Nothing symbolizes the dual character of this new alliance — half military cooperation, half vehicle for exporting the American approach to national security — than the 33-nation special operations exercise known as Flintlock, a yearly occurrence that was hosted by Senegal in January, and this year was the largest ever of its kind.
General Wald said the European Command's next major Special Operations exercises would be held in North Africa with several countries taking part "on a mulitlateral basis, which is an historic thing to do".
"The command's operations, exercises, and security cooperation assistance programs support U.S. Government foreign policy and do so primarily through military-to-military activities and assistance programs," according to AFRICOM.
Those 674 missions amounted to an almost 300% jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military trainings since U.S. Africa Command was established in 2008. .
A glance at just some of the operations, exercises, and activities that have come to light, however, paints a picture of a globetrotting command in constant churn with alliances in every corner of the planet. .
In other words, U.S. troops were carrying out almost two operations, exercises, or activities -- from drone strikes to counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence gathering to marksmanship training -- somewhere in Africa every day.
Joint Special Operations Command is a component command of the USSOCOM and is charged to study special operations requirements and techniques to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises and training, and develop Joint Special Operations Tactics.
Throughout July, the battalion undertook desert familiarisation training and sports parades before moving to Kabrit where they concentrated with the rest of the 5th Infantry Brigade for a three-week combined operations exercise.
U.S. Africa Command describes its activities as advancing "U.S. national security interests through focused, sustained engagement with partners" and insists that its "operations, exercises, and security cooperation assistance programs support U.S. Government foreign policy and do so primarily through military-to-military activities and assistance programs".
In 2014, the U.S. carried out 674 military activities across Africa, nearly two missions per day, an almost 300percentt jump in the number of annual operations, exercises, and military-to-military training activities since U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) was established in 2008. .
