By Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller, Deputy to the Commander for Military Operations, U.S. Africa Command
The Brookings Institution  Print     Share  

WASHINGTON, DC, 

Jun 6, 2008 — On May 27, 2008, the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion on the progress made by the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its plans for the future. Vice Admiral Robert T. Moeller, Deputy to the Commander for Military Operations, AFRICOM, spoke at the event and answered questions from the audience.

The transcript from this event is available below:

MR. SINGER: Well, on behalf of Brookings' 21st Century Defense Initiative, I'm pleased to welcome you all to this session on The Road Ahead for U.S. Africa Command.

Brookings' 21-CDI carries out research and policy outreach on three core dilemmas. The first is changing factors that are shaping global security; the second is changing expectations that are placed on the U.S. security system; and the third is the changing responses that that system is having to make. And perhaps no new organization better encapsulates those three changing factors than AFRICOM.

The formation of AFRICOM is linked to a number of new and evolving geostrategic and security considerations that the U.S. is facing in Africa, most notably humanitarian and development interests, energy security, terrorism, failed and failing states, and may be, if we're allowed to say it, rising Chinese intentions and interests on that continent. In turn, the manner in which we're responding to these changing interests is different than before.

For example, the AFRICOM command structure integrates both civilian and military authorities in the hope of enhancing the type of interagency cooperation that's needed for effective operations. Yet this new command is at the center of a great deal of debate. There's debate on what are the true reasons behind AFRICOM's creation. There's debate on whether and where it might establish a headquarters and locate basis. There's debate on what missions exactly it might have and what are the priorities between those missions. And there's even debate on whether the formation of the command might even unintentionally end up heightening the military element in the U.S. policy towards Africa, especially in that civilian authorities may be integrated into the command, but they're not at the head of the command. Or for example, U.S. aid funding is changing.

Perhaps the best reflection of the intensity of this debate is that when we originally planned to have this session, we were going to hold it in one of the meeting rooms next door that holds about 30 people in it. And you can see how the interest in Washington has changed our plans for us. And so it's incredibly lucky and we are honored to have today with us Vice Admiral Robert Moeller to provide us with a detailed and direct answer to some of these issues of debate on where AFRICOM stands today and where it's headed in the future.

Vice Admiral Moeller assumed duties as deputy of military operations, U.S. Africa Command, in August 2007. He's been directly involved with the organization since its very conceptualization. He was the executive director of the AFRICOM transition team. He arrived at this position with a distinguished career, including multiple assignments at sea, including command of the USS Port Royal. Ashore he served in such roles as commanding officer of the Surface Warfare Officers School, and he is director for policy and plans at Central Command where we had the pleasure to first meet him. Most importantly, this is a sort of homecoming for him. He was the Navy Federal Executive Fellow at Brookings in 1989. So again, it's an honor for us to welcome you home. Thank you.

(Applause)
VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Good morning everybody, and thank you very, very much for that introduction. It is a real privilege and honor to be back here again at Brookings. In fact, this is the first time I have walked back into Brookings since I left in the spring of 1990 to go back into the building into an assignment. So it really is a pleasure to be back here.

I've got a few slides here that I'll run through fairly quickly here this morning to kind of give you an overview of where we've been and where we are and where we're going with the formation, the establishment of U.S. Africa Command, and then look forward to the opportunity to take your questions about one thing or another associated with the stand-up of this organization.

Again, just very quickly by way of background, up till about the -- in terms of how I first got involved in this effort -- up to about late summer of '06, I was the director of strategy plans and policy at Central Command, and then for a brief period of time worked for General Abizaid as a special assistant while the Navy was determining what my next assignment was going to be. During that period of time, I was approached by the Joint Staff, indicating that I was under consideration to head up the planning effort for the establishment of this command. In fact, within a few days, that came to fruition.

Then Secretary Rumsfeld signed out a piece of paper directing that I would lead the implementation planning team, which was a group of about 30 or 40 of us that met over in the fall of '06, starting in mid-November of '06, over at Bolling Air Force Base where we worked with some initial direction from the Department in terms of identifying the principle issues that had to be worked out with regard to the establishment of the command. We did that over the course of close to about two months. We then briefed what that looked like to the Secretary. That got turned into a piece of paper that went to the President, and just before Christmas of 2006, he directed the stand-up of the command. And as you all know, it was formerly announced by the White House in early February of 2007.

About that same time, those of us who had been -- or many of us involved in the implementation planning team then became some of the initial members of the what we established as the transition team, the AFRICOM Transition Team, essentially the core of the initial headquarters staff. We established ourselves in Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, and you may ask, "Why, why there?" Two principle reasons: As we looked around for a place to initially establish the headquarters, we wanted some place that was as close to our area of operations as we could possibly be, and so being in Europe facilitated that.

Also, because we were on a fairly short timeline to get ourselves established, there was already existing infrastructure at Kelley Barracks that we could move into because the Army's 7th Core had previously been headquartered there up till about the mid 1990s, and so all those facilities were there. And some of that -- actually to this day, there's renovation work going on with those facilities. And then the other reason is because as we're currently organized within Defense, European Command is the biggest stakeholder for our military-to-military relations with our African partners as they are responsible for the relations for about 40 of the total countries across the continent. So, for all the planning work, the coordination and collaboration with them, particularly as we continue to move forward and look to assume responsibility for all the activities that they conduct with our African partners, it made sense to be as close as we could to their headquarters. And so, that's why we started out there, and quite frankly that's why we're still there, and will be there for the foreseeable future.

