 Good morning everyone, if we could all take our seats. Okay, there's a few seats up front here, don't be shy. There's a few seats at the front table, so for those of you standing in the back, there's still plenty of room. My name is Jennifer Cook, I'm Director of the Africa Program here at CSIS. First, I want to welcome you all to CSIS and to the CSIS Military Strategy Forum, which over the course of time has brought senior defense leaders to present their vision and insights on the direction of U.S. defense policy and military strategy. CSIS is really most grateful to Royal Royce North America for their support for this series, which has been really fascinating. I'm particularly pleased today to welcome General Carter Ham, Commander of the U.S. Africa Command. General Ham, I think you can say is still fairly new to the command, having been in its position less than six months, although I think with everything that's happened in those six months, you must feel quite a bit longer. The general came to the command March 9, 2011. Ten days later, Operation Odyssey Dawn was launched in Libya, the front end of an African-led coalition to enforce the U.N. Security Council resolution on Libya. The Libyan crisis, I think that initial front edge went very well, I think by all assessments, but the crisis obviously is not yet over. There are huge uncertainties now how that country will rebuild itself, how it will hold itself together, what has always been a very deeply fragmented society. A lot of uncertainty about the regional fallout of a vacuum in Libya into the Sahel and beyond, and perhaps to some extent political fallout from within Africa, surrounding kind of the role of AFRICOM and the NATO intervention. In that time, Sudan went from one state to two, with South Sudan formally declaring independence on July 9. Huge uncertainties there politically and economically, and most immediately in terms of security, ongoing violence, huge fragility, problems with the integration of militaries, building a professional military force, debomalization and so forth. In that time, we saw a major upsurge in attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria, including the attack against U.N. headquarters in Abuja in August. We've seen the unfolding of an epic and tragic humanitarian crisis in the Horn, particularly the famine in Somalia that threatens close to a million people with famine, with al-Shabaab just today having launched again major attacks within Mogadishu. So that back and forth in Somalia continues. Piracy in Somalia, but now we're hearing increasing supports from West Africa, and then the ongoing issues that have been there for a long time, the DRC capacity building more broadly and so forth. And also, I think there's debates here in Washington, D.C., and probably struggles that you have to fight here in terms of budget cuts and what that may mean for the command going forward. Anyway, we have no doubt that you are up to all these challenges. General Ham brings 36 years of service, which has included assignments in Georgia, Italy, Germany to name a few, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Macedonia, and Iraq. He's had a tremendous breadth of experience in a series of very tough jobs in Macedonia, in Mosul during the very dark days of the Iraq War. He was previous assignment as commanding general of the U.S. Army, Europe. Most recently, leading the investigation into the Fort Hood shootings and the delicate issue of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, some very difficult and sensitive jobs. And I think people have remarked to me that you're quiet and you listen and very deliberate and very fair-minded in all of these circumstances, and we appreciate that. We are so delighted to have you here. We're going to keep it fairly informal. General Ham will talk for 10 minutes. Then we'll ask maybe a few questions and we'll open up for discussion with the audience. So thank you, and General Ham, thank you. Thank you very much, Jennifer. It is great to be here, and thanks very much for inviting me to have the chance to talk a bit about Africa and Africa Command. As Jennifer kind of laid out what I've been doing as a soldier over the past several years, you'll notice none of that addressed any service in Africa or any association with Africa. And I think that's kind of where we have been as a military and certainly growing up in the Army. Africa was not on our horizon. It wasn't an area that a continent that we thought much about. It wasn't certainly in the forefront of any of our activities, but that has dramatically changed. Certainly over the past several years, recognized in 2007-2008 when President Bush decided to form U.S.-Africa Command, kind of birthing it out of U.S.