Tomorrow's Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa

by Nick Turse

You won’t see segments about it on the nightly news or read about it on the front page of America’s newspapers, but the Pentagon is fighting a new shadow war in Africa, helping to destabilize whole countries and preparing the ground for future blowback. Behind closed doors, U.S. officers now claim that “Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today." In Tomorrow’s Battlefield, award-winning journalist and bestselling author Nick Turse exposes the shocking true story of the U.S. military’s spreading secret wars in Africa.

Genres: Africa, Nonfiction, War, History, Politics, Military Fiction, The United States Of America

232 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 2015

Reviews

[Dolores Voorhees · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not an easy read -- the four stars is about how much I learned from reading the book. AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command) was launched seven years ago to enhance the national security of African nation-states, and to protect supposed threats to U.S. interests there. Instead, the region has become less stable very much because of our intervention. The ongoing war in Somalia, the break-up of Sudan and the subsequent civil war in the newly-created South Sudan, and wars in Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Cameroon and Chad are unfortunate, to say the least. The Pentagon insists we have a very "light footprint" in Africa, but we carry out more than two operations a day on the continent (e.g. drone strikes, counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence gathering, marksmanship training, etc.). All paid for by we taxpayers.

We are NOT enabling peace.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great reporting but almost inherently lends itself to not a great book because so much is unanswered, unknowable, classified. Large swathes of the book are laying out email chains between the author and various toadies who evade his questions, but then that is where things stay. I’m not sure if there was ever a follow up because I think the material here is very interesting. The authors other book that I read, kill anything that moves, can be illustratively compared. Institutional denial and obfuscation is part of that story too, but between testimony, confession, and released information he assembled a compelling narrative. This is almost like the notes of the beginning part of a similar book were released before the reporting was concluded. Fascinating but frustrating

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very solid overview of the U.S. military’s deepening involvements in Africa from 9/11 to about 2014. Am now curious to learn what’s changed since publication. Turse harps on American mistakes in such a way that makes you want to do the “the result of a system is its purpose” thing, but I actually do think it’s important to recognize that the US military is capable of dramatic failures on its own terms. It’s essentially a series of blog posts collated into a book, so expect some repetition, but life is crazy and reminders can be helpful…

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

If American politicians and media people had read this book when it came out in 2015, they would not be so surprised by the October 9 2017 death of four US soldiers in Niger. The author, Nick Turse, appears to be the sole journalist who has focused on the massive expansion of US military intervention in Africa dating back to 2007. The book is a great compendium of facts about that expansion, and not designed to be read as a narrative and probably not engaging to most casual readers. But Nick Turse deserves great credit for pursuing this research with zero encouragement from the military and little support from progressive publishers. His main point is that the expansion is continually increasing and creating enormous disorder as well as new enemies for the United States. He certainly does not buy the justification so often heard since 9-11 for any new military action - that US troops are out there fighting terrorists and somehow protecting the United States and its values.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Important information. Detail needed because it is otherwise so hidden. However, tedious to read the detail.

[Zare · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this very interesting book, the author is taking us onto a ride through series of articles written in a period of little less than 3 years.

Topic is a very interesting: escalation from US side on Africa soil, strengthening and developing ever more militarized operations but claiming all the time nothing to see here in a manner reminiscent of Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun fame.

The author did a deep dive, including calls and correspondence with military command for Africa, one that decided after a while to stop responding to any meaningful question.

So, what is actually going on in Africa? In all honesty, I doubt anyone can answer this question. US is constantly beefing up the forces in the area, and apparently, besides military or better said militarized approach from US foreign department, no actual civilians are involved from US side.

What is visible is that US develops nations (as in brings their own people to power - South Sudan, Lybia and Chad being horrendous examples) into proxies that are then used to conduct actual combat missions under US command. And, of course, NATO and other allies (Bulgaria, France, etc) are also brought in to bleed for the governor.

While reasons for this are obvious - land grab under pretenses, of the same kind we see in Eastern Europe these last few years - it is weird how all this assistance is treated as prevention to insurgency which is nowhere to be found [which reminds of enemy is all around us all the time hysteria, pre-emptive is the word so lets get 'em begore they get us..... I guess any demonstration or discontent with proxy is to be hammered down].

I have to admit that a lot of things are now clearer in retrospect, especially when we take into account the current stance of good part of Africa towards the West. African government hired mercenaries [from Russia] fighting rebels helped by Western secret services and their Eastern European mercenaries are just brushfires that might end up in a conflagration.

It is not that this is something new - Africa was used as a proxy battleground since WW2. The problem now is that one party involved (West) does not want to share anything, and if the solution is a complete destabilization and destruction, they are willing to sacrifice locals. It is as if West has decided to treat everything via total war approach, which is terrifying.