Then, so that transition team work continued through the spring and summer of last year and, as you know, we established initial operational capability, essentially formally established ourselves on the first of October, and this October 1st, we will be formally established as a full unified command like the other geographic commands around the world. Currently, we are a sub-unified command to UCOM.

So with that, we'll go ahead and get started here and I'll run through some of these slides and then look forward to taking your questions.

Okay, here is our proposed Mission Statement. A lot of work has gone into this over the last many, many months with regard to exactly what this should say, where the emphasis should be, etc. Actually, I will point out it's even been revised one more time since this, and now very recently approved by the Secretary. But again, the initial guidance to us back in our planning team days was to be not only responsible for the military-to-military relations that today are conducted by European Command, Central Command, and Pacific Command, but also support all other U.S. government agencies that have activities ongoing across the continent on a regular basis, and to some degree where it makes sense to do so, and where -- from a U.S. policy standpoint -- there's a desire to do so to support international organizations as well.

But our primary focus, again, is on what we do with our African partners in the military-to-military lane. And I emphasize that because as this has evolved -- and there's been a lot of discussion about this, quite frankly, across town over many, many months until we got to this point -- there was some concerns expressed that perhaps what we were doing is kind of reaching in and looking to assume responsibility for U.S. foreign policy in Africa. That is absolutely not the case. All of that, as before, continues to be the primary responsibility and purview of the Secretary of State, the State Department, and ultimately, the President.

What we do is the military-to-military piece in support of all of that. Likewise, we are not reaching in and taking over responsibility for any of the work that USAID does, as an example, among others. What we do want to do is look for those opportunities again where it makes sense to do so to support their activities, and perhaps in a much more effective way than has been the case in the past where the responsibilities for these things have been divided up among three geographic commands. Now the focus will be just in one command, which will be totally focused on the work that we do with our African partners.

Just kind of a -- again going back to what the, what our mission focus was, concentrating on the mil-to-mil piece, but also in direct support, that led us back in our early planning days to kind of think through an organizational construct which will -- and I'll show you here in a slide in a minute -- a fundamentally different kind of looking global combatant command than our other unified commands. Given the -- to be able to support other U.S. government agencies, we wanted an organization that brought aboard the command subject matter experts from our other U.S. government agency partners such that their expertise would help us harmonize collectively our activities across the continent.

And so a lot of work has gone into that over the last year in thinking through and reaching out across town to our interagency partners to talk to them about what is in it for them, so to speak, how to bring them on board, what they would be entitled to as far as working in a unified command, etc. A lot of that work goes on and we can talk about some of that a little bit more as well.

Here you see is a kind of our wiring diagram and structurally it looks similar to other unified commands. But as you can see there in those blue boxes that we don't have J-codes as such as you'd see on the Joint Staff or in other unified commands. What we did is given, again, what our mission set was, we wanted to kind of package things a little bit differently and felt that we needed to do that to be most effective. And so that led us to design this kind of a construct as opposed to a typical J-code construct that you see in a lot of other military organizations. On the left-hand side there, Outreach.

That is, again, somewhat unique in unified commands. That's the main focus of kind of where we have staff members that are principally responsible for the engagement we do with our interagency partners, as well as the international community.

Intelligence and Knowledge Development: As we thought about what we needed to know and learn about all that's going on across the African continent, it became clear to us that probably we needed to have a more expansive organization there than what you might find in the J-2 directorate of a typical unified command. And for that reason also we thought that we probably needed to reach out for a director that has somewhat broader experience than perhaps an intelligence officer, a military flag or general officer, whose, to some degree, experience in intelligence is somewhat related closely to the indications and warning in preparation for the next major military operation.

Since most of our focus is going to be on capacity building and working with our African partners to get well ahead of the problem set, to kind of head off the advent of a crisis which may lead to conflict, we wanted somebody, again, who had somewhat of a broader focus. And so we have a civilian from the intelligence community, but a senior intelligence civilian, in that position as opposed to a flag or general officer.

Next is Strategy Plans and Policy, and of course, again, that's probably a little bit more expansive than what you might see in a typical J-5 organization.

Moving across -- Operations and Logistics: Because of the logistics challenges that are part and parcel of doing business across Africa, we thought that it would be very important that we actually combine those two functions in one because there would really be nothing that we do operationally across the African continent that will not be heavily influenced by the ability to execute from a logistics standpoint and support. And so to make sure that we had a very, very coherent effort there, we decided to combine those.

And then C-4 Systems, not unlike J-6 organizations in other commands, again, but certainly some more challenges given the ability to and the need to kind of communicate across the continent.

And then Resources, somewhat similar, but because, again, our interagency focus, our support for our interagency partners, to work that piece in as coordinated an effort as we felt necessary. Resources is not only the typical, you know, financial aspects of resources, but all of the manpower pieces associated with it would typically be under J-1 Personnel are all coordinated under the Resource piece.

