Global Fleet Station: A Powerful Tool for Preventing Conflict

摘要

The October 2007 initial deployment of the Africa Partnership Station (APS) to the Gulf of Guinea and the coincident rollout of A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower signaled a strong American commitment to leveraging U.S. sea power to protect and sustain the global, interconnected maritime sphere. The APS is a Global Fleet Station (GFS) sea base designed to assist the Gulf of Guinea maritime community in developing better maritime governance for denying use of the sea to those who threaten regional and global security. The Global Fleet Station, born out of a need formilitary shaping and stability operations without the trappings of war, is a proven concept for this mission in such areas as the Gulf of Guinea and the Caribbean basin. It also serves as a platform from which to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to nations within its area of operations. The GFS is more a concept than a 'platform,' and its promise and flexibility arise from, respectively, its minimal military footprint ashore and the wide cross-section of professional resources that it hosts. The prevention of violence-still a challenge for the conflict-resolution profession and entirely new ground for the Defense Department-is one potential contribution, however, that the GFS has yet to realize fully. The pilot Africa Partnership Station mission, which ended in May 2008, laid the foundation for conflict prevention by future deployments through the relationships it built with and between the peoples of the Gulf of Guinea region, by the goodwill it instilled through its humanitarian-action and disaster-relief efforts, and through its promotion of African maritime security. The U.S.Naval Forces Europe-Sixth Fleet staff has planned APS missions through 2012, with a scheduled 1 November 2008 deployment of the dock landing ship USS Nashville (LPD 13).