{"id":66095,"date":"2022-07-28T17:34:09","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T17:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/07\/28\/africa-command-balancing-rise-of-terrorism-with-limited-resources\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T12:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T12:09:07","slug":"africa-command-balancing-rise-of-terrorism-with-limited-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2022\/07\/28\/africa-command-balancing-rise-of-terrorism-with-limited-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Command balancing rise of terrorism with limited resources"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Africa may be quickly becoming the international nexus of violent extremist groups<\/a>, but the head of U.S. Africa Command doesn\u2019t foresee much ramping up of the American presence there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the beginning of the Biden administration, Army Gen. Stephen Townsend and his AFRICOM colleagues have been very publicly making the case<\/a> for reinstating U.S. rotations to Somalia. With that achieved<\/a>, he isn\u2019t predicting any big moves after his planned change of command later this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would say you\u2019re not going to see a very significant change,\u201d he told Military Times on Thursday during a Defense Writers Group event. \u201cWe\u2019re still what our department refers to as the \u2018economy-of-force theater\u2019 \u2015also in the current lexicon, a \u2018posture-limited theater,\u2019 which means we\u2019re still not going to get very many resources, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current national defense strategy puts counterterrorism below the more militarily advanced threats of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, prioritizing funding for Indo-Pacific, Central and European commands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, training and exercising with African partner forces isn\u2019t a particularly expensive undertaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I don\u2019t actually think we need a lot of resources to do our job to protect America\u2019s interest here in Africa, and advance our objectives,\u201d Townsend said.<\/p>\n\n\n