To give you then an idea also where we are today with bringing on our interagency partners in terms of the organizational structure, up there at the top where all the green boxes are indicate are current interagency partners, and actually we've got others throughout the organization, but people in key positions.

First of all, again, given what our focus is and what the Department was looking for us to do, we felt it was very, very important at the outset that if we're going to be successful in this regard of working very closely with our interagency partners, much more so than other unified commands, that we really needed two deputies.

So we established early on in the planning stage the idea that we'd have a military deputy, like other unified commands, but also a civilian deputy, in that capacity today is Ambassador Mary Yates. I suspect that a number of you know her very, very well. Actually, we very, very much wanted to do this presentation together, but schedule-wise it just didn't work out. She just returned to Stuttgart yesterday from Addis with some discussions with the new African union leadership there. But for those who may not know her, she was most recently, before she came and assumed this position at U.S. Africa Command, she was the political advisor at European Command; before that, U.S. Ambassador in Ghana; and before that, U.S. Ambassador in Burundi, so brings a tremendous amount of African experience to this position.

Like other unified commands, of course, we have a foreign policy advisor who reports to the commander. But, again, because of our different construct and the extent to which we look forward to working very closely with USAID in support of their activities, we decided it would be useful to have a senior representative from AID in the organization itself, and so we created the position of a senior development advisor and that individual is from USAID and he reports directly to Ambassador Yates.

Then the other positions down there in green are also representatives from our interagency partners. The director of outreach is just -- will be reporting here in about another month, coming to us from the State Department. Director of programs also from USAID. You can see there we have a representative fairly soon, a representative from Treasury, OFTA, DHS, and the -- actually not the director, but the deputy director of resources is from Commerce. So, and this is very, very much a work in progress as we try to build this team.

We are putting in place memos of understanding between Defense and each of these agencies with regard to their coming aboard and what their entitlements are when they join the command so they have access to the same kinds of things as Defense personnel would have, living and working in Stuttgart, Germany. And a lot of that is also -- some of that is -- we're in the process of working out some of those details as well with the German government.

Okay, this is, kind of again, if you take our Mission Statement and then translate that into what does this kind of mean and where will our focus be. Active security is our strategy. And this is, again, working on a very, very persistent and sustained basis to build capacity, support the humanitarian assistance efforts of AID and others, working with our African partners to get a head of the problem set to head off impending crises if necessary, or to respond as necessary, but very, very much, working very, very closely with our African partners.

So one of the things that we put a lot of stock in is getting around the continent and listening to what our African partners have to say about what their priorities are, what their interests are, and such that we can incorporate that into our own thinking and planning. A tremendous amount of work yet to be done there, but that is what we are embarked on. And as we continue to listen to our African partners, we anticipate that there's a tremendous amount that we have to learn about all that is Africa and what their principle interests, priorities are, etc. And we will be engaged in this forever essentially.

So that's just kind of a quick rundown of kind of where we are and what we've got going on. I would say that in addition to building the command, and right now we're about between five and six hundred and we're working toward fiscal year '09 numbers of around 1300. Now where does that put us? That puts us about middle of the road in terms of unified command size. There are several that are larger than us, and a couple that are smaller. And when we have this mix complete, we will be about 50/50 in terms of uniform members and civilians.

A large component of those civilians will be DOD civilians, but also a fairly large number of our interagency partners. That work continues. All the Services have committed to having their uniform members on hand by mid-summer, which is very very important because we're working with Joint Forces Command. They have the responsibility for the training and certification of new commands of this magnitude, and so clearly we need to have the people in place to go through that final training and certification process which will lead us up to the first of October.

And then the other major undertaking that we're involved in, very heavily involved in now and have been for several months -- actually going back to last summer -- is our assumption of responsibility for all the activities that today European Command is responsible for, Central Command is responsible for, and the little bit that Pacific Command is responsible for with the island nations.

And that's a very, very detailed, comprehensive process because we've made a point with all audiences -- and most importantly with our African partners -- that they should expect no interruption, no disruption, or perturbation of any ongoing activity when we assume responsibility for all these activities on the first of October. And so making sure that we, in fact, deliver on that requires an extensive amount of planning. Just last week I was back down in Tampa for discussions with CENTCOM on, again, all the details we're working our way through on the transfer of the Horn of Africa responsibilities to us, again, on the first of October.

So, with that I will stop and open it up to your questions.

QUESTIONER: Sir, I'd like to go back to the mission statement where the command is going to support the mil-to-mil operations. Also, I don't think AFRICOM is going to have assigned forces in the Services. If they are, it's going to be very limited. What do you envision, after you've assumed all the ongoing missions on the continent, what do you envision and how far down the road if we're going to take this slow approach -- do you see an increase of military-to-military engagements? What are the priorities on this huge continent on where those mil-to-mil engagements are going to be? And then what are the Services prepared to support these increases of mil-to-mil operations as we build our partners' capacities?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Well, I think, yeah, first of all, you're correct. I mean we will not have assigned or allocated forces in the same way that the other unified commands have, and that was a decision made early by the Department in our planning effort. We will have components, Service components, like the other unified commands, but our ability to -- or our need for forces from time to time or on a regular basis to do the activities that we conduct with our African partners will be part of the global force management process, and should there be some type of crisis that we need to respond to, then we'll use the request for forces process that is in place.

