCarthy (06:32): So as Africa command was set up, you brought in obviously the military component, the basis of it, but brought in as you said, cultural anthropologists, other experts, diplomatic experts and so forth, because it's the better approach.

Gen. Ward (06:46): We created the command what the notion of being an interagency command. That is, we would bring in pieces of our federal government all doing work on the continent, from Commerce to Treasury, to Agriculture, our independent agencies all working together. Kind of like the model that we see in an embassy where a country team exists and all of these parts of our government working together to make a difference in a country. The notion that US Africa Command could do that, not to do the work of our other partners of government, but to better understand what they were doing so that as we did what we did, those efforts were better harmonized, creating an impact for our nation that was more likely to help us achieve our national security interests and in accordance with our foreign policy objectives.

Amb. Yates (07:35): When you try to build a command and bring these elements in, and it was just such an opportunity, we had two USAID reps. One was off the foreign disaster assistance and she was an expert on sort of the crises and famines and things like that and she just became popular with everybody in the command because she knew things and she knew how to watch for whatever droughts were going to happen and then we could plan whatever we were going to do with exercises. But then I had a senior USAID, aid person, because I was the head of the Civilian Military Activities. He was my advisor, but the advisor to the whole command, and the expertise he brought and the reach-back he brought to you USAID and we even evolved, remember Kip when we then had several uniform military go and work at USAID headquarters because we realized that they needed to have some of the expertise for the planning on the ground if we were going to be sending, and not only were we bricks and mortar building it, we were building new elements of the interagency. I felt like by being a broader command with more of the interagency, we used to say all the tools in the tool box for our national security, protecting Americans, but the more we had inside the command, I mean that woman from the Energy Department who knew so much about how the energy and oil flowed out of West Africa, she was invaluable.

Amb. McCarthy (09:04): Well, Mary, let me ask one fundamental question so we can explain to the audience. The Africa Command is a military command. It's based not in Africa but in Germany. What military assets General do we have in Africa? How many boots on the ground?

Gen. Ward (09:20): On the continent of Africa, there is a military installation there in Djibouti that has at Camp Lemonnier that has assets from across our government, military assets to conduct training with African militaries, but also to do other missions that may be important to our national security interests there in the region. Africa command has the ability to receive forces from all over the Department of Defense, Army, Navy, Air, Marine Corps. And as those forces are required for exercises, for any military mission that might be assigned, then those forces are allocated and assigned as may be required. And at any given time, there could be upwards of three, four, or five thousand military troops in Africa, not permanently stationed there, but going out to do missions, exercises to help African nations increase their own security capacity.

Amb. McCarthy (10:14): So they can fight transnational crime, drugs, other threats, and also deal with emergencies and humanitarian disasters.

Gen. Ward (10:22): Correct.

Amb. Yates (10:23): Africa itself, it's not clearly delineated, but they have divided themselves into five general regions. The West Africa, East Africa, Northern Africa, and each of these regional African organizations have both political, political- military and economic arms. So they talk about coordinating trade and they talk about politics and they also do peacekeeping in each other's nations. I know when I was ambassador in Ghana, you know, we were very pleased at how many times the Ghanaians would go in and help try to calm things down whether it was in Liberia or a coup attempt in another country.

Amb. McCarthy (11:04): And if they go, we don't have to go. Well, let me ask you, as you, as you traveled the continent, what was the toughest meeting the two of you ever attended?

Gen. Ward (11:15): There were certainly meetings that were tough. All very interesting. Let me put that in a bit of perspective. And you say, as we traveled the continent, now this continent keep in mind is three and a half times the size of the continental United States, huge immense of landmass, as well as it's territorial waters, it's island nations that are in, uh, that are there. And so going any place in Africa was a major undertaking, just the travel to get there. We would typically spend seven, ten days on a trip...

Amb. McCarthy (11:51): That's intense.

Gen. Ward (11:51): But traveling and going to three or four different countries during that period of time. So this is hard hitting meetings to do coordination to help with our engagement activities and plans, working with the partner nation militaries, but also with their diplomatic leaders because we also wanted to, okay, some of our model of how the militaries work in democratic societies. And so bringing that into our engagement was also very, very important. In fact, we were in one meeting, I believe it was in West Africa, the ambassador was with me and I was there and the new ambassador that's been assigned to the country had been there maybe a week. And we go to sit down to have a meeting with the foreign minister there in a particular country. And Ambassador Yates and I arrive in this country as the most senior US officials since our Congress had labeled this country a kleptocracy. And so we arrive to conduct meetings and we spend about 45 minutes being lectured to by this foreign minister about how dare we allow our Congress to label his country a kleptocracy. And I sat there and Ambassador Yates sat there and the new ambassador sat there listening to this go on and on and on. And after 45 minutes I thanked him for his comments and then I proceeded to talk about what I was there to talk about.