-European Command, as many as you recall, which formerly had responsibility for U.S. military engagement in Africa. As Jennifer mentioned, I have been here about six months, and it's not quite been the six months I expected. It started a little differently than I had anticipated, but it's a reminder that you don't get to control things all the time, and the world situation evolves in ways and in directions that sometimes are not anticipated. Six months into this job, I would say that I'm at the point now where I'm just beginning to understand what I don't know about Africa. The complexity, diversity, the severity of the security challenges that spread across the continent can be a little staggering, and it's easy sometimes to feel a little bit overwhelmed. And I would tell you that what keeps me from feeling overwhelmed is in my travels and encounters with African leaders, both military and civilian. And in almost every case, what I find as I interact with them is a very clear-eyed view of the security challenges that they face. They're not pollyannish about this. They know that there are some very serious problems that they have to address, and in most cases have a pretty good idea about how to do that. And they realize that in almost every case these are some long-term efforts required. These aren't problems that lend themselves to quick and easy solutions. If they did, they would have been solved already. And these are tough, in many cases, long-standing issues. So the challenge for us at U.S.-Africa Command is to find ways in which we can help Africans address these concerns. We're guided at the command by two overarching principles. The first is one that was espoused by President Obama and his trip to Ghana in 2009, where he made the clear statement that, somewhat obvious, but we seek African solutions to African problems. And I think for us at U.S.-Africa Command, the corollary to that is that in the long run, Africans are better able to address African security challenges. But as some military leaders in Africa have told me, they need a little bit of help in some cases. And so we looked to partner with Africans where we can, where our help and assistance is welcome to help them address their security problems. The second underlying principle in all that we do is just, again, a statement of the obvious, but that a safe, stable, secure Africa is in the best interest not only of the Africans, but of the United States of America. It is in our best interest that stability prevailed. And so we, again, find ways, look for ways in which we can contribute to that. Last month, a few weeks ago, at the U.N. General Assembly, talked about this year being a year of extraordinary transformation. I think you could make a pretty good argument. I think I could make a pretty good argument that nowhere has that extraordinary transformation been more evident than in the continent of Africa. From north to south, east to west, region to region, there are significant changes afoot that portend significant security implications for us and certainly for the Africans. So just to give you a sense of where we are and what we're trying to do, I'll hit a couple of regions briefly and then look forward to your questions and the discussion with you. For me, east Africa becomes the highest priority region. For a host of reasons, but unfortunately it is in east Africa where most of the negative security issues are present. There certainly are violent extremist organizations. There's a very close seam between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida and the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida east Africa, al-Shabaab, a growing relationship there which is certainly of concern. There's piracy. There's a new nation of South Sudan, the security force of assistance that has required their horrific famine and loss of life in the Horn of Africa specifically in Somalia at present. We have legislated action here in the United States that requires us to assist in countering the Lord's Resistance Army. So the number of issues that are kind of concentrated in east Africa, to me, make that the area that requires our greatest attention at present. It's also an area where we have some very willing partners. And I would note specifically Uganda and Burundi and their contribution to the African Union mission in Somalia which is having a very positive effect in doing quite well there. They're looking for ways where they can follow their own doctrine and ours as well which is exploit success. So we'll look for ways that we might partner with them. Next for me is the Sahel and al-Qaida in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb, relatively small but unfortunately still strong and in many ways still a growing organization that creates a high degree of instability in the Sahel region and an espoused intent to attack Westerners and to include U.S. interests. So I think AQIM remains a very significant issue with us and particularly concerning at present is the proliferation of weapons that may be coming out of Libya and I suspect that's something we may want to talk about in the discussion phase. Moving a little bit south of that as Jennifer mentioned Boko Haram in Nigeria is also transforming. I think from perhaps an organization that looked primarily internally but is now increasing their violence and certainly has increased the rhetoric and their intent to target Western and including U.S. interests in the region. Their 26 August attack against the U.N. headquarters in Abuja I think is evident of that and so for those that had any question about Boko Haram's violent nature and their motive I think that was largely put to rest in that attack in August. So as they talk about the extremist organizations Al-Qaeda East Africa Al-Shabaab Al-Qaeda the lands of the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram each individually of concern but what really concerns me is at least a stated intent for those organizations to link and synchronize their efforts and that to me would be a very very dangerous outcome for us. More broadly we do focus with our African partners on maritime security had some very good successes in the Gulf of Guinea in the west where the economic community of