Our priorities with regard to what the activities will be will be first of all to pick up responsibility for everything that's ongoing today. But then over time, again, we are very, very interested in adding value to those. So through the consultation process with our African partners, we will be discussing everything that we do with them today and determining, based on their interest and their priorities, if in fact they want to change some of that mix, add to some current activities, and quite frankly we anticipate that they will want to add to some of those activities.

How we then prioritize all of those across the continent will be done in a way that's aligned with the national security strategy in terms of what we do with what individual countries and how we approach that on a regional basis. One of the things we also look to do, in addition to working on a bilateral basis, is working in support of the regional economic communities and particularly to work in support of the brigades of the Africa Standby Force. We've already had some preliminary discussions with ECOWAS in West Africa about some things that they're interested in late in 2008/early 2009 from a standpoint of exercise preparation and execution planning, etc. And just a couple of weeks ago, Ambassador Yates and I were in Nairobi for discussions with the representatives, director, and commanding general of EASTBRIG about some of the things that they're looking to do and areas in which they would be very interested in some of our support as well. And so we'll be looking to do all that.

With regard to the Services being, you know, what their thinking is and their being postured to support these kinds of activities, increasingly, quite frankly, all of them are very, very interested in working, you know, in support of our planning activities. We've had a lot of discussions, certainly -- particularly, with the Navy and the Marine Corps in regard to that.

I think as you're all probably very familiar, here recently we just completed a very successful deployment of the USS Fort McHenry in the form of what was called the Africa Partnership Station, working with our West African partners to help them develop the skills, capabilities, and capacity for them to be able to monitor and oversee what goes on in the maritime domain, particularly in the Gulf of Guinea, because they all clearly understand that to have a secure, stable, environment ashore and set the conditions for long-term economic development across West Africa, they understand completely that that also requires having a very secure maritime domain, and I think as you're all aware, there are certainly some challenges in that area today. So that is something that we will be looking to sustain over time. The Navy's certainly very interested in doing that, and we're just in the process of kind of putting the pieces together along those lines.

QUESTIONER: I want to ask a more pointed follow-up to that. There are a number of -- at least by all reports -- successful programs in terms of partnering states' national guards with individual African nations. Do you see that expanding under AFRICOM, and not only in terms of other states, but also potentially bringing in the Reserve Air National Guard from other Services?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: We will be looking at that very, very closely. Again, based on my own Central Command experience, the state partnership program was a very, very effective and successful program that we had instituted with a number of countries across that region, and from the discussions we've had with what currently exists in Africa -- and it's a fairly limited number of partnerships today -- but we're going to look very, very closely at that to expand that as well because it is a very effective program and it is, you know, very -- it tends to be very responsive to the needs of our African partners.

MR. SINGER: And if you could identify yourself before your question.

QUESTIONER: Sure. Good morning. Thanks Admiral. My name is Robert Gribbin. I'm the author of an article in the current edition of Foreign Service Journal urging caution in the implementation of AFRICOM's responsibilities, particularly in the socio-economic political sphere. But I want to ask a devil's advocate question, and I want to walk the horse a bit back towards the barn.

In looking at Africa with maybe the exceptions of Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, the core armies of which engaged in a revolutionary process to overthrow oppressive regimes. Elsewhere on the continent, African military establishments have not been positive factors in the implementation of democracy and the spread of stability. You might say the possible exception of Kenya in the recent crisis in sitting it out and South Africa and the change to majority rule also in sitting it out. But why do you think it's in the United States' interest to strengthen military institutions when in most countries this will give them more predominate weight in the very fragile political situations as they exist?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Our efforts will be geared toward the business, what we describe as security sector reform. So working with our African partners in helping them transform their militaries into institutions that are very, very much in support of their civilian leadership, and clearly that is going to be a long-term process. We recognize that this is not something that can be done in a relatively short period of time, but we certainly believe that that is a way -- it is a goal, it is a very, very worthwhile goal, and ultimately over time we can be successful in that regard. And we think that's very, very important to the long-term success in moving toward creating conditions of stability on a regional basis and across the continent overall.

QUESTIONER: Josh Marks, National Endowment for Democracy. I had a question regarding civilian recruitment. Given some of the information that you've given us about a 50/50 breakdown between uniform personnel and civilians, and then also the implications of a robust civilian component to the functions that you mentioned in your PowerPoint, how difficult has it been to -- what are the challenges rather to recruit civilians into a lot of these slots, given also that it's more difficult to move civilians around than it is to move uniform personnel when you're trying to create an organization?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: It's been somewhat challenging. What we've decided to do, as you may be aware, the Defense Department is in the process of implementing the new National Security Personnel System, somewhat different construct than the overall civilian policy that was in place up to a relatively short time ago. We decided last summer that it would probably make most sense to begin the stand-up of the command under that construct, as opposed to transition to it later on when we would already be fully engaged and be very, very busy in working activities.

