The overall number also includes conventional forces supporting special operations missions. was working with local forces to counter, although affiliated with al Qaeda or ISIS, “might not necessarily be a risk to the homeland.” Although the department is planning to cut 10 percent of its forces, only about half of those are special operators - “trigger pullers,” Waldhauser said. The Joint Staff determined that the military could reduce forces and “absorb some risk” in Africa because some of the terror groups that the U.S. The reductions were part of a broader effort to alleviate some of the strain on special operations forces across the globe, Waldhauser said. Pentagon officials announced in November they would cut about 10 percent of the roughly 7,200 Defense Department personnel currently assigned to Africa Command, as the United States to seeks to shift its strategic focus from counterterrorism to countering competitors like China and Russia. “Each of these decisions to adjust force posture will be taken one at a time.” “Whether that’ll ever happen or not, I don’t know,” he said. It’s really a misleading narrative to say that optimization is causing us to walk away from Africa.”Ī second tranche of cuts - part of an overall 10-percent reduction slated to take place by late 2021 - might not even happen, he suggested. “Where we’re training counterterrorism forces, it’s not that the Chinese are going to come in tomorrow and backfill that. “I think it’s important not to conflate the optimization and great power competition,” Waldhauser said in an interview. efforts to build up local militaries and signal to them that America is a better long-term partner than Beijing, he said.ĪFRICOM will remove fewer than 130 special operations troops across the continent by June 2020, according to Gen. But adding conventional forces would help U.S. troop reduction in Africa over the next two years will be minimal and won’t undercut the United States’ ability to counter China and Russia, according to the commanding general of U.S.
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