Why NATO Can’t Afford to Ignore Africa: The Key to Global Security Amid Rising Threats

What role should NATO play in today’s security landscape—and how do regions like Africa factor into long-term strategy?

In this episode of the "At the Boundary" podcast, host Jim Cardoso is joined by retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Kirk Smith to explore evolving priorities in national security and defense cooperation. The conversation covers NATO’s post-counterterrorism role, the shifting dynamics of the transatlantic relationship, and why Africa has become a strategic focal point for issues like migration, terrorism, and global power competition.

Also discussed:

• The value of European NATO partners’ diverse perspectives
• Why security cooperation is key to long-term stability
• The continued relevance of Special Operations Forces (SOF)
• How allies maintain interoperability across missions and regions

This episode offers timely insights for anyone interested in alliance strategy, emerging global threats, and the future of military partnerships.

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Links From the Episode:

• Register for the FSP Cyber Frontier Summit Here 

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

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The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

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Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. Our guest today is retired US Air Force Lieutenant General Kirk Smith. He's the former commander of Special Operations Command Europe and deputy commander of us Africa Command. I always enjoy bringing in SOF leaders, especially one I've known personally for a year or two. First a quick reminder that next week, on April 15, we'll hold the cyber frontier Summit. It's the first cyber security conference produced and hosted by our student organization, the future strategist program, FSP has put together an amazing lineup of discussions, speakers and research. They're also introducing some unique features with this conference, including student moderators and a student ridden policy proposal for the panel to review. Our Executive Director, retired Marine Corps General Frank Mackenzie, will be put on the proverbial Hot Seat, as he's agreed to be grilled by two students at the conference's keynote discussion. I could speak for all of us at GNSI in saying that we'd really appreciate your support for these students by registering and attending the conference is in the Oval theater at the Marshall Student Center here on the Tampa campus of USF. There's no cost to attend, but registration is required. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your fellow students, and let's pack the house for FSP. We'll drop a link in the show notes for more information. All right, let's bring on our guest for today's episode. Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Kirk Smith joins us from Norway, where he's enjoying the beautiful April Scandinavian weather, which is a lot more temperate than I actually thought it was when I looked it up for Norway. He's the former deputy commander of United States Africa Command, and prior to that, he served as commander of Special Operations Command Europe, the soft component of US European command. He's a 1989 graduate of the Air Force Academy and served for 35 years until retiring last year. Most importantly, he and I have known each other since the 1990s when we both flew the mighty MH 53 Pavlo helicopter for Air Force Special Operations Command, and I got my initial night water operations, check ride from then. Captain Smith, I think around 1998 Kirk, welcome to at the boundary,

Kirk Smith: 2:49

Jim. Thanks a lot pleasure to be here. So from your career

Jim Cardoso: 2:53

current activities, as well as landing abroad, you know, you have a great perspective on national security issues in Europe and Africa, which we'll explore today. However, first I provided a very quick and fairly one dimensional biography in the intro. Tell us a little bit more about yourself and your career. Thanks,

Kirk Smith: 3:12

Jim. So actually, probably career quite a bit like yours. Started out as a FAPE first assignment instructor pilot upon graduating from undergraduate pilot training we did. I think you were, I'm trying to remember now where you were, Jim

Jim Cardoso: 3:29

Vance, Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma, and the T 38

Kirk Smith: 3:33

Yeah, it scares me, actually, that I knew that. So I was Columbus, Mississippi. That gives you some idea I lost, if you'll recall, Jim, you selected your location and your start date based on your Order of Merit. So I lost two weeks of leave, and I ended up in Columbus, Mississippi. So that will give you some indication of what my overall order of merit was. Fresh graduate, not not great. Anyways, completed pilot training, stayed there in Columbus, Mississippi for three years as an instructor. And I had wanted to go to undergraduate helicopter training right out of the academy. But again, as I mentioned, my order of merit was not high enough to get at the time. I think it was five slots a year was all that they were given. So when I saw after about two and a half years of being an instructor, I saw that they were starting to drop, as we said, helicopters into the assignments I volunteered. They were all u h ones at the time. And then about the fourth opportunity to volunteer, if you will. For an early assignment, there was an 853 and I got selected. So I went off to pave school. As you mentioned, I think you were just a little bit ahead of me going through the schoolhouse. You went to Herbert field, I think

Jim Cardoso: 4:55

actual to Osan. I went to the mighty 31st SOS,

Kirk Smith: 4:59

yeah. Yeah, you went to Osan Same, same time frame as a good mutual friend of our, Sean Silverman, yeah, you and Sean