There's a kind of a set process that you need to go through in terms of the development of position descriptions, advertising, these assignments that are done on a web site, and then go through the process of screening, a competitive screening process, to select individuals for individual assignments. And so that has been a little bit challenging to kind of work our way through, simply because, again, it requires having a lot of folks on board who can devote the time to developing the position descriptions. And some of that is further challenged by the fact that as we build this organization that I outlined briefly, is that in some of these positions from our standpoint, that is to say strictly from a military standpoint, we have a lot to learn ourselves about the exact specific kind of skill set that we would look for from other U.S. government agencies to be able to bring that subject matter expertise to the organization so that, in fact, we can harmonize all of our efforts.

By in large, all these individuals who come to us from other U.S. government agencies -- when they report to the command, they will essentially be dual-hatted as Defense Department employees as well. And that's also a key piece with regard to their status, if you will, in Germany, because for them to be there and working for us, they need to be doing Defense work as opposed to doing Commerce work or DHS work or, you know, other U.S. government employment because that's really the only way that they can be there under the NATO SOFA, which allows all of us to be there. So that remains very much a work in progress.

Now the other challenge, of course, or in parallel with all of that, is the fact that what's the capacity of other U.S. government agencies to cut people loose and send them our way. There is tremendous interest and a lot of enthusiasm to do that, but they simply look around, it's like how many people do they have themselves that they can break away from what they're doing today and come our way. So this is a very very much an ongoing consultation process, but, again, tremendous enthusiasm. It's just not something that can be done overnight.

MR. SINGER: Let's get another question in the back there.

QUESTIONER: I'm Carol Cones with Safe Blood for Africa Foundation, and I wondered if you've gotten to the point where you're addressing the importance of healthcare infrastructure and rebuilding that in these countries, many of whom have no healthcare infrastructure at the moment, because we've found that within the military, which we work with sometimes, it's also important, too. Is that going to be a key component in what you're planning?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: We will be assuming responsibility on the first of October for that which is done today overseen by European Command, Central Command, a little bit by Pacific Command, with regard to the HIV issue, with regard to African militaries. Beyond that, we would look for opportunities to support other U.S. government agencies or perhaps the international community that is working on some of those activities. We will not, again -- and I want to emphasize this -- we will not have the lead responsibility for any of that. But where it makes sense to do so, and that we can lend resources to supporting those kinds of activities, then we will certainly look to do that.

QUESTIONER: I want to toss another question in here, which is this. You have a unique experience in having led the transition team, the planning team, and are now in your current role. What has caught you by the most surprise that a couple of years later, you look back and go wow, this is something that played out a lot differently than we expected?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: I think I'd probably at this point in time go back to just the process of building the organization from the standpoint of bringing our DOD civilians and interagency partners onboard. Quite frankly, personally, I wish that I would have been much more knowledgeable myself back in the early planning days about the details of the civilian personnel policy system. Because for those of us in uniform, even -- regardless of where we serve, I mean you serve alongside our civilian counterparts, but you're really not involved in all those policies in terms of their training, their development, how they're recruited, etc. In all other commands or organizations, that's all done by somebody else. When you have to create this yourself, then it requires, you know, really jumping into the middle of all that and it's pretty complex. And so, personally.

I just think that, you know, for those of us in uniform, if we had a lot more expertise early on or been able to kind of actually reach out and probably at a sooner point, at an earlier point in time work even more closely than we have with those folks in OSD who do that. We'd probably be a little further on than we are today.

QUESTIONER: Samuel Gains Jones, Department of Health and Human Services. I know General Ward and you have been around the continent trying to talk to African governments and engaging them. I think that's been successful, especially with some of the governments you met with. But there's still a huge amount of negative publicity that's going on beyond the military and the government, especially in the press. So I think there's a lot of public diplomacy that still has to be done. And there's a lot of negative publicity that went on during the hiatus when nobody said anything. But I think that can be counted because we know the agency's like ours. I mean we've been working, especially with the (inaudible) in many of these African countries instead of wonderful, impressive infectious-disease programs with African militaries. I think this is something that can be built on and can help with the public diplomacy.

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Well we certainly believe that. There's a lot more consultation that needs to be done and we look forward to doing. I mean it's unfortunate that in the early months, shortly after -- actually before the White House announced this in the months right afterward, there were any number of misconceptions and misunderstandings and apprehension about what all of this would entail. I mean, anywhere from the establishment of this command meant that we're going to be deploying tens of thousands of troops to the continent, establishing bases all over the continent, none of which quite frankly we intend to do. As is the case today, when we agree with our African partners to do some particular event, activity, training event, or something like that, we bring forces to continent, do the event, the event is over, and they leave. And that'll continue to be the case in the future.

I mean in many ways at its core even though we're looking again given what our mission is and our organizational design, at the end of the day this is really about a change in ball caps. I mean where people downrange today, our African partners see somebody wearing a European Command or one of their components a ball cap, or Central Command or Pacific Command.

In the future, it will be Africa Command ball caps, because this is at its core, an internal reorganization within Defense such that we can be much more responsive to our African partners than has been the case in the past given three organizations or three commands focused on those activities, but not as a primary focus. I mean I can certainly speak to that from my time at Central Command when, you know, I think you can all understand we were focused certainly over the last several years primarily on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East, and yes, responsible for what was going on in the Horn of Africa. But that was a lesser priority than our focus elsewhere.

