AFRICOM and Studying Modern Neocolonial, Imperialist Formations

Ethiopian and Eritrean students at a protest in the 1970s against the emperor

In the light of the recent widespread conflicts throughout Ethiopia and Eritrea this past fall, I recognized that I knew next to nothing about the countries my family is from. I understood on a very surface level the rise of the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) and EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front), but I didn’t know what information to trust about the history. I didn’t know what or how Ethiopia’s politics were impacted by US neo-colonial efforts as well. All of my questioning and curiosity led me to learn about AFRICOM.

AFRICOM, or the United States Africa Command, is a fairly unknown (at least in mainstream dialogue about foreign policy) US initiative that started in 2007 by the Bush administration and carried out/expanded under Obama. The mission statement for this military program is what you would expect it to be:

“U.S. Africa Command, with partners, counters transnational threats and malign actors, strengthens security forces, and responds to crises in order to advance U.S. national interests and promote regional security, stability, and prosperity.”

As one could probably assume, none of this is true. Rather, the project of AFRICOM has one clear underlying agenda: to preserve and expand US hegemony, in part due to the rise in China’s trade…