European Command Chief Touts Collaborative Strategy on Threats
09 March 2006
General Jones outlines EUCOM strategy, requirements for Europe, Africa
By Vince Crawley
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- The United States is trimming troop levels in Europe but will keep a significant presence to maintain NATO leadership while teaming with allies to solve long-term threats, the U.S. commander in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa says.
Experience has shown “that the most lasting solutions to existing threats will be found within collaborative and multifaceted approaches,” Marine Corps General James Jones told the Senate and House Armed Services committees March 7 and March 8, respectively.
Today’s threats include terrorism, radical fundamentalism, weapons proliferation, drug trafficking and uncontrolled illegal immigration, said Jones, who is chief of U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe.
“Western Europe has now benefited from 60 years of peace and stability,” Jones said. “Our strategic goal is to expand similar peace and prosperity to Eastern Europe and Africa.”
He discussed ongoing shifts in troop levels, the creation of rotational force hubs in Bulgaria and Romania, and initiatives in Africa to improve regional peacekeeping while thwarting the movement of potential terrorists in ungoverned areas.
EUCOM, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, coordinates U.S. military relations with 91 countries, from Cape Town, South Africa, to Russia’s Pacific coast.
EUROPE
The United States and Russia, Jones said, are “making steady progress … in developing a normalized military relationship that moves us past the days of the Cold War.” (See related article.)
He said EUCOM plans to trim its military presence from 112,000 troops to about 70,000 over the next several years. Those forces remaining in Europe will focus on being able swiftly to deploy to temporary locations in southeast Europe, Eurasia and Africa.
Jones testified that by the end of 2006, he will have closed 43 bases and returned about 10,000 military personnel and 13,800 family members to bases in the United States.
Along the Black Sea, recent basing agreements will allow U.S. forces to start establishing an Eastern European Task Force, which will include a headquarters at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base near Contanta, Romania. Basing agreements for the task force are also under way with neighboring Bulgaria.
The task force “significantly increases” the ability of U.S. and partner forces to coordinate and conduct training and missions in Eurasia and the Caucasus, Jones said. It will include several hundred or, at most, a few thousand rotational troops who are on temporary assignments to the region. (See related article.)
During the two hearings, Jones also described Caspian Guard, a program to improve the capabilities of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in a strategic region that borders northern Iran. The initiative helps Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan “prevent and, if needed, respond to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, drug- and human-trafficking, and other transnational threats” in the Caspian region, he said.
The Caspian Sea is a major transit point between southeast Europe and Central Asia and is also a significant source of petroleum and natural gas. Among the projects related to Caspian Guard are training in maritime special operations, rapid reaction, counter-narcoterrorism and border control; training and equipment to detect and respond to threats involving weapons of mass destruction; and upgrades to naval vessels and communications.
AFRICA
Jones testified that in western and sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. military’s priorities are: increasing the ability of African nations to conduct peacekeeping and contingency operations; protecting natural resources; and promoting stability by providing medical advice and assistance for chronic health issues such as HIV/AIDS, cholera, malaria and other diseases. EUCOM officials point out that chronic diseases can affect a nation’s ability to deploy healthy peacekeeping forces. (See related article.)
He also cited the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, which promotes military cooperation between nine African nations, and the African Contingency Operations, Training and Assistance program, which seeks to train a sustained peacekeeping force of 40,000 African troops by 2010.
Africa currently supplies 15 percent of U.S. oil imports, but the Gulf of Guinea is, for the most part, a “poorly governed maritime security region where smuggling, piracy and oil-bunkering are a way of life,” Jones said.
“Africa’s vast potential makes African stability a near-term global strategic imperative,” he said. (See related article.)
The full text (PDF, 62 pages) of Jones’ prepared testimony is available on the Web site of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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