And the same can be said for European Command and Pacific Command. But that changes now. And here recently, back in the middle of March, for the first time ever a 4-star officer, General Ward, testified before the House Armed Services Committee start to finish on our relations with our African partners. That's never happened before. And so in the future, I think you can anticipate not only will we be articulating what we need to do from a military-to-military standpoint to build the capacity of our African partners, but we will also be articulating the needs of our other U.S. government agency partners in terms of the resourcing they need to be able to carry out the responsibilities that they have with our African partners, such that collectively we're all successful and most responsive and much more responsive in the future to the needs of our African partners.

QUESTIONER: Jared Lawyer, International Peace Operations Association. Historically and currently a lot of the programs are carried out by the private sector in Africa to much success. Do you see the role of the private sector to continue in helping you carry out these programs?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Very, very good question. I mean, the private sector will continue to do that and, again, like other U.S. government agencies, we will look to see if it makes sense and where they would perhaps welcome some support that we might be able to offer. I'm not sure; I can't tell you today what that support, what form that might take. We have had, back in I think it was February, may be early March, an opportunity to meet with the corporate counsel on Africa and have kind of a wide-ranging discussion, kind of laid out what we were doing, and they are very, very interested in working with us also. What that support design looks like is yet to be determined, but we are very, very interested in supporting them where it makes sense to do so, as well as the business community overall.

QUESTIONER: Thank you. Sean McFate, the Bipartisan Policy Center. I thank you today, Admiral, for coming today. I have a question about first impressions in terms of this: In your mind, ideally, what would be a good first major operation for AFRICOM to engage in? What would that look like? When would that occur? What would the mission be? And any other thoughts about that would be welcome. Thank you.

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Well, first of all, again, what, you know -- any of the things that we do will be a result of what U.S. government policy is across the continent overall and on a regional basis. So that, you know, our ability to kind of just necessarily kind of step out -- we don't have the authority to just kind of step out on our own and do some of these kinds of things. I think, you know, certainly what we are going to be very interested in doing is following up on and looking for ways to expand such things like the Africa Partnership Station because that had very, very significant impact in West Africa, very, very well received. There is also ongoing discussion that, matter of fact, I just participated in last Monday at National Defense University with the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping.

They are interested in working closely with us and we're interested, we're clearly interested in doing that. Again, but before we can do anything there, that needs to be a U.S. government policy position that the U.S. is going to step in and support some level of activity. And then there's a role for that, for Defense, and obviously if it affects Africa, then that would come our way.

Right now, until all of that sorts itself out, what we're looking to do is establish good working relationships with that office at the U.N. Matter of fact we will likely be inviting them to come to Stuttgart for some follow-up discussions so that they have a better understanding of what we're about, some of the things that we're focusing on, and allow us to also get a much deeper understanding about some of their goals, the challenges that they currently face, some of the things that they may be looking at in the future, etc.

QUESTIONER: Good morning. Erwin Negadick from the Centron (inaudible) Relations. You talk about the U.N. and I wonder if you could also have a word about the E.U. Now I understand as you are setting up AFRICOM, you are interested in consulting informally with especially member states of the E.U. that have a traditional interest in Africa, France, the U.K., and Portugal. And just a sense from you of your impressions or your reaction to this idea, and also how you see this relationship going forward on the military side and also civilian/humanitarian side? Thanks.

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: There is, as you point out, there is tremendous interest in what we're doing as we establish this command and the things that we're going to be focused on with our European partners. For us to have a formal relationship with the E.U., that would require, again, that would be a U.S. policy decision to do that. And I mean, we just can't reach out directly to the European Union.

We are and have had and continue to have ongoing discussions on a bilateral basis with our European partners and, in fact, getting back to this organizational construct, we will be looking to extend invitations to a number of our European partners over time for them to send officers to the command to have embedded in the organizational design, to have substantive staff positions. And then over time beyond that, actually extend invitations to our African partners if they would also like to join the command, again in substantive staff positions.

Now in terms of, you know, the activities that the European Union is looking at, again, as things stand right now, we might, you know, support, you know, countries on a bilateral basis. Again, all subject to U.S. policy in terms of what we may or may not do. So, that needs to be first sorted out here, a decision made in Washington with regard to what a role might be for Defense with regard to any of that, and then, you know, assuming that there was a decision that there is a role for Defense, and then that would likely come our way.

QUESTIONER: Hi, I'm Fera Barrius from the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Given Congressional action going on at the war supplemental on Congress, how do you find the AFRICOM future given the next administration?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: We're confident, I mean, in all of the discussions that we've had with members and staff up to this point in time, there has been a lot of support for the command, the idea of establishing the command, and the kinds of things that we will be focusing on, both again from a military-to-military standpoint, as well as in support of the rest of U.S. government agencies. So, we're -- I mean it certainly remains to be seen, but we're confident that we will be resourced to do the work that we look to do.

