Defense Secretary Robert Gates is looking to trim the bloated Pentagon budget, and Joint Forces Command is in his sights. The other nine combatant commands, presumably including Africom, will face contractor roll-backs and a freeze on hiring for three years. Given that Africom is still not fully staffed, it will be interesting to see whether this mandate applies to this junior command.
Joint Forces Command may gradually fade away, but the Pentagon's flagship journal, Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ), established in 1993 under Secretary Les Aspin's watch, will likely have to carry a heavier load as the purveyor of everything "joint." Over the last few years Africa emerged as a major focus of JFQ , and this accelerated after Africom was announced in 2007. With many stories about China's rise in Africa, terrorism, piracy, support for African Union peacekeeping, the Navy's Africa Partnership Station initiative, etc., it is not that surprising the most recent July 2010 issue includes the cover theme, "Identity Politics in Africa and the Americas." It is worth a look. JFQ is fully and freely available online right back to issue one. There are very real, sometimes visceral, debates on strategy, policy, and doctrine in its pages.
National Defense University Press, JFQ 's publisher, also just released a detailed and frightening report on "Cocaine and Instability in Africa: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean" (July 2010). Implications for governance across West Africa, not just Guinea Bissau, are potentially immense.
Joint Forces Command may gradually fade away, but the Pentagon's flagship journal, Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ), established in 1993 under Secretary Les Aspin's watch, will likely have to carry a heavier load as the purveyor of everything "joint." Over the last few years Africa emerged as a major focus of JFQ , and this accelerated after Africom was announced in 2007. With many stories about China's rise in Africa, terrorism, piracy, support for African Union peacekeeping, the Navy's Africa Partnership Station initiative, etc., it is not that surprising the most recent July 2010 issue includes the cover theme, "Identity Politics in Africa and the Americas." It is worth a look. JFQ is fully and freely available online right back to issue one. There are very real, sometimes visceral, debates on strategy, policy, and doctrine in its pages.
National Defense University Press, JFQ 's publisher, also just released a detailed and frightening report on "Cocaine and Instability in Africa: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean" (July 2010). Implications for governance across West Africa, not just Guinea Bissau, are potentially immense.
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