Military Review English Edition July-August 2015 | Page 78

At the request of the Liberian government, we’re going to establish a military command center in Liberia to support civilian
efforts across the region—similar to our response after the Haiti earthquake. … And our forces are going to bring their
expertise in command and control, in logistics, in engineering. And our Department of Defense is better at that, our Armed
Services are better at that than any organization on Earth.
—President Barack Obama, 16 September 2014

F

rom December 2013 to mid-September 2014,
the Ebola virus had swept through Liberia,
Guinea, and Sierra Leone, killing thousands
and threatening to spread throughout western
Africa and beyond. By order of the president of
the United States, the U.S. Department of Defense
(DOD) established Joint Force Command–United
Assistance as part of a unified-action approach to
combat the growing Ebola threat. Formed with a
core of soldiers from U.S. Army Africa (USARAF),
the Army Service component command (ASCC) for
U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM), Joint Force
Command–United Assistance reached a combined
strength of 686 personnel before transferring responsibility to the 101st Airborne Division (Air
Assault) on 25 October 2014.
The initial phase of Operation United Assistance
(OUA) showed that ASCCs play a critical operational role in setting conditions favorable for mission
success in a theater (also called setting the theater)
and a joint operations area, and in shaping the
security environment. This enables joint forces to
win in a complex world. USARAF’s experiences can
inform DOD and its partners in preparing for future
humanitarian assistance operations.

The Growth of the Ebola Threat
The Ebola epidemic evolved over many months.
The first case in the outbreak was likely a Guinean
boy who died in December 2013. From there, the
virus spread to Liberia and Sierra Leone through the
populations that straddle these three nations’ porous
borders. In March 2014, the deadly virus was identified as Ebola. By September 2014, the virus had
spread throughout western Africa, and isolated cases
began to appear in other countries.1
President Barack Obama viewed Ebola’s international spread as a threat to U.S. national interests.
The epidemic had grown rapidly, and intervention
was required to stem the tide of outbreaks and to
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reinforce the overburdened health-care systems of
the three significantly affected nations. If the international community did not act, the results could
be catastrophic, eroding security and potentially
plunging the region into turmoil.

The Response
In light of these circumstances, the president
directed a unified-action approach to combat
the Ebola epidemic, with the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID) designated
as the lead federal agency. Additionally, during a 16
September 2014 speech at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, the president directed the DOD to provide support to the
USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team that had
been activated on 5 August 2014.2 He specifically
tasked DOD to provide command and control (C2),
logistics, and engineering capabilities and expertise.
In August and September 2014, USAFRICOM
issued a series of warning orders directing component commands to begin planning OUA, focusing
planning efforts and directing support to USAID.
With the 12 September 2014 warning order in hand,
USARAF conducted detailed contingency planning.
Subsequently, the USARAF commander selected
a team of thirteen personnel, including much of the
primary staff, to travel to Liberia to conduct a leader’s reconnaissance. The team arrived in Monrovia,
Liberia, on 16 September 2014, intending to stay
only a few days and return to Italy where it would
shape USARAF’s plan. The president’s speech at
the CDC on the same day accelerated the planning
efforts. The joint force command ( JFC) also sent an
advance party to Liberia.
The notification that USARAF was to stand
up a joint task force (soon changed to a JFC) to
conduct support operations in Liberia coincided
with exercise Lion Focus 14, a joint exercise designed to certify USARAF as a joint task force. As
July-August 2015  MILITARY REVIEW