My original billet at US European Command (EUCOM) was related to its work on Africa, there was no AFRICOM back then but it was rumored to be coming. Someone saw something about me and took me from that billet to one studying Russian military and political machinations (this was 2005-2009 … - ThreadSky

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joshmanning.bsky.social • 2 days ago

My original billet at US European Command (EUCOM) was related to its work on Africa, there was no AFRICOM back then but it was rumored to be coming. Someone saw something about me and took me from that billet to one studying Russian military and political machinations (this was 2005-2009 …

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joshmanning.bsky.social•2 days ago

Putin was just getting started, we watched in horror as he killed journalists and dissidents and hacked an entire country, with no ramifications). It was obvious that Putin was not the guy President Bush looked in the eyes. It was a dictatorship forming. A danger, and we treated it as such.

joshmanning.bsky.social•2 days ago

All of that led up to Russia invading Georgia (which I and a small team of folks called weeks beforehand). For all my crystal ball work, AFRICOM wanted its billets back. So as EUCOM stood up a cell to watch the Georgia conflict I went to AFRICOM.

I was furious, but senior Navy chiefs didn’t care.

joshmanning.bsky.social•2 days ago

I ended up on the North Africa team. Which was a sleepy little spot where we wrote brief after brief about corrupt regimes, Russia reaching out to them and stirring up conflicts. I even got to help put together a PDB for Pres. Bush.

AFRICOM was an experiment to have state and DoD work together.

joshmanning.bsky.social•2 days ago

China and Russia have the upper hand in Africa and have for awhile. Shutting this command down will do little to salvage that and in fact it will get worse. But that’s the point. And it’s absolutely astounding to me how much of this happened within days and weeks of the Russia-Trump staff meeting.

joshmanning.bsky.social•2 days ago

It’s not an anomaly, it’s what they planned.

(Okay, back to the DayQuil.)

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