Al – Shabaab Strikes In Djibouti
Co-Authored by Henry Appel On Saturday evening, May 24, a Somali man and his female companion took their seats in La Chaumière, a restaurant in Djibouti’s capital p...
Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa
Around the Troubled Horn
Even by the much-reduced expectations of the subregion, the news emanating from the geopolitically-sensitive, but ever-volatile Horn of Africa has not been at all good these last few weeks....
Op-eds
Eritrea: The Horn of Africa’s Rogue Regime
Last week, exasperated with Eritrea's continued violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and its increasing harassment of representatives at the American Embassy in Asmara...
Op-eds
The War on Terrorism in Africa: Assessment and Prospects
The end of one year and the beginning of another is a good time both to take stock of where we have been and to look ahead at the paths we are likely to take and the battles which we will have to...
Op-eds
Securing Africa
On February 6, 2007, President George W. Bush launched a major evolution in American military posture when he formally announced that he had directed the Pentagon to establish a new unified...
Op-eds
Somalia in Need of New Approach Two Decades after State Collapse
Last week marked the twentieth anniversary of the night when Mohamed Siyad Barre, president of the last entity that could plausibly be described as the government of Somalia, fled Mogadishu in hi...
Op-eds
Eritrea: Spoiler Exacerbates Crisis in the Horn of Africa and Beyond
By Dr. J. Peter Pham One of the frustrations with which Africa's friends have had to repeatedly cope over the years has been the seemingly utter incapacity of the African l...
Op-eds
Fiddling While Somalia Burns
Difficult as it may be to conceive, the already-bad security situation in Somalia deteriorated further over the weekend. Yet as Islamist militants brought their offensive to the edge of Mogadishu...
Op-eds
AFRICOM Stands Up
By Dr. J. Pham A year and a half after it was first announced by President George W. Bush, the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) becomes fully operational as the Pentagon's six...
Op-eds
Why AFRICOM is Critical for Our Security Interests
This week I thought it useful to update readers on developments with some of the stories that have been previously reported in this column.
Op-eds
The War on Terrorism in Africa: Assessment and Prospects
The end of one year and the beginning of another is a good time both to take stock of where we have been and to look ahead at the paths we are likely to take and the battles which we will have to fight in the coming months. What follows is a broad assessment of status of the African front in what has come to be known as the "Global War on Terror."
Memos
“Total Force” for AFRICOM
Early last month, President George W. Bush named Army General William E. "Kip" Ward to be the first commander of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). If confirmed by the Senate – hea...
Op-eds
Smokin’ on Somalia
Last week, my colleague at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), Andrew McCarthy; the former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York who led the pros...
Op-eds
The Tipping Point in Somalia
In last week's column, I warned that the situation in Somalia has become untenable: while the country's nominal "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG) is nowhere to be found and the Ug...
Op-eds
Salvaging Security in Somalia
Two weeks ago in this space, I reported that the supporters of Somalia's defeated Islamic Courts Union (ICU) were reconstituting themselves as the "Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of...
Op-eds
Getting AFRICOM Right
Last week President George W. Bush created a new military command for Africa: I am pleased to announce my decision to create a Department of Defense Unified Combatant Comm...
Op-eds
Sweeping Up in Somalia
The reports continue to stream in of the hasty retreat of the militants of Somalia's Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in the face of an unexpectedly heavy offensive by Ethiopian air and land force...
Op-eds
A U.S. Security Agenda in Africa — Part I
One of the frustrations that foreign nations and individuals have with the United States is Americans' biennial self-absorption in electoral campaigns during which pressing international con...
Op-eds
Global Danger from the Dark Continent
Co-Authored with W. Thomas Smith, Jr. The African continent - vast, remote, and perhaps strategically unimportant in the minds of many unknowing Americans – is one of the...
Op-eds
America’s Somali Policy Still Dangerously Adrift
This column is dedicated to the premise that the strategic neglect of Africa was the weak link in the advancement of American foreign policy interests in general, and the successful prosecution o...