West African states ECOS economic community of Central African states have collaborated at the regional level and the individual states to increase their maritime domain awareness intelligence sharing to collaborate more closely on maritime security working out legal agreements that would allow things such as hot pursuit of criminals or pirates in the Gulf of Guinea increasing the capacity of coast guards and navies in the country to counter illicit trafficking and piracy so a lot of success there as well. Our efforts in Africa are less visible the further south we go but we have some strong partnerships there as well. South Africa has recently expressed great interest in addressing piracy on their coast and I think this is a great area in which South Africa could and should take a leading role and I think they'll be quite effective in that area as well and if there are some ways we can help we'll look forward to that. At the end of all that you kind of say okay well what is it that you want to achieve well one of the things I've tried to do as I talk with the commanders we should never lose sight of who we are we are first and foremost a department of defense geographic combatant command and our primary responsibility is to protect America, Americans and American interests from threats that transit or might emanate from the continent of Africa. We think we do that most effectively by strengthening the defense capabilities of African states and regional organizations again back to the principle of Africans are better able to address African security challenges but that's what we do. They ask me what keeps me awake at night it is the thought of an American passport holding a person who transits to a training camp in Somalia and gets some skill and then finds their way back into the United States to attack Americans here at our homeland that's mission failure for us and so that's what we've got to remain ever vigilant for is that kind of threat that addresses our country. It's been a fascinating first six months for me I've enjoyed the multiple dimensions of the command and the complexity and diversity of the mission sets that we have on our plate I should mention as Jennifer talked about you know we are the reality is we're in a different fiscal situation than anticipated so we're not sure what that's going to mean for us just yet I think the way I choose to address this within the command is twofold I think first of all it will require us to have a much sharper prioritization I think we're going to have to be more clear about where are the highest priority efforts for us at the other end of that spectrum that probably means there are some things that the U.S. military has done in the past that we're likely to not be able to continue or we will do it smaller or less frequently than we have in the past we've got to do that in collaboration with our partners at State and AID and a number of other agencies as well secondly I think the fiscal realities will drive us to a more regional approach rather than a series of bilateral engagements I think that actually fits pretty well with the direction that the African Union and others would like to have in terms of building regional capacity so I think our efforts actually might be complementary in that regard so with that I'll just pause and see where you'd like to go in terms of questions or discussion Great, well thanks very much kind of again it just reminds us how many diverse challenges you face from so many angles maybe just to start in terms of I think many of the battles when AFRICOM was first established in terms of reactions from African countries some of that still happens but I think General Ward spent much of his time kind of putting out those those kind of fires I think trying to explain what the command was what it wasn't and in that it kind of gave this sense of in some ways the command emphasized much more the softer side of capacity building and longer term partnership and so forth which are all important to the harder side but I think that in some ways that almost got overemphasized and I think kind of the unapologetic statement of we're there for U.S. interests is important but I wonder if Libya, if Somalia some of the reports on drones if some of the kind of difficult political relationships we have to establish because we need security partners are you feeling blowback is there kind of being a resurgence from some of the African partners for those older debates on what Africa means and what kind of presence is desired or wanted in Africa or people saying look we need you I mean which Good thank you I should set the outset just say we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are without the efforts of General Ward he saw, unlike anybody else me included, he saw Libya coming and I don't think he knew exactly how it would unfold but he saw something coming and formed the Joint Task Force well ahead of time anybody else saw something coming so he had some great vision and it was his significant effort on building personal and professional relationships that has allowed the command to continue I was worried about that frankly as Jennifer mentioned 10 days into the command and we begin kinetic operations in a place where we hadn't talked much about kinetic operations before so I was concerned about how that might unfold in an early trip into the continent talking with military leaders I asked them just frankly that question is this activity or is our military operations in