Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 60

addition, they could provide key combat and support
functions to enable allies to carry out such missions.
If intelligence indicated threats to American interests or facilities, USAFRICOM could deploy Army
or Marine Corps ground forces from Djibouti and
Spain (or State Department security teams) along
with air elements aboard a modularized auxiliary
cruiser to be in a position to preempt or react to a
terrorist attack.
Support defense institution building. Helping local,
national, and regional actors train defense forces that bolster stability rather than undermine it is key to preventing problems in Africa from exploding into major crises.
Security force assistance missions could use ground-force
mission packages, with other supporting containerized
mission modules, as needed. Classroom modules would
be useful for training friendly military and police forces,
especially when a host nation has minimal resources. In
Somalia, for example, international training efforts sometimes started with even less than a poorly trained local
military structure to build on. Some countries lack capabilities not only in military tactics and planning, but also
in maintaining civilian control of the armed forces and
combating corruption and sectarian or tribal influences
that weaken defense institutions.
Developing core African military reaction forces,
such as the multinational and regionally based African
Standby Force established under the African Union to
provide an African force to respond to African disasters
or crises, is also a mission that modularized auxiliary
cruisers could support.
U.S. and African militaries, and other friendly
forces with interests in Africa, could bolster interoperability using training-related mission packages deployed ashore or on a modularized auxiliary cruiser for
a broad range of military and nonmilitary educational
missions. This would increase U.S. knowledge of the
physical and human terrain of the continent and facilitate smoother interventions if local forces requested
assistance during a crisis.
Strengthen maritime security. Forces could use
naval warfare mission packages paired with Army,
Marine Corps, or Coast Guard-related mission packages to find, track, and attack or seize pirate vessels
or rescue their victims.23 Deployments in the Gulf
of Guinea or in support of USCENTCOM off the
coast of Somalia could support those missions. Should
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missions ashore to destroy pirate bases be required,
Army or Marine Corps maneuver or special operations units could be deployed to friendly ports to
initiate operations from land or operate directly from
the modularized auxiliary cruiser using aviation assets.
In addition to their usefulness to the Army for projecting land power, the Navy could cope with its inability
to devote scarce hulls to USAFRICOM by deploying
modularized auxiliary cruisers for certain missions.
Modularized auxiliary cruisers would be a force multiplier in core Navy capabilities.24
Support peace support operations. Modularized
auxiliary cruisers could fill the combat and logistics
capabilities gaps of allied or coalition forces to enable
international assistance for peace operations and promote
interoperability. U.S. forces could train allied or coalition
partners to use these mission packages. Planners could
exploit the ease of transporting containerized mission
modules to move mission packages overseas for training
in other countries or bring partner forces to temporary
locations in Africa or the United States for training.
Examples of African countries where USAFRICOM’s
support could be vital include the Democratic Republic
of Congo, where United Nations peacekeepers have long
struggled to conta in instability and violence.25 Another is
Zimbabwe, which would strain the resources of neighbors if it descended into chaos from economic and political instability.26 In Burundi, protesting students fleeing
police operations in June 2015 entered the U.S. embassy
compound, a situation that would have created a threat if
terrorists had entered with them.27 The Central African
Republic, Sudan, and South Sudan also face ongoing
challenges to achieving stability.
Support humanitarian and disaster response.
Medical support with a visiting modularized auxiliary
cruiser fitted with appropriate mission packages would
increase the good will of people in a region. The modularized auxiliary cruiser could drop off mission packages and
personnel to establish temporary clinics or civilian development projects at many locations on land. The packages
could support interagency efforts to build local facilities
and train host-nation personnel, which could reduce the
need for the support in the future.
Disaster response for earthquakes, floods, hurricanes
and cyclones, or refugee migration, could be enhanced
by medical and ground-force mission packages for relief
efforts and local security. These could even be flown
May-June 2016  MILITARY REVIEW