The largest peacetime military exercise ever on African soil began on June 7, when troops from nine nations, including NATO, began maneuvers in Morocco, with extensions in Tunisia and Senegal. Moroccan activities are concentrated around Kenita Air Base, with naval gunfire exercises offshore, said to include the Moroccan navy, according to the AFRICOM release. Originally set to take place in March, and last six days, this is the 17th year these exercises are taking place.
While planning for these exercises — including the choice of targets to “invade” — took place months ago, this year’s exercises take place in a heightened level of tension on the continent. Officially, AFRICOM is talking about the political situation in Morocco, which has seen a flare-up of a decades-old Polisario separatist movement, which for years has claimed a section of Western Sahara (south of Morocco) it calls the Sahrawi Republic, a conflict which implicitly involves Algeria and Spain. But the true conflict is on the global geopolitical level.
On June 13, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France’s “anti-terror” military Operation Barkhane — under cover of which the former colonial power had deployed over 5,000 troops and air support to five Sahel countries (all former colonies) including Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger — would come to an end. After seven years of failed engagement against jihadist terror, popular sentiment has begun to turn toward Russia, which has been effectively engaged in training troops in Central African Republic for years.
In reality, any “invasion of Africa” is a folly. The United States has only one (official) base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, on the opposite end of the Sahara Desert. Like most others, this military exercise, which is linked to the U.S. European Command’s “Defender” series “to counter malign activity in North Africa and Southern Europe,” has its targets set on Russia and China.
