New Thinking On How AFRICOM Can Help Increase Stability (Strategic Studies Institute)

The Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute has just published what I think is an extremely interesting and insightful monograph about the kinds of engagement activities AFRICOM needs to consider in order to help increase stability in sub-Saharan Africa.

Titled, "Civilian Skills for African Military Officers to Resolve the Infrastructure, Economic Development, and Stability Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa," and authored by Diane Chido, this 56 page monograph contains "a good bit of good thinking" and should be required reading for anyone in the defense cooperation, defense partnership or security assistance communities that support African missions.  

Intelligence professionals should find this volume interesting as well for its exploration, in case-study format, of previous stability efforts in Africa.  The author highlights a number of indicators that probably aren't normally considered but seem to be highly relevant to any peacekeeping and stability operations in which the US might participate in Africa.

It is free to download here.  Worth checking out. 

(Full disclosure:  Diane is a friend and frequent co-author of mine.  I had nothing to do with this monograph, however (she wouldn't even let me see a draft...).  I first took a look at it today and was, as I usually am, impressed with her grasp of the issue and the quality of her recommendations.  As someone who spent several years working defense cooperation issues, I think she has hit the nail on the head.  While I may be biased, I still think that, if you work African issues at all, you owe it to yourself to read this book.)

Internet Connectivity In Africa (AppAfrica.net)

The blog White African recently pointed to a post on AppAfrica that featured an amazing infographic of the state of African internet connectivity in 2009. The pic below is too hard to read but it gives you an idea of what is in the document. You can, however download a very detailed view (as well as some shots of specific areas of interest) from Flickr.

Fast And Frugal Conflict Early Warning In Sub-Saharan Africa (Original Research)

Now that AFRICOM has officially stood up, there is likely to be a much greater emphasis on understanding the culture, economics, politics and seemingly inevitable conflicts of sub-Saharan Africa. While a number of authoritative sources are busy cranking out some really good products on Africa, simple, effective conflict early warning systems seem to be in short supply.

With this as background, one of Mercyhurst's graduate students, Bradley Perry, recently took a stab at trying to come up with such a system in his thesis, "Fast and Frugal Conflict Early Warning in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Intelligence Analysis."

Bradley was in a unique position to write this thesis. In the first place, he came to us a bit later in life than most grad students, having spent a number of years in Ghana. In addition, while technically here, he completed his strategic intelligence project (on local reactions to a planned expansion of a national park) from a tent in Malawi. He was in Kenya about the same time as the recent upheavals there and is now working for iJet (where he was a member of the iJet team that recently took a share of the prize at the ODNI's Open Source Conference).

Riffing on Gerd Gigerenzer's research (outlined in his fascinating book, Gut Feelings) regarding "fast and frugal" evaluative systems, Bradley went looking for "good enough" indicators of potential conflict that he could chain together to form a predictive model. He found three promising indicators in the literature, political freedom, ethnic homogeneity, and income inequality, and proceeded to build exactly what he wanted to build -- a fast and frugal model for conflict prediction for Sub-Saharan Africa.

He tested the model on previous conflicts and got reasonably good results. The model tended to overpredict conflict in some cases but never failed to predict confict where one ultimately occurred. He was also able to rank order the potential conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa by likelihood. Using recent data and plugging it into his model, he believes that, from most likely to least likely, Swaziland, Somalia, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Eritrea, Chad, Guinea and Sudan will see violent conflict (See the map below from the thesis).


Beyond the model and the predictions it makes, the literature review on other early warning systems concerning Africa and on the validity of various indicators that predict conflict is definitely worth the read. It is an excellent work and, if interested, you can download the entire thesis here.

