In February of 2008 under the administration of President George W. Bush, Jr., the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) was officially launched with its base in Stuttgart, Germany.
The reasoning behind the creation of AFRICOM has evolved over the last eight years from being a necessary security measure to protect vital American interests on the continent to a mechanism designed to assist post-colonial African states to enhance their national security apparatuses in light of the so-called “war on terrorism”, by then in full operation some four to five years after the invasion of Iraq and Haiti, and six-and-a-half years after the Pentagon occupation of Afghanistan.
There was much controversy within the African Union (AU) member-states over whether AFRICOM should establish its headquarters on the continent. This idea initially was rejected by the Pentagon due to this objection by numerous African states of varying political outlooks and governmental systems.
At this time, 2007-2008, the U.S. had initiated a war in Somalia in order to prevent the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) from fully consolidating power in that Horn of Africa nation fractured since 1991 after the collapse of the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre, a close ally of Washington. The administration of President George H.W. Bush in its final days had deployed 12,000 Marines to Somalia in December 1992, under the guise of responding to a humanitarian crisis of food deficits and internal conflict.