The commander of American naval forces in Europe addressed the problem:
So we've been work -- and I've been working on Africa Partnership Station since I first arrived in Naples end of 2009. And Africa Partnership Station and the exercise series that we do, the express series around Africa, north, east, west, south, is all part of assisting African maritime nations to solve African problems. So African solutions to African problems, you probably heard that before.
The difference between 2009 and 2018 post Yaoundé Code of Conduct and some infrastructure, some radars, some AIS stations, some collaboration, and all the exercises we've done in between has been like night and day. And you're right. So we had a problem on the East Coast of Africa with Somali pirates, we put a lot of emphasis on that and a lot of capacity on that, and that problem is now manageable.
We're starting to see the rise of that problem in the Gulf of Guinea. So I'll head out in October to a Gulf of Guinea conference in France. Partnering with the French, I'll have African partners coming to Naples for the Coalition Force Maritime Commanders Conference in December. We finished Obangame Express in the spring; I was down there and took the USS Mount Whitney down there for the first time. All with the goal of assisting them in doing what they need to do to protect their territorial waters.
If equipped with drones, helicopters, small watercraft, boarding parties, special forces, and light infantry, The AFRICOM Queen modularized auxiliary cruiser could patrol the entire Gulf of Guinea area in cooperation with local allies.
With American military focus returning to conventional combat against potential peers like Russia and China at the high end, AFRICOM's priority for naval assets has dropped from its already low level.
Perhaps when the Navy reaches its number goal of 355 hulls one day, AFRICOM will be able to shake loose a couple hulls from the Navy. But even then, having its own modularized auxiliary cruisers would be superior for AFRICOM power projection and alliance strengthening.