Libya is that going to affect the relationship that Africa Command has and seeks to continue with you or with your partners and one of a senior African leader as I had the military leader as I was having this discussion kind of leaned back in his chair and said general the Africans who hate you will still hate you and the Africans who don't hate you still won't hate you I thought that was a pretty mature approach that one specific thing isn't going to alter that the opinion of the command the military more than the civilian leaders were kind of the opinions as we always knew who you were you wouldn't put a military command if you didn't have some vision that at some point you might have to conduct military operations it has been a point of discussion to be sure as I travel around Africa there's no question but in some countries there is a very differing view about Libya there's not much disagreement about the end state clear agreement on the necessity to protect civilians pretty near agreement that Mr. Gaddafi Libya would be better off without Mr. Gaddafi and better with a government that the people were able to select lots of disagreement about how to get there and that's okay so we've had that discussion there's been no instance where none that I'm aware of that any country has backed away from or asked to reduce their military to military engagement exercises or anything like that with us as a result of Libya as again as I go around the country almost every place it's can you do more can we host an exercise here can you do that can you do this even in places where there's disagreement about the way in which the operations were conducted the relationships are still strong just one more question before I open it up one of the State Department's big priorities coming in and the Obama Administration was rebuilding some of the relationships with big important powers I'm thinking Nigeria, Angola, South Africa that had been somewhat kind of neglected and then become a little bit prickly in some ways perhaps Nigeria less so but South Africa, Angola I think there's a real keen desire by the State Department to try to broaden that engagement somewhat South Africa obviously we've had ups and downs I mean we consider them a good friend but it does get prickly at times and it seems like the maritime security aspect may be kind of one way to build out on a more on a broader security relationship with them I'm wondering what are the reactions obviously Boko Haram in Nigeria now are you Angola can you talk a little bit about those three countries and kind of the reception the three countries that have capacities that other African countries have in terms of peacekeeping in terms of conflict resolution and so forth yeah sure, there are three very important countries I haven't found a non-important country in Africa yet the little ones come up in that but in terms of capacity so starting with Nigeria it's very clear, Nigeria is the leading country for most activities in West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea a very significant role in ECOWAS they lead a number of other missions in a variety of places we have had a longstanding and very helpful, very useful naval and air military relationship less strong with the army and in my visit to Abuja I had a great meeting with the chief of the army staff following President Jonathan's visit here with President Obama and I think we're now starting to find ways in which we can cooperate more closely very clearly Boko Haram has altered that relationship somewhat and so we're looking for ways in which we can help ways that Nigeria would like us to be able to help in developing their counter-terrorist capabilities things such as non-lethal training and non-lethal equipment to be more precise in the application of force I think are ways in which we can proceed similarly as we engage military state and AID and many others in the international community are working with Nigeria to help address the underlying causes from which Boko Haram gathers some strength particularly the dissatisfied youth and others so there are programs underway there as well and it is helping Nigeria find the right balance and for us in the military how can we help what we know very clearly is that a single-track military effort won't satisfactorily address this and then Nigeria is very clearly understanding that so a strong and growing relationship with Nigeria and Gola on the other hand has been largely hands off for quite a while we are starting now to have the foundation of a good maritime relationship with Angola and I think the maritime domain will probably be the area of main emphasis for us it's where they have asked for some help our sixth lead commander has been there on a visit again to start to establish that relationship and I think that's one that bears promise we look to partner with the Portuguese small but long standing relationship and I should mention more broadly that many of the Europeans have a longer experience in Africa than we do and while not always positive we seek to partner with them as we move forward and in South Africa I absolutely agree with you South Africa are a very large, very powerful nation in every domain, diplomatically, economically and certainly in the security sector as well South Africa and Africa command have not had the strongest ties General Ward put a lot of personal energy into that and I think gained some significant ground in demystifying Africa command as this past summer we had