Mother Jones reports that “The Pentagon’s Africa Command will tell you there’s one military base on the entire continent. Don’t believe them.”

The piece continues: “To hear AFRICOM tell it, US military involvement on the continent ranges from the miniscule to the microscopic. The command is adamant that it has only a single “military base” in all of Africa: Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti… Out of public earshot, officers running America’s secret wars say: ‘Africa is the battlefield of tomorrow, today.’

“The proof is in the details—a seemingly ceaseless string of projects, operations, and engagements. Each mission, as AFRICOM insists, may be relatively limited and each footprint might be “small” on its own, but taken as a whole, US military operations are sweeping and expansive. Evidence of an American pivot to Africa is almost everywhere on the continent. Few, however, have paid much notice.”