West Africa, where Colonel Rabe Abubakar stated during his
assumption as the Nigerian Defense Headquarters Director of
Information that, "There is absolute need for synergy of efforts
and collaboration among all stakeholders to re-strategise [sic] in
the area of information collection, management and determination in counter terrorism and insurgency."10 Finally, a report
from a retreat held by the AU Panel of the Wise, an elected
advisory council for the Union, recommended, “There is a need
to focus on regional developments in areas such as West Africa,
the Mano River Union, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes
region where conflicts that begin in one country tend to spill
over into neighbouring [sic] countries."11 With an affirmed
commitment from African leaders to strengthen the existing
regional mechanisms, a regionally focused TSCP must next
identify specific areas for improvement.
Since the establishment of ASF, and the subsequent adoption of
a developmental roadmap, several studies identified the shortfalls within the regional brigades and throughout APSA. While
some studies provide detailed adjustments that should be made
to force structure and command relationships, those details are
outside the purview of this paper.12 Additionally, drastically
changing a structure designed and supported by the AU would
undermine the credibility of both the AU and AFRICOM.
Instead, AFRICOM can make short-term investments with
long-term, multilateral gain that promote regional institutions.
The first opportunity for AFRICOM to build regional capacity
is by investing in the authorized and partially implemented regional centers of excellence. Examples of these centers include
the National Defense College in Abuja, the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra and the recently inaugurated Peace Support Training Center in Ethiopia.13
These centers provide a regional injection point for capacity
building resources, support AU developed infrastructure and
provide a long-term return on investment. Additionally, once
resourced, the centers could provide not only a venue for training, but also a staging location for mobilization and logistics.
A second sector that provides multilateral capacity building
opportunities for AFRICOM is communications. The primary mechanism for communication between the regions and
AU headquarters is the Continental Early Warning System
(CEWS). The system consists of two levels: a centralized
continental Situation Room that provides timely information
for the PSC and AU decision-makers, based on data provided
by the five regional-level monitoring stations. Even though the
central Situation Room is well-established, there are numerous
13