the largest exercise in the post-apartheid era the military-to-military relationships are strong and growing what we hope to do again is find ways when South Africa would like some assistance they should, rightfully in my opinion continue in a leadership role in Africa and even more broadly internationally of leading African Union missions leading UN missions, certainly their role in the South Africa development community of addressing piracy on a regional basis I think are all positive indicators let's open it up for questions yes, the gentleman here and there's a mic and please identify yourself and we'll take a couple at a time alright Dave Folgem with Aviation Week the broad question here is what do you need in the way of ISR General Carlisle whose plans and ops for the Air Force said that they fully intend even with the current budget crisis to go on beyond 65 UAV orbits and so what share of that are you asking for and if you're not in that planning part what are you asking for because it seems like ISR would help you as much as anything you could possibly get Steve Morrison in the back Steve is the former director of the Africa program Good morning General, thank you so much for your remarks and congratulations on all the great work I wanted to focus on the budget and the case that can be made to the American people right now as we all know we're in historically difficult budgetary circumstances right now and DOD in particular with the August package with the super committee with the projections looking forward over the next several years perhaps into the next full decade we're going to see some significant contractions and I would expect at AFRACOM as a relatively new entity with relatively small budgets might actually be quite vulnerable and I wanted to ask you how do you make, you talked about setting priorities and having a regional approach, you're not all that well known to an American public or to a congressional audience or say how do you, where's your thinking right now in terms of making under the current circumstances making the very best, strongest, clearest case to an environment here that is skeptical about putting dollars overseas, scared about our own economy and very divided politically, thank you Thanks Steve, and then in the way back there Sasha Leshna from the Enough Project thank you for your comments General I was pleased to hear you talk about the Lord's Resistance Army and the planning of your speech in terms of priority areas I think it's a very positive development that the Pentagon is deploying some military advisors to the LRA conflict in support of the existing efforts and so my question about that deployment was how long do you see that as going forward we've been pretty disappointed with the results from the Ugandan army to date and is there any effort to increase the number and the quality of troops from Uganda that's being deployed out there they do have more elite forces for example the Presidential Guard Brigade is there an effort to try to increase the quality of those forces thank you let's start with that, we'll come back for another round if it's okay I'll just take them in sequence so Dave on the ISR question the first answer is no commander would ever say he or she has enough ISR so I mean it's an insatiable appetite I think but I have to tell you that given the missions that Africa command has been handed we've had the ISR necessary to accomplish those missions it's principally been focused unsurprisingly in East Africa more recently and currently heavy emphasis in Libya and then more broadly in the Sahel focused on al-Qaida in the lands of the Islamic Maghreb the near term challenge I think will be as NATO contemplates concluding Operation Unified Protector the NATO mission in Libya to which the United States has contributed a pretty significant level of of collection assets how much of that do I need to keep as Unified Protector ends and Libya comes the Libya mission set comes back to Africa command in a normalized relationship we're going through that drill right now but I think for the near term because of the threat of proliferation of weapons principally because of the the National Transitional Council hopefully at some point interim government's interest in securing their own borders will have a sustained US ISR present at least for the next several months my guess is it will probably be a little bit less than what's there right now it'll be a little more focused perhaps on the borders less focused on targeting which the assets are doing now in support of the NATO mission and more broadly supportive of border security and again tracking these the trafficking routes for weapons so I think that part will continue as always we've got to watch very carefully there will always be pressure to reduce and so one of my responsibilities is to continue to convey through General Dempsey and to Secretary Panetta of what our operational requirements are so far Africa has Africa's requirements have been very well supported and I think we'll be okay with that regard the other challenge we face of course is for emerging requirements and the challenge there is access and basing where we are almost wholly reliant upon host nations to provide that basing and access so if there were to be an emerging crisis elsewhere in the continent then we obviously would have to wrestle through the issues of basing and overflight on the budget the question is first of all there is a state led department of state led man