I mean, how else to explain sole deployment and employment of army organizations (engineering, army, navy, and black ops) in the area, other than dominating power establishing communication lanes to control the area and deny it to anyone else. There are no civil contractors used here, except again for military purposes.

Do note that the author criticizes US policy as it is, causing havoc without gaining long-term allies. The author just wants to get to the reason why. And this we will be happy to get in written form in next 50 to 100 years.

Mistakes are made, and US and allies have lost some of the foothold on the continent. Hope is that Africa won't again become a full-scale war hot spot as it was case in south of the continent in the 1980s. It seems that people reference history not to learn from it but to re-apply it.

Very interesting book, highly recommended.

[Henry Hakamaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, but I'm rounding down because there was SO MUCH potential for this to be a home run, 5*, top shelf book, but they missed the opportunity.

The good: Great look at how wide the US has thrown its net over Africa via AFRICOM, and the endless string of failures left in its wake. The writing style (being a series of articles) makes for fast reading. Some genuinely excellent reporting.
The bad: The typical repetitive phrases that you come to expect when a book is made up of articles/essays. Not nearly enough backgrounding and diving into the root causes of both the instability, as well as why the US is increasing involvement.

Why did I only give this 3 stars? Because of how easy it would have been to make this a 5* book. Here's what would've done it for me: Remove the repetitive phrases (easy enough), and add ~25 pages of backgrounding for different conflicts/countries before introducing the reportage done. For example, 5 pages each on the background/history of the instability in South Sudan, Mali, Libya, the Central African Republic, Somalia, and the Gulf of Guinea, as well as a few pages on the geopolitical background of Djibouti and Chad, would have made this book stunning. Due to the nature of these being a series of articles, they're all based in the "present" (meaning when each piece was written) and only alludes to the background history at moments. Long strings of countries/insurgent groups are rattled off without introducing how most of them came about, how they gathered strength, their ideology, and how they are being combatted. Turse already did the hard work of getting these (great) articles together, and as I said, they're genuinely brilliant reporting. A bit of extra work to just introduce and background the players in the story, though, would have made this less a string of articles and more a coherent and in depth book based on reportage, but with the requisite background to fully appreciate them. I got it because of prior readings I've done, but the lack of that extra work here really lets the whole book down, despite the premise and concept being top notch.

[Yngve Skogstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nick Turse investigates the extent to which the United States has become militarily involved on the African continent, but unfortunately isn't able to deliver concise answers, due to the prevailing sense of secrecy within the U.S. military, obstructing Turse's work. It's hard to write a truly exciting and revolatory book when the data that you rely upon is so limited.

Tomorrow's Battlefield lacks a narrative that propels the story forward, and neither does Turse provide a clear argument for why the rapidly increasing U.S. footprint in Africa is problematic. Judging from what he focuses on, it's primarily that the U.S. spends a lot of money, and that it's operations are ineffective when compared to its own stated objectives. Which is a very narrow and structurally shallow critique.

What results is an often dull string of facts that leaves the reader emotionally unaffected and often unable to recollect much of what's being communicated.
The whole work seems to lack a logical structure, and reads more like a collection of newspaper articles than a book project.

All that said, this is still a useful work of reference for people interested in area studies, U.S. military and empire or the international political system more generally.

[Charlie Rosenthal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like the collection of columns it is, but very interesting.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is a collection of articles that appeared on TomDispatch.com, edited for publiction by their author, Nick Turse, and as such, I couldn't give more than 3 stars for quality. But in terms of information, the author goes all the way and paints a complete geopolitical picture of the new scramble for Africa, if we could call it that, between The U.S. and China.

The description of all the US bases in Africa, as well as the accompanying map, is startling and very informative, as well as the ensuing discussion with a US army representative, published as an Afterword. The discussion covers many hot points, including the fact that armed forces do not consider most of these settlements official US bases, even if according to Turse, "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a duck".

The chapter on South Sudan, and the competing influences of the US and China on financing opposing armed forces within the country, as well as the blame for having such armed forces create a civil war, is enlightening. Overall, nothing is spared, and though not a super-detailed geopolitical analysis, it is an excellent start of what Turse rightfully calls "tomorrow's battlefield".

[Muldvarper]

Here's a couple of articles the author has published in 'VICE News Africa' the last months that echoes the book, plus some updated info and numbers:

The war you’ve never heard of May 18, 2017

The U.S. military is conducting secret missions all over Africa Oct 25, 2017

The next Niger - What we know about America’s elite forces now operating in 33 African countries Nov 29, 2017

[David Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part of the reason a Clinton win is not good for our world. Ignore foreign policy at your peril.