QUESTIONER: What are the primary concerns that staffers are raising with you and what are your answers to those concerns?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Some of the issues raised, again, because this wasn't perhaps articulated very, very well upfront in sufficient detail, was this idea that somehow the establishment of this command meant that, you know, kind of Defense was over-reaching into the foreign policy realm and that we were going to set U.S. foreign policy for Africa, which is, again, that is not the case at all.

We're clearly in support of that which is established by the State Department and the Secretary of State. So, a lot -- probably as much as anything questions and concerns raised about that -- there's also, as you can probably appreciate, a lot of interest in how well is this interagency mix coming together. And so, kind of, you know, talked them through, again, the idea that tremendous interest, there's a process to adhere that we have to work our way through, put all these MOUs in place between Defense and other agencies, because, again, this is so fundamentally different than any of our other unified commands.

QUESTIONER: I'm Julie Howard from the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. I wonder if you might comment a little bit more about the discussions with the African Union. To what extent it's a priority of the AFRICOM, as well as a priority of the African Union to get help, resourcing, and preparing the AU as the response on the continent to rapid deployment.

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Well, with the new leadership in place at the African Union, we began, just really started to have some introductory discussions and Ambassador Yates was just recently in Addis to do that. We look to follow-up with them in Addis, as well as elsewhere around the continent with the regional organizations. The point was made actually last spring here in Washington when over the course of about three days we had an opportunity to gather with a number of African ambassadors here in Washington, deputy chiefs of Mission and Defense attachhhhÃs. And a couple of points that they made up front with us was, first of all, they very, very much welcomed the idea that in Defense we were establishing one command solely responsible for these relationships and activities as opposed to the three that are still in place today. They could never really understand why we were organized that way.

And then the second point that they made was the strong need to engage on a regional basis with the regional economic communities, and then be in a strong position to work closely with the brigades of the Africa Standby Force, such that they build the capacity to be able to respond to some of the crises that they have as well as, of course, you know, develop the capacities such that they can contribute to both African Union and U.N. peacekeeping missions across the continent.

So, we've really with the, again, with the new leadership in place, we've just begun those discussions, but anticipate a lot more of those in the future. On a regional basis, again, based on all the consultations we've had up to this point, they are very, very interested in working with us and defining what we may be able to do in support of those organizations, and that will be something that we continue to pursue aggressively here over the months ahead.

MR. SINGER: There's a lot of questions. Oh, I'm sorry --

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: no, I was just going to say, particularly after the first of October since, you know, right now so much of our focus -- we do some of this outreach across the continent, but still most of our focus up to this point in time until the first of October is building the organization and our assumption of responsibilities from UCOM, CENTCOM and PACOM.

MR. SINGER: There's a lot of questions left, so what I'm going to ask is we're going to bundle two together. So wait to answer the first one, so we'll do two at a time. Let's do you two in the corner here?

QUESTIONER: My name is Emily Rutherford. I'm a reporter at Publication Defense Daily, and I'm just curious about any equipment needs that you see, either the near-term or the longer term. Do you feel that AFRICOM is in good shape in terms of vehicles, aircraft, whatever else, or looking at this new construct, do you see any gaps there?

MR. SINGER: And the gentleman behind you?

QUESTIONER: Will Armatruda, Catholic University and a veteran of the former Army Base in Eritrea. With regard to the American installation in the Republic of Djibouti, do you see any modification of their mission with the advent of AFRICOM, or is it just a matter of changing ball caps?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: First of all, with regard to equipment needs, that's something that we're in discussion with regard to the Department in terms of, again, logistics support, getting back and forth to the continent and around the continent. That will be something we're going need a lot of air support to do that, and those discussions are ongoing. That's probably the biggest need that we anticipate in the years to come. And so the Department is looking to how to put those resources in place for us, and I think that will all come to fruition here over the next several years.

Sir, with regard to your question, as things stand right now and we've made the point particularly with our African partners that what is currently ongoing today under the purview of CJTF Horn of Africa, all of that continues. We're not looking to make any changes in that organizational construct, what their mission is, or the kind of activities that they work across that region. And even, you know, to some degree with countries that are kind of actually outside the immediate area, there are some countries that are actually part of European Command's area of operations. And we absolutely anticipate continuing that, and have made the point on Capitol Hill as well that what exists today there in Camp Le Monier is very, very much an enduring entity.

QUESTIONER: I want to press you on the first question, but ask you not only to wear your AFRICOM hat, but also the uniform as a surface naval officer. One of the things that we hear, and we've had folks from a lot of the different commands come in, is talk about utility as you raised of, for example on the Fort McHenry, and their ability to do these kind of non-kinetic operations, what we get out of these tenders and the like. Can you speak to that as compared to where we stand now on our acquisitions plans for the future? Do we have a match there?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: That's something that I think the Department is taking a look at. As you may be aware, the Navy's new maritime strategy is very, very much kind of aligned with the kind of activities that we will certainly be pursuing with our African partners here over time. And then looking at, okay, are the resources now aligned with all of that? That's somewhat a work in progress. In fact, we'll probably be talking about that more later this week because one of the other reasons I'm in Washington is the Navy's 3-4 star conferences is ongoing this week and we're going to be talking about just those very kinds of things.

