U.S. Military’s Hub in Africa Fights to Keep the Coronavirus Out

The U.S. military base in Djibouti is crammed next to French, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese bases, reflecting the geopolitical importance of the tiny East African nation that sits at the mouth of the Red Sea, a key international shipping lane. The base is a launchpad for counterterrorism strikes and anti-piracy operations.
The cases in Camp Lemonnier represent the latest example of the global pandemic’s knock-on impacts on U.S. military posture and operations. The U.S. military has canceled or pared down major military exercises in Europe aimed at deterring Russia, and an outbreak of the coronavirus has left one U.S. aircraft carrier deployed to the Pacific pierside in Guam and rerouted an American destroyer bound to join President Donald Trump’s counterdrug mission in the Caribbean back to the West Coast. U.S. Africa Command also scuttled the massive 9,300-troop, three-nation “African Lion” exercise in March as the Pentagon began to put in place social distancing guidelines for U.S. forces.