pads task force that has been operating now for a couple of months actually with regional partners in different countries if you will to make sure that border security issues are addressing this concern there have been discussions very recently with senior members of the National Transitional Council it's very clear to me in a meeting that I attended with Chairman Jalil and others the National Transitional Council recognizes that concern and understands their responsibilities to control the weapons first of all try to regain control of those which have fallen outside of the government's control so I think everything is on the table whether it's a buy back program or others I think are all being considered there are some worrying indicators that some man pads type non-specific have left the country and I would just tell you that in my recent travels to most of the neighboring countries this is near the top of their security agenda and they're focusing significant collection and law enforcement and military efforts to counter this threat they all understand the seriousness of this proliferation of weapons so I don't know the specifics but certainly it's a worrying trend on the budget we are in the greater scheme of things pretty small potatoes in the budget area and my guess is at some point somebody will propose the notion that says well just do away with Africa command I suppose if somebody made that proposal and they looked at it they probably find it wouldn't make much difference in the budget world the approach I take is I think that we get disproportionate effect for a very modest investment it is sometimes a tough sell to say again why should we be spending money in Africa where we ought to be spending money at home it is the long standing debate of prevention versus response and so I think Libya might be instructive in this regard and of course you can never exactly equate things but we're in a billion in the neighborhood of a billion spending on military operations in Libya maybe, just maybe you could avoid a future exercise like that through the expenditure and the investment of some millions of dollars over time to help build the capacity of African states security forces to behave in responsible ways they're professional, they're capable they're responsive to legitimate civilian control they're supportive of the people of the country it's an imprecise argument because you can't prove the negative but I believe that that effort, that relatively small effort paid in prevention and deterrence building partner capacity I think will pay off for us in the long run it won't prevent every emerging crisis but what we strive to do is again by increasing the defense capabilities of our African partners and of the regional organizations help them build the capacity not only to prevent hostilities but it should prevention fail to be able to more effectively respond to these emerging crisis without us having to become involved and I think that's the direction that we clearly want to head in finally I would say on the budget at least at present there is certainly in my mind and I think in many others there is a very real threat to America from these violent organizations that exist in Africa we've got to address that again mission failure is that threat comes home here and we've got to do all that we can to prevent that from occurring having said that I understand very clearly we're going to be in some tough budget discussions but I think we have a pretty good case to make lastly to the Lord's Resistance Army I have to tell you six months ago I didn't know anything about the Lord's Resistance Army you start to learn a little bit about this and if you ever had any question if there is evil in this world is resident in the person of Joseph Coney and in that organization we now have legislation that requires us to help address the problem of the Lord's Resistance Army and of course rule number one for the military is we follow the law so there's a law that tells us to do this in the four nation boundary of Uganda Democratic Republic of Congo Central African Republic and now the Republic of South Sudan the small group of the Lord's Resistance Army continues to terrorize they continue to murder they continue to kidnap people the Ugandan People's Defense Force has been kind of a leading effort in this regard they have had some successes they have had some recent successes in killing and capturing some members of the Lord's Resistance Army but none of the senior leaders my best estimate at present is that Coney and the senior leaders are probably in the Central African Republic the Ugandan People's Defense Forces is shifting their effort in that area our role so far has been in facilitating intelligence we're hopeful here in the very near future to be able to increase the number of US military advisors and trainers in that regard there is a joint combined intel ops center that is manned almost exclusively by Africans some small representation there to coordinate the efforts of all the different organizations the US in a State Department led effort trained very effectively trained a battalion of the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo that's operating in northeast DRC now in this effort and we're in discussions with the DRC about increasing that effort training another battalion to help address this the Lord's Resistance Army the outcome is clear that the Africans that are participating in these missions kill or capture Coney and his