Amb. McCarthy (13:14): You had to get your points in after the soliloquy.

Amb. Yates (13:16): Kip, I love the story of when we went to my old haunt in Ghana. Ghana of course is a country that we admire for democratically turning over its leadership, now for a period of 20 or more years

Gen. Ward (13:31): And still doing it.

Amb. Yates (13:32): And we were in this meeting in the old slave castle, which is where the president was. Anyway, Kip, you remember the story, don't you?

Gen. Ward (13:40): I do we're there and had a wonderful meeting. In fact, it wasn't our first visit to, to Ghana. And I recall the meeting starting by the president saying to me, I told you something the last time you were here General. And I saw that being implemented and some of the programs that you brought to my country, which was a validation of the fact that when we said we would listen to you and take your input to help design things that will work on your behalf. So they take buy in or have buy in. When he acknowledged that it helped to continue to set a stage for cooperation as well as our ability to work with these countries in a more effective way.

Amb. McCarthy (14:20): There had been like a true exchange.

Gen. Ward (14:20): So towards the end of the meeting as we were getting up and that by this time my wife had joined the meeting because as Mary said, my wife would often travel with us. She would do things with the schools, with the hospitals, promoting the cultural side of it because when the country saw that America was involved and engaged, then they were more apt to also be good partners.

Amb. McCarthy (14:42): And also from the cultural, educational point of view that's important.

Gen. Ward (14:44): And so, and we could use some of that to cause our engagement and our relationship to be enhanced by the type of support that we provided. So my wife had joined the meeting and to [inaudible] there, the president was giving us a lay down of the area there where the castle existed and talked about, uh, looked at Mary and looked at me, looked at my wife and he said, "No, yes. And as I look at you general, I believe your people would have been over in that part of the country." And he looked at my wife and he said, "And yes, uh, my diamond, this is where your people would have come from." And he looked at the Ambassador and he said, "Ah, yes, ambassador in your people would have come from over here." You know, making a point that we all have roots there in Africa. But he took that liberty because he knew that the relationship that we were establishing was genuine. It was something that we valued and we also valued what he was adding to the dialogue as an equal partner and not as someone that was just there to listen and do what Americans said to listen to and to do.

Amb. Yates (15:41): I think that it's hard for people in the US to understand why in the world we even have military working with military. General Ward referred to the vast distances in Africa, but we also have to think of the oceans around it because we do care about counter terrorism and keeping our country safe by working with the militaries in Africa on their counterterrorism strategy, especially in the Sahel region, but the waters around and helping them build their navies and helping train together because the oceans go from the borders of one country to the other. And so one of the things that the Africa command built was this maritime main platform. First of all, it wasn't just about keeping the water safe from illicit trafficking, but also, the poor people on the Western coast of Africa their fish were being poached. So we were trying to help them, but we were also trying to stem the tide of trafficking in persons and drugs into Europe that, which many times ended on our shores as well.

Gen. Ward (16:54): From the standpoint of why we're there, our national interests dictate that we be there. When you look at the continent of Africa, it's size, demographics, populations, our ability to sell our goods to places overseas markets. Those places are so critical to our own security as well as our own productivity. I was speaking with a Senator from a Midwestern state and the Senator and I were speaking about the amount of agricultural products out of her state that are sold in Africa. 75% of agricultural products. That comes in Africa. So these are markets, these are resources, but we look at the world and the days construct, once oceans and mountains separated us. Today that's not the case. And so our interests to, with respect to how we secure and protect our borders also dictate that we are engaged in these locations trying to help create a greater degree of stability there so that their people are more satisfied, are productive and contribute to a more stable society for our global commons. And so being engaged in Africa through what US Africa Command did is absolutely in the best interest of our people even here at home.

Amb. McCarthy (18:05): So Mary, let us get back to what made you become a diplomat?