Related Posts:
Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa
Security Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa

Combating Terror With Communication, A Foreign Assessment Of The CIA, FBI And US Foreign Policy In Africa (Fora.tv)

Some interesting short snippets from some recent Fora.tv broadcasts (and one longer presentation):

Combating Terror with Communication
R. Gustav Niebuhr explains that, while we may live in frightening times, the only way to maintain hope is by maintaining dialogue with people we may believe to be the enemy. Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2008 (4 min. 35 sec)
Location: Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY

A Foreign Assessment of the CIA and FBI
Nigel Inkster and Peter Clarke assess the strengths and weaknesses of the CIA and the FBI, praising the CIA and saying, "the CIA have been treated disgracefully in this country," receiving the blame for what is the fault of policy. They also exhort that a barrier should never be built between intelligence and law enforcement. Date: Sat, 05 JUL 2008 (4 min 17 sec)
Location: The Aspen Institute, Aspen, CO

Vicki Huddleston - United States Foreign Policy to Africa
Vicki Huddleston discusses The United States and Africa: A Chance for Change as a part of American Foreign Policy: Leadership and Dialogue during the 2008 Chautauqua Institution morning lecture series. Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 (1 hour 8 mini)
Location: Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY

AFRICOM Transition Likely Smoother Than Many Expect (ISN)

Mercyhurst grad student Shannon Ferrucci makes the case in an ISN report published today that AFRICOM's transition to full operational status is likely to be less dramatic than many have feared. According to her analysis, the issues relating to AFRICOM are well known by most and have likely already been factored into the equation by dissenters and proponents alike, making the 1 OCT 08 activation date important only in a ceremonial sense.

2008 Technology, Media And Telecommunications Predictions (Deloitte)

Deloitte has made public its 2008 predictions for the technology, media and telecoms markets (Thanks, Suki!). The most interesting observation, for my money, came from the telecoms report that talked in some detail about the rise of the mobile telecoms companies in developing countries. Deloitte thinks that "operators in developed countries should move quickly if they wish to compete in these markets." Based on our research into sub-Saharan Africa, that seems to be about right. The importance and overall profitability of the prepaid wireless plans there is staggering.

Security Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa: An Estimate (Original Research)

When Tom Dempsey of the US Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute ("the US military's premier center of excellence for mastering stability and peace operations...") agreed to sponsor a strategic intelligence project with my graduate students last winter, I have to admit I was nervous. I had worked with Tom before and I knew he was going to ask tough questions and demand good, well researched and thoroughly analyzed answers. That didn't bother me, though. That is just another day at the office. What bothered me was the topic.

Africa.

I knew Tom was interested in security sector reform in Africa and that is a tough nut to crack from here in Erie. It requires our very best student analysts to use their most sophisticated open source skills to acquire and then analyze relevant and reliable information from Africa. Its not impossible; just hard to do and in a ten-week course, there is not much room for failure.

Fortunately, the team that put together A Strategic Study Of Security Sector Reform In Sub-Saharan Africa was top quality and their wiki based product is available as of today for public viewing (Tom was even kind enough to link it to the PKSOI site). Specifically, the students were asked to provide answers to the following questions (part of their Terms of Reference):

• What international or regional authorities, bilateral partnerships, or non-governmental organizations currently are and are likely to remain major players in security sector reform, specifically with regard to the civil oversight, administration of justice, and law enforcement sectors, in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan?
• What are the strategies and resources that are being used and are likely to continue to be used to build capacity and sustainability in the civil oversight, administration of justice, and law enforcement sectors in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan? Why have these strategies been selected and, if appropriate, why are they likely to continue to be used? Can any of these strategies be used as benchmarks for effectiveness?
• What are the likely short (12 months), medium (2-3 years), and long term (3-5 years) impacts of civil oversight, administration of justice, and law enforcement reform policies currently in place in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan?

The students provided over 70 summary and supporting reports that provided estimative answers to each of these questions. All of the reports are loaded onto the wiki along with internal and external hyperlinks to sources used in the reports, pictures, maps and videos used to support the reports and an extensive resources page for anyone who gets bored and needs something else to read.

If you are not particularly interested in security sector reform in any of the four targeted countries (Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan or Sierra Leone) and you are already familiar with wiki-based analytic projects (like this one and this one and this one), you might still find the methods used in the study to be of some interest. The students used a multi-method approach (much like the study on the role of non-state actors in sub-Saharan Africa) that included comparative case study analysis, accelerated analysis, social network analysis and a matrix-style analysis. The multi-method approach allows analysts to essentially triangulate their estimates and can be very effective if, as here, done correctly.