QUESTIONER: (off mike) from the Embassy (inaudible). How are the discussions going on with respect to the location of AFRICOM in Africa? How soon do you expect the headquarters of AFRICOM to be in Africa? Thank you.

MR. SINGER: And then the gentleman right here, a couple of rows in front, yes.
QUESTIONER: Good morning. Brian Brown, The Analysis Corporation. I'm wondering if you could discuss or at least explain the relationship that AFRICOM will have with counterterrorism initiatives. You mentioned the joint/combined task force at the Horn of Africa and you probably also are aware the mission began as counterterrorism; 2002 changed after there was little activity and then this year, the joint/combined task force was instrumental in tracking and doing a kinetic operation against the Organization of Islamic Courts in Somalia. So I'm wondering when you say that AFRICOM will continue the CJTF initiatives, how in a broader sense will you leverage kinetic and non-kinetic activity and counterterrorism initiatives for Africa?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: First, with regard to your question about headquarters locations and presence. In the near to -- well, for the foreseeable future, and how long that may be is somewhat unknown right now, but for some number of years to come, we certainly anticipate being where we are at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart. With regard to downrange presence, one of the things that we're looking to do is expand, and look where it makes sense to do so, expand military representation in embassies in the form of our offices of security cooperation.

That is to say, those officers that are assigned have responsibility for the security assistance that we provide to our African partners. In a number of places around the continent, there will be an office established in an embassy in a particular country and that officer or officers have responsibility for several countries in addition to just the one that they're assigned in. And so we're looking at ways we can expand their presence in other embassies around the country, or around the continent I should say. And so we're early in the process of thinking that through, what other countries we would look to expand that presence in, what the priority for assignment of those individuals. And then we have to work our way through with the Services, etc., as well as the State Department to put all of that in place.

We think that, again, there may be an opportunity at some point in the future to put perhaps a more substantial presence on the continent, but that's something to be worked out at some point well into the future. First and foremost from our perspective is the need to work the activities and the programs with our African partners and our sense is that perhaps over time, perhaps, no guarantees here, but that our African partners would say that perhaps, you know, if you had more presence here in this region or that region, our ability to engage would be more effective than it is by you working long distance from Germany. But, again, all that is something that will get worked out at some point in the future and, of course, that needs to be first of all resolved between Defense and State in terms of priorities, locations, size, etc. And then, obviously, that would then lead to an extensive consultation process with our African partners. And, you know, I think you can certainly understand, we're not going to go anywhere that we're not invited.
And, sir, your question again, I'm sorry.

QUESTIONER: (inaudible)

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Oh yes. Again, yes, we will be assuming responsibility for all those activities. And where our primary focus is on capacity building and working with our African partners in regard those kinds of activities, we still will be responsible for counterterrorism work where that needs to take place. So that which, again, is certainly today the responsibility of Central Command and European Command will be ours on the first of October.

MR. SINGER: Let's get one last set of two here.

QUESTIONER: Chris Adams. I'm an attorney in Washington, D.C. Morocco is our ally and (inaudible) and now is fighting two wars, one in its southern provinces which is a vast, very vast and a huge area and controlled area, against the Islamic extremism. The second war is against the separatists movement, which is supported by Fidel Castro and now by his brother, so what are we doing to help Morocco in this aspect. We shouldn't be the propaganda, the Cuban propaganda, in that area, in that vast and controlled area.

QUESTIONER: Good morning Admiral. Steve Mayer, I'm a Navy Fellow here this year at Brookings. Creation of the unified command plan creates seams around the world. And around the Horn of Africa, you talked about maintaining the operations of CJTF HOA. What I watched in my time out in NAVCENT (inaudible) in the past few years is even HOA and NAVCENT didn't really talk well in doing counter piracy, and now you've created that seam along the Horn of Africa, the counter piracy and human trafficking and what not that's been within CENTCOM's realm is now across that seam. What are the visions for the future of those kind of operations in the maritime domain?

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: Sir, first with regard to your question. I mean, ultimately that becomes a U.S. policy decision and what our involvement may be in any of that in the future would be a subset of whatever ultimately becomes a U.S. policy decision. And so it would be premature for me to be able to address that at this point in time.

The whole issue of unified command seams and boundaries across unified command areas of operation is, in fact, something that we're engaged in with the Department. We think that we can come up with a workable solution to be able to readily flow forces across those lines to be responsive in one area of another.

You've got to work through the details of being able to make that happen quickly if events require that we don't have days to sort something out, that we need to be able to put forces against a challenge in relatively short time. And so, that process of discussions and planning is something that we're working on right now and is part of the discussion that we had with CENTCOM last week as well.

MR. SINGER: Admiral, I wanted to thank you for three things: One, for joining us all here today. You can see the great interest in the topics that you're working on; second, for a fabulous presentation and also answering so many questions. I think all of us walk away from here knowing a lot more and you've answered a lot of the issues of debate and discussion that are surrounding AFRICOM. And then third, thank you for the great service that you're providing this nation. So please join me in a round of applause.

(Applause)

And we hope all of you will join us at Brookings again. Thank you.

VICE ADMIRAL MOELLER: It's easy to get to Stuttgart, so if anybody wants to come over there for a visit, you know!