“Just five years ago, the Pentagon considered Africa such a strategic backwater that the global map of combatant commands carved the massive continent into two chunks and placed most of it under control of the chief of U.S. European Command in Belgium. Yet since the 2008 creation of U.S. Africa Command, the military has conducted a quiet buildup there and today has at least 5,000 troops operating on the ground across the continent.”
Source: DoD quietly expanding AFRICOM missions | Military Times | militarytimes.com