Of particular interest from a methodological standpoint are the social network analyses and the multi-attribute matrix. The social network analysis examined the connections between each of the organizations within the country in order to determine a wide variety of qualities (such as "closeness" and "betweenness") attributable to each of the organizations examined. The chart below is one of the 3-D graphs of a social network of agencies in Sierra Leone built using the amazing UCINET software.


The multi-attribute matrix looked at each of the programs in all four countries against the stated goals of those programs with respect to security sector reform and made estimative evaluations about how successful each of the programs was likely to be in meeting those criteria. Some of the programs did not do very well because they were small, some did not do well because they were only partially designed to impact the security sector and some did not do well because the political environment was not conducive to the methods that the program was using. Whatever the reason, in the end, the students were able to give a rough estimate of what were likely to be the most and least effective programs attempting in whole or in part to reform the security sector in the four countries. Combined with the data from the other methods used in the analysis, they were able to come up with some pretty nuanced answers to the questions they had been asked and some interesting trends in general.

Related Posts:
The Virtual Jihad Project
Non-state Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa
A Wiki Is Like A Room...

African Economic Outlook (OECD)

The Organization for Economic Cooperation And Development recently published its latest version of the African Economic Outlook. The website is quite detailed with full breakdowns by many countries and a comprehensive statistical annex. The projections go through the rest of 08 and 09.

Normally, I would break down the key findings but the OECD has done me one better by not only capturing the highlights but also by putting them in a 3 minute video...



Related Posts:
Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa: Likely Current And Future Roles
Excellent African Map Source

Country Reports On Human Rights Practices (State Department)

The US State Department has just released its massive, 2 volume, 3000+ page report to Congress on human rights practices "of all nations that are members of the United Nations and a few that are not." You can get Volume 1 (covering Africa, East Asia, the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia) here and Volume 2 (which covers the rest of the world) here. Expect them to take some time to download...

The reports are exhaustive and based on 2006 data (apparently it took over a year to collate and confirm the reports based initially, at least, on US embassy reporting). The introduction to this comprehensive report is 11 pages long and pretty much defies summarization. That said, here are some of the highlights I have picked out (Boldface, italics and hyperlinks are mine):

• "These reports describe the performance of governments in putting into practice their international commitments on human rights. These fundamental rights, reflected in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, constitute what President Bush calls the 'non-negotiable demands of human dignity.'"
  

• "The United States takes its human rights commitments seriously. We recognize that we are writing this report at a time when our own record, and actions we have taken to respond to the terrorist attacks against us, have been questioned."
  

• "The reports review each country’s performance in 2006. Each report speaks for itself. Yet, broad patterns are discernible and are described below, supported by country-specific examples."
  

• "First, the advances made in human rights and democracy were hard won and challenging to sustain."
  

• "Despite President Musharraf’s stated commitment to democratic transition and ‘‘enlightened moderation,’’ Pakistan’s human rights record continued to be poor. Restrictions remained on freedom of movement, expression, association, and religion. Disappearances of provincial activists and political opponents continued, especially in provinces experiencing internal turmoil and insurgencies. The security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings. Arbitrary arrest and torture remained common. Corruption was pervasive throughout the Government and police forces."
  

• "Though Egypt held a first-ever, multi-party presidential election in 2005, in 2006 public calls for greater democratization and accountability sometimes met with strong government reaction. The continued imprisonment of former presidential candidate Ayman Nour raised serious concerns about the path of political reform and democracy in the country. Continuing a trend begun in 2005, the Government arrested and detained hundreds of activists affiliated with the banned-but-tolerated Muslim Brotherhood, generally for periods lasting several weeks. Two senior judges were brought in for questioning in February for publicly calling for an independent judiciary. Egyptian police arrested and detained over 500 activists for participating in demonstrations in support of judicial independence. In addition, severe cases of torture by authorities were documented. The Government also arrested, detained, and abused several Internet bloggers."
  

• Note: Liberia, Indonesia, Morocco, the Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Venezuela, Fiji and Thailand are also highlighted in this section.

• "A second sobering reality is that insecurity due to internal and/or cross-border conflict can threaten or thwart advancements in human rights and democratic government."
  