senior leaders and protect the citizenry particularly in that four state area and I'm convinced that those four nations are committed to that mission let's go with Tony welcome sir Tony Carroll with Manchester trade and I teach at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies at this very stage about two years ago or three years ago former assistant secretary of state described Afro commas, Peace Corps and steroids we talked a little bit about the security mission of the Africa command but I'd like for you to address maybe some of the softer part of your command the unusual ability of your establishment institutions within your establishment to respond to humanitarian crises whether they be in the construction of dams and water supply whether they be the construction of emergency food storage whether they help in the areas of health supply chain management these are special skills that you have and are needed in Africa and as a Peace Corps volunteer I don't feel threatened by a former Peace Corps volunteer I don't feel threatened that in the right space could do great good as well as your security mission thank you Tony, let's go to Ed and then the lady Ed first the center general thank you working thank you very much I'm Ed Barber from Good Works International Andrew Young's consulting firm been working on Africa for 20 years and this is pure coincidence but my question follows right on Tony's I was wondering about the economic or quasi economic dimensions of your activities in Africa dating way back in the 80s I was an admirer of the West Africa training crews and the civic action projects you all sometimes undertook in connection with that crews building a farm to market bridge in a remote part of Mauritania or donating a couple of patrol boats to Senegal to enable them to enforce their offshore fishing jurisdiction and I wondered to what extent those kinds of functions might continue or will they be squeezed out by budget pressures these are sometimes extraordinarily useful projects small bucks but making a big difference and again as Tony said some of them are areas where you have unique capabilities thank you and there's the lady right behind thank you good morning sir my name is Rachel Smith Headquarters Department of the Army G357 going back to the budget question with the reduced budget what are your thoughts regarding China's increased spending on the continent and your perspective are we going to fall too far behind as a strategic partner with our African partners can I just add on to Tony so kind of perhaps maybe to be specific to whether Africa is engaged in the Somalia humanitarian aspect of that as well thanks for that set and we'll come back for one more okay alright thanks the lack of a better term the non-traditional military activities of the command are just as important as the military side in fact you could probably make a pretty good argument because those contribute significantly to the underlying causes of instability across the continent perhaps those in the long term are more important and I should mention perhaps it's unusual for a guy in uniform but I'm a pretty big fan of the Peace Corps because it may seem a little bit of a non-sequitur but for many Africans the only American that they will ever see in their lives is a Peace Corps volunteer and that one individual or that small team's influence lasts for generations and has a dramatic effect so thanks for volunteering we need more and as you know there are some places in Africa where the security situation is such that Peace Corps operations have been suspended so I think one of our roles is to try to help those countries get back to a situation where Peace Corps can come back in we do focus in a lot of other areas as Tony mentioned to assist in that regard structurally as many of you know we have a deputy commander for civil military activities currently Ambassador Tony Holmes former Ambassador to Burkina Faso many of you know the first was Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates who just formally retired last Friday and in typical Yates family tradition is now back on active duty as the chargé and cartoon I guess that weekend I don't have enough retirement for her I'm not Yeah, Ambassador John Yates is a little puzzled by that but they'll figure that out I think and we have lots of other non-DoD persons on the staff but the other key one I would mention is our senior development advisor Mr. Mark White who comes to us from AID those two senior leaders more than any other are the ones who help us in the command better understand how we can integrate traditional military activities in ways that facilitate those programs so we do that in small ways so for example the Gambia small country they have big flooding problems and those flooding problems you know have a very significant adverse effect on agriculture, on fisheries and what have you so we say how do you do that well let's bring in the Army Corps of Engineers to help do an assessment of how do you know if anybody knows flood control it's kind of the Army Corps of Engineers they know how to do this that's a core competency so that's a way that we can again combine what is largely economic activity with some military support as many of you know there are some there are armed forces US armed forces medical research centers and laboratories in Africa which do great work and I've come to really appreciate what they do what I've asked them to do now that I've learned a little bit about