Since the mid-term elections on 6 November 2018, President Trump has been under extreme pressure. Federal administrations have been closed since 22 December (the shutdown), because of parliamentary opposition to a budget proposition which included the financing for a Wall at the Mexican frontier. The crisis only came to an end 35 days later, on…
Trump’s deployment of 80 military personnel to Gabon last week on the basis of preparing for a response to “violent protests” in the nearby Democratic Republic of the Congo might have been a ruse designed to cover up America’s complicity in the Gabonese coup attempt that just took place at the beginning of this week,…
Amid the George HW Bush imperial death-orgy, the endless saga of Midtown Mussolini’s daily news cycle, the seemingly unprecedented political upsurge in France, and countless other show-stopping news stories, you likely missed three very sad, yet revealing, incidents out of the Sahel region of West-Central Africa. First, on November 18th, a massive offensive against a…
Last month, a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson confirmed in a Task & Purpose report that Marine Corps Raiders were involved in a fierce battle in 2017 in an unnamed North African country, where they fought beside partner forces against militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AFRICOM acknowledged that two Marines received citations for valor but withheld…
The dogs of war – cold, hot, trade, tariffs – bark while the Chinese caravan plies the New Silk Roads. Call it a leitmotif of the young 21st century. At the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Beijing, President Xi Jinping has just announced a hefty US$60 billion package to complement another US$60 billion pledged…
Around 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world. Those forces utilize several hundred military installations. Africa is no exemption. On August 2, Maj. Gen. Roger L. Cloutier took command of US Army Africa, promising to “hit the ground running.” The US is not waging any wars in Africa but it has a significant presence on…