• "Despite the Iraqi Government’s continuing commitment to foster national reconciliation and reconstruction, keep to an electoral course, and establish the rule of law, both deepening sectarian violence and acts of terrorism seriously undercut human rights and democratic progress during 2006. Although the Iraqi constitution and law provide a strong framework for the protection of human rights, armed groups attacked human rights from two different directions: those proclaiming their hostility to the Government—Al- Qa’ida terrorists, irreconcilable remnants of the Ba’athist regime, and insurgents waging guerrilla warfare; and members of Shi’a militias and individual ministries’ security forces—nominally allied with the Government—who committed torture and other abuses."
  

• "Although Afghanistan made important human rights progress since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, its human rights record remained poor. This was mainly due to weak central institutions and a deadly insurgency: the Taliban, Al-Qa’ida, and other extremist groups stepped up attacks against government officials, security forces, NGOs and other aid personnel, and unarmed civilians; and the number of suicide bombings rose dramatically during the year, as did attacks on schools and teachers. There were continued reports of cases of arbitrary arrests and detention, extrajudicial killings, torture, and poor prison conditions. In December President Karzai launched a Transitional Justice Action Plan designed to address past violations of human rights and improve the institutional capacity of the justice system."
  

• Note: Lebanon and East Timor are also singled out in this section.

• "Third, despite gains for human rights and democratic principles in every region of the world, much of humanity still lives in fear yet dreams of freedom."
  

• "In 2006 North Korea remained one of the world’s most isolated and repressive regimes. The regime controls almost all aspects of citizens’ lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricts freedom of movement and worker rights. The constitution provides for ‘‘freedom of religious belief,’’ but genuine religious freedom does not exist. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people, including political prisoners, were held in detention camps, and many prisoners died from torture, starvation, disease, and exposure."
  

• "The Iranian Government flagrantly violated freedom of speech and assembly, intensifying its crackdown against dissidents, journalists, and reformers—a crackdown characterized by arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, disappearances, the use of excessive force, and the widespread denial of fair public trials. The Government continued to detain and abuse Baha’is and other religious minorities and hosted a widely condemned conference denying the existence of the Holocaust. In the lead-up to the December 15 Assembly of Experts elections in Iran, more than two-thirds of those who had applied to run—including all female candidates—were disqualified, leaving many seats uncontested. Hundreds of candidates in nationwide municipal elections also were disqualified. The Government continued to flout domestic and international calls for responsible government in 2006 by supporting terrorist movements in Syria and Lebanon as well as calling for the destruction of a UN member state."
  

• Note: Burma, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, Belarus and Eritrea are mentioned in this section as well.

• "The fourth sobering reality is that as the worldwide push for greater personal and political freedom grows stronger, it is being met with increasing resistance from those who feel threatened by political and societal change."
  

• "In Russia in 2006, a new NGO law entered into force in April imposing more stringent registration requirements for NGOs, strict monitoring of organizations, extensive and onerous reporting requirements on programming and activities, and empowering the Federal Registration Service to deny registration or to shut down an organization based on vague and subjective criteria. Freedom of expression and media independence declined due to government pressure and restrictions. In October unknown persons murdered human rights defender Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist known for her critical writing on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The Government used its controlling ownership of all national television and radio stations, as well as of the majority of influential regional ones, to restrict access to information deemed sensitive."
  

• "The Syrian Government strictly controlled the dissemination of information and prohibited criticism of the Government and discussion of sectarian issues, including religious and minority rights. There were detentions and beatings for individual expressions of opinion that violated these restrictions, for example the February arrest of journalist Adel Mahfouz after he called for interfaith dialogue following the controversy surrounding the depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in cartoons. The Government relied on its press and publication laws, the penal code, and the Emergency Law to censor access to the Internet, and it restricted electronic media. Harassment of domestic human rights activists also occurred, including regular close surveillance and the imposition of travel bans when they sought to attend workshops and conferences outside the country."
  

• Note; Other countries mentioned in this section include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Burundi, Rwanda, Venezuela, China and Vietnam.

• "Genocide was the most sobering reality of all. "

• "Almost 60 years after the adoption of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights—an expression of the outraged conscience of mankind to the enormity of the Holocaust and the cataclysm of the Second World War—genocide continued to ravage the Darfur region of Sudan."
  

• "Secretary Rice also issued ten guiding NGO principles regarding the treatment by governments of nongovernmental organizations. These core principles will guide U.S. treatment of NGOs, and we also will use them to assess the actions of other governments."
  

• "When democracies support the work of human rights advocates and civil society organizations, we are helping men and women in countries across the globe shape their own destinies in freedom. And by so doing, we are helping to build a safer, better world for all."
  

• "We must defend the defenders, for they are the agents of peaceful, democratic change.'
  

Al-Qaeda Media Nexus: The Virtual Network Behind The Global Message (RFE)

Daniel Kimmage, a senior regional analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has put together an excellent analytic paper (download full text here) designed to answer two questions (Note: taken directly from the Introduction): "What does the structure of jihadist media tell us about the relationship between Al-Qaeda central and the movements that affiliate themselves with it? And what can the priorities of jihadist media tell us about the operational priorities of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements?" I found the large number of detailed charts and graphs (Click on the full text link above to get the report and the legend to the chart below) to be particularly useful as well.

Key Findings from the paper include (Boldface is mine):

• The ”original” Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden accounts for a mere fraction of jihadist media production.

• Virtual media production and distribution entities link varied groups under the general ideological rubric of the global jihadist movement. The same media entities that “brand” jihadist media also create virtual links between the various armed groups that fall into the general category of Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements.

• Three key entities connect Al-Qaeda and affiliated movements to the outside world through the internet. These three media entities — Fajr, the Global Islamic Media Front, and Sahab — receive materials from more than one armed group and post those materials to the internet.

• Information operations intended to disrupt or undermine the effectiveness of jihadist media can and should target the media entities that brand these media and act as the virtual connective tissue of the global movement.

• While video is an important component of jihadist media, text products comprise the bulk of the daily media flow. Within text products, periodicals focused on specific “fronts” of the jihad are an important genre that deserves more attention from researchers.

• The vast majority of jihadist media products focus on conflict zones: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

• The priorities of the global jihadist movement, as represented by its media arm, are operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and North Africa.

• Jihadist media are attempting to mimic a “traditional” structure in order to boost credibility and facilitate message control. While conventional wisdom holds that jihadist media have been quick to exploit technological innovations to advance their cause, they are moving toward a more structured approach based on consistent branding and quasi-official media entities. Their reasons for doing so appear to be a desire to boost the credibility of their products and ensure message control.

• In line with this strategy, the daily flow of jihadist media that appears on the internet is consistently and systematically branded.

Non-State Actors In Sub-Saharan Africa: Likely Current And Future Roles (Original Analysis)

A group of Mercyhurst Intelligence Studies students completed a strategic intelligence project concerning the present and likely future roles of non-state actors in Africa for Bill Reynolds, the CEO of LeastSquares Software, a company specializing in modeling and simulations, last fall. Bill has kindly allowed me to make the study public and has even given it a nice plug on the LeastSquares pubs page.

The study itself was built using a wiki, as was last year's study on the impact of chronic and infectious diseases we did for the NIC, but is much different in scope and execution. The non-state actors wiki is a product of my Strategic Intelligence class. I teach strategic intel to the undergrads in the fall (this was an undergrad project). One of the purposes of the class is to link groups of students with real-world decisionmakers (or intel professionals who understand the needs of real-world decisionmakers) and provide those decisionmakers with intelligence products that are strategic in scope. These decisionmakers contribute their time and expertise to help make our students better analysts and I really appreciate guys like Bill Reynolds and all our decisionmakers taking time out of their days to work with us.

Our intent is to make this not only a "capstone" class for our second year grad students and seniors but also to make it a bridging class where analysts clearly cross-over from being "students" to being "professionals"; from doing "homework" to a world where real people are depending on them. To be honest, this process begins much earlier but the Strategic class gives me an opportunity to beat them over the head with the reality of it all.

The students not only do this project in 10 weeks, they do it while taking, usually, a full load of classes. Typically, they work in small groups (the group that put together this product had only five analysts in it). The students start pretty close to scratch with respect to subject matter expertise and they don't have the time or resources to travel to gain additional information. We work exclusively with open sources. The focus is also on applying the structured methods (or variations of them) that the students have learned in classes over the years.

This product has quite a bit to look at depending on your interests. Once you have had a chance to check out the home page, I would use the navigation bar to take a look at the Terms of Reference in order to get a better idea what Bill asked the students to do for him. If you are interested in the bottomline, up front answers to the questions he asked regarding non-state actors you should go to the Key Findings. If you are interested in a particular country, you can find a list of all of the countries they studied on the Countries page.

If you are interested in how the students arrived at their estimates, you should click on the Process and Methodology link in the navigation pane. The analysts on this project actually used three different methods, including one they invented (See the image below for a graphic representation of the method), to "triangulate" their analytic findings. Bill, a very strong methods person himself, had a keen interest in the thinking behind the process which is why there is also a link to the analyst's journals in the navigation pane.



Wikis can be deceiving in their depth. It always looks like it is just one page. This wiki, though, has 186 wiki pages (each, when printed out, would give multiple pages of text) with some 488 embedded files, maps and images. Quantity does not equal quality, of course, but the reactions, so far, from a variety of reviewers have been very positive, giving me confidence that it is worth taking the time to examine.

Given the wealth of information here, it is also easy to overlook the value that the wiki-based collaborative interface added to the analytic process. I have supervised over a dozen wiki-based analytic projects in the last year and have come to really like wikis as tools not only for collaboration but also for the collection, analysis and actual production of intelligence. One of the real benefits of the way we use wikis in these projects is that we can go from intel requirement to intel product all in a single collaborative space.

(Note: I will be presenting a paper at the ISA conference later this month on my findings with regard to using wikis for estimative products (and as distinct from fundamentally descriptive products such as Wikipedia). I will be serializing some of my findings here beginning next week).

Whether you are a professor interested in using wikis in your own classroom or a professional interested in non-state actors, intelligence analysis methods, sub-Saharan Africa or using a wiki to help manage an analytic project, you should be able to find something of interest in this product.

Effectively Deploying US Peacekeeping Forces, The Transformation Of Southeastern Europe And A New Strategy For Middle East Peace (Fora.tv)

A few more from Fora:

Effective Deployments of US Peacekeeping Forces
Stephen Hadley offers the examples of Liberia and Sierra Leone as effective deployments of U.S. peacekeeping forces.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2887

The Transformation of Southeastern Europe
The Transformation of Southeastern Europe: A Challenge for Smart Power with Dora Bakoyannis.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2871

A New Strategy for Middle East Peace
Daniel Levy, President of Prospects for Peace, explains that Israel’s main strategies for peace have been unsuccessful and achieving peace in the Middle East will require a comprehensive agreement between the entire region – including Iran.
Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/fora/showthread.php?t=2823

Report On Net Food Importing Countries That Is Far More Interesting Than It Sounds (World Bank)

The World Bank has just published a report titled, "Who Are The Net Food Importing Countries?" that is far more interesting than it sounds. This report (download full text here) has surprising implications for national security and intelligence analysis (particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa). The report is also packed full with data making it something you would probably want to file away for that day when someone asks you "What are the net non-oil imports into Burkina Faso?" Check out these highlights from the conclusion (Boldface and hyperlinks are mine):

• "This paper shows that while it is true that most low-income countries are net food importers, their imports are negligible, and they have a large trade surplus in other agricultural commodities which can be easily substituted for foods if relative prices change significantly."
  

• "Part of the reason for this small food trade deficit is the oil exporters and countries in conflict which have large raw food deficits. If these are excluded, then even low income countries have a surplus in food trade."
  

• "While a large number of low-income countries are net food importers, majority of them are net agricultural exporters, and their agricultural trade surplus is almost 5 percent of their imports. If the oil and conflict countries are excluded, the trade surplus increases to 6 percent of imports."
  