them is to find ways to expand their work increase their collaboration with African national and regional health programs so that we can take this great expertise that is resident in the US military chains and expand that more regionally into African civil society so there are ways to do that one more example again selflessly motivated this battalion that I mentioned training in the Democratic Republic of Congo a very innovative program to help them become self-sustaining with food and so the Borlaug Institute has developed programs for that battalion that they now have their own fish ponds they grow and process their own cassava they have they have chickens yet they have pigs they have cattle for milk and cheese and it's self-sustaining well that's a pretty good thing for a military to have as they travel around other nations South Sudan for example is looking to expand that but there also now several of these militaries are looking at programs of demobilizing and reintegrating former soldiers into civil society this is a program by which they can gain a skill, they gain some agricultural skill and then can transit out of the armed forces and be a meaningful contributor into society so those are a couple of the examples and Tony's right to kind of call me on this as I spoke primarily of the traditional military aspect up front the other activities which we tend to do less visibly which is okay by me in support of either other U.S. organizations African organizations or international organizations our small contributions I think can be meaningful continuing in the economic dimension I would follow up your questions about with a specific focus on maritime security which is so important to so many nations you know some would argue that the genesis of East Africa piracy has its root in the loss of fishing capabilities and income from fisheries off the coast of Somalia so it has certainly has a security angle as well but the economic challenges in the maritime domain are very significant it is important to recognize that almost everything that comes into war comes out of Africa does so by sea and it's been very interesting most Africans don't think of themselves as a maritime continent or as individual maritime states but they truly are and highly dependent upon that so we look for ways in which we can indeed partner with coast guards or navies Liberia for example which had no coast guard a small effort to help them do that conducted patrols in their territorial waters and have done fisheries enforcement in concert with other government officials in Liberia same in many other states as well is an important thing you ask a great question about will these kinds of efforts be sustainable in a declining budget area there are questions being asked about our efforts in Connery narcotics and other illicit trafficking are those core competencies are those things that perhaps are at risk we've got to examine each and every one of those ideally what we want to do is get us out of that business and get the Africans to the point where they can execute these missions with either greatly reduced or no U.S. support but they're not at that point yet and so I think I would make the case that those efforts have to be sustained for at least some period of time right she asked a great question I have to admit it's a little unfair for an army person to be asking another army person but you know there's a great question of China in Africa and first of all they are everywhere in Africa it's not a military rivalry though there are lots of nations which have Chinese military equipment but it's not an adversarial relationship with China I have found in these first couple of months that some African countries are finding that the Chinese often offer military equipment perhaps at lower price than we do but some Africans are finding that without the sustaining programs that come behind that that's not such a great deal so they're looking to us now and say okay we now know why you're more expensive than the Chinese because in three years this airplane this tank this boat that we got from the Chinese is no longer operable whereas the stuff they get from us because we insist upon a sustaining package when they get US military equipment that works up pretty well I'm not particularly concerned about us falling strategically behind China in Africa I think there are certainly some areas that interest are shared and we should further explore those an example would be as I talked with some of you a few weeks ago that Chinese recently provided riverine craft to the Democratic Republic of Congo pretty essential piece of equipment which we don't have much of is useful to the FRDC to have those assets that now along with the training we provide I think gives the FRDC a useful product and I think there are perhaps some other areas perhaps even in the area of professional military education where we might be able to partner with Chinese and others to get bigger bang for the buck in some African countries I believe we are unfortunately out of time I spoke too long I'm sorry no no this is great for someone who didn't spend a day of his career on Africa in 36 years you are certainly a quick study what a pleasure to have you here hear your views really so articulately said and making the case I think for the command and the future of the command here in Washington please join me in thanking General Ham, thank you all for joining us we hope we get you back in the near future thanks thanks thanks