Amb. Yates (18:11): I became a teacher but then I knew I wanted to have more education. So when I did my master's degree at NYU, I had the pleasure of studying first in France, in Europe, and then the next summer in Japan. And what I realized was I loved being overseas. I loved trying to work cross culturally and then I also love coming home and trying to impart that and share that with students. And then I had an uncle who was in the Diplomatic Corps and I thought, wow, that's like the perfect career for me, that I can go and live overseas and get to know all these foreigners and come back and explain how wonderful America and America's values are over there and communicate. So it's a hard exam to take, I took the exam twice, and then they, voila.

Amb. McCarthy (18:59): I have a friend who took it seven times, Mary, but you just keep taking it.

Amb. Yates (19:03): Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing easy, but that's how I ended up in the Diplomatic Corps.

Amb. McCarthy (19:08): Okay. So general, how did you end up in the military?

Gen. Ward (19:12): Well, when I graduated from high school in 1967, we were in the middle of Vietnam and there was a draft going on. My dad was a World War II veteran, had been drafted right out of high school in 1943 but they wanted me to go to college and my mom as well. So I said, well, I applied to Morgan State University, was accepted and I went to school, but this is the middle of Vietnam, and so the draft's going on and during those years Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was mandatory at certain schools for two years. And so those first two years I was in the program because it was mandatory. In 1969 Vietnam's still going on and if I got out of the program, I could still be drafted. So my thought was, well, I'll stay in ROTC. If I go to Vietnam, I'll go as an officer. And so I stayed in for my final two years. I was commissioned on the same day I graduated from Morgan with my degree and I was commissioned in the Regular Army and I had received the scholarship for my last two years that incurred a four your obligation for me to serve on active duty. But my intent was to serve my four years and get out of the military and go to law school and become a lawyer. Well, as my wife says, those four years turned into four decades.

Amb. Yates (20:24): I never knew that lawyer part, Kip.

Amb. McCarthy (20:25): See what we learn in these interviews?

Gen. Ward (20:26): Yeah. I hid that Mary. After assignments and promotions, I was able to do things that I enjoyed, the team, I enjoyed what we were doing, and before I knew it, I was doing things from the commands, the assignments, just exciting assignments. Being a part of this military team, I enjoyed it. It was great, and as I said, four years turned into four decades and to have the ability to be the inaugural commander of United States Africa Command, to stand that up for our country was an absolute wonderful culminating assignment.

Amb. McCarthy (20:58): Well, public service certainly has exciting moments and for those who served in our military and our diplomatic Corps, there's never ending challenges that make one often stay for a long time. What would you say to young diplomats and young officers about the need to work together to protect American interests overseas?

Amb. Yates (21:19): I already did it. This was even after my first assignment at the European Command, being a political advisor or PolAd, as they called it. I would tell my fellow diplomats and I even worked to make sure that we had younger diplomats work with the US Military. Don't wait until you've gotten to this exonerated level of being an ambassador. You need to get people who are in our language, the O-2 level or like a Lieutenant Colonel level. I mean we need to be working together because we just understand each other so much better after having an assignment and working together and truly working with the US Military for those four years in two different commands and having the equal honor of helping to stand one up go down as some of the greatest service I was allowed to do for the United States of America. It was an honor and I mean my military colleagues are still some of my closest friends.

Gen. Ward (22:14): In today's environment, our nation's young men and women volunteer to wear the cloth of our nation. And they do it because they said we will protect and defend the United States of America and its constitution. But we all know, and especially this generation, those of us who have faced combat, we don't want that to be the first thing that our nation uses as an element to help achieve peace, security, and stability. And in doing so, we understand that there are other parts of our government that contribute mightily to helping to achieve that stability prior to having to use the ultimate force that would achieve it. And so as our young men and women who serve today get to know their governmental colleagues but also their non-governmental colleagues, and to understand the value of development to help create more secure environments, because globally we've found that the aspirations of men and women around the world are the same as we have here in America. They want a better life for their children, they want a stable environment, they want to be able to do things in a way that their children have a better future than they may have had. And so as we work with those pieces of our government to have the mission of doing that, the better we understand how they do what they do, the more effective we can be as we do our job and our part of this great, great work to help bring a higher degree of stability to our global commons.

Amb. McCarthy (23:41): Well that's very well said. You both served our country in extraordinary times, doing extraordinary things. I want to thank you for your service. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on an important aspect of our national security. And I know you both continue to be engaged both on substantive issues, policy issues, but also working with a lot of our younger officers throughout the system and underlining the importance of public service. So thank you very much. Thank you for sharing.