• "Being a net food importer and an agricultural exporter is especially pronounced in low income SSA."
  

• "There are only 3 vulnerable low-income countries, i.e., countries whose net narrow food trade deficit is more than 10 percent of their imports, excluding oil exporters and conflict countries. Of these 3, Benin and Guinea-Bissau export cotton and nuts, respectively, and Senegal exports peanut oil which is not included in our measures."
  

• "Low-income countries, excluding the ones in conflict and oil exporters, have moved from a deficit of 1 percent of their imports in 1980/81 for raw food trade, to a surplus of about 1 percent of the imports in 2004/05. SSA countries have not experienced the same transformation."
  

• "These results suggest that the almost automatic reaction, that food price increases are bad for low-income countries, needs to be qualified."
  

• "On the other hand, there are a group of countries that are experiencing civil conflicts and are large importers of food, and can not easily adjust their production and meet their basic needs. They also need special assistance in the distribution of food within their boundaries."
  

21st Century Marines In Africa (CETO, 2005 Report)

Another oldie but goodie. Written before the decision to form AFRICOM, this paper is a brief but fairly complete overview of the continent and the major international players and issues there (If you haven't already seen it, you can download the full text here via the CARL). As the authors at the Center For Emerging Threats And Opportunities out in Quantico indicate up front, "The purpose of this paper is to provide a continental overview, identify key actors, outline U.S. interests and strategies, address potential future roles for Marine forces there, and identify operational capabilities, doctrine, and training and education issues." The laundry list and descriptions of the Influential Actors In African Affairs Section is worth the price of admission.

Excellent African Map Source (Le Monde Diplomatique)

Le Monde Diplomatique has an excellent online collection of maps here. While all of the maps look good, I was particularly impressed with the ones on Africa (located about halfway down the webpage). Most are quite detailed and require little more than a high school knowledge of French (and a working knowledge of the area) to translate. Some, such as this amazing map of Sub-Saharan Africa from 2004, are even in English.

Africa Command: U.S. Strategic Interests And The Role Of The U.S. Military In Africa (CRS)

The CRS has just published a new background brief on AFRICOM for the members of Congress. The report contains a good outline of the US's strategic interests in Africa, DOD's current proposal for the new command and a list of oversight issues for Congress as well as a good bit of background info including an annex on the 42 (!) instances of US armed forces intervention in Africa since 1950.

Here are some other highlights (Boldface and italics are mine):

• "In recent years, analysts and U.S. policymakers have noted Africa’s growing strategic importance to U.S. interests. Among those interests are Africa’s role in the Global War on Terror and potential threats posed by uncontrolled spaces; the growing importance of Africa’s natural resources, particularly energy resources; and ongoing concern for Africa’s many humanitarian crises, armed conflicts, and more general challenges, such as the devastating effect of HIV/AIDS."
  

• "DOD has signaled its intention to eventually locate AFRICOM on the continent, and U.S officials are consulting with strategic partners in the region to identify a suitable location for the command’s headquarters. The new command will operate from Stuttgart, Germany until facilities in Africa are secured. DOD has stressed that there are no plans to have a significant troop presence on the continent."

• "The 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa highlighted the threat of terrorism to U.S. interests on the continent. Political instability and civil wars have created vast ungoverned spaces, areas in which some experts allege that terrorist groups may train and operate. Instability also heightens human suffering and retards economic development, which may in turn threaten U.S. economic interests. Africa recently surpassed the Middle East as the United States’ largest supplier of crude oil, further emphasizing the continent’s strategic importance." (Yoikes!)

Origins Of FBI Counterintelligence And More (LOC)

The Library of Congress provides an excellent teaching/training/research resource through its periodic webcasts. One of the most recent is a 50+ minute presentation on the Origins of FBI Counterintelligence done by Ray Batvinis (who has just authored a book on the same topic).

Other webcasts that may be of interest include:

Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy

Why Terrorist Ideologies are So Powerful

War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda"

The African Colonial State and the Encounter with Decolonization

China's Return to Tradition: How to Interpret the New Forces Emerging in China

China Rediscovers its Own History

You will need a RealPlayer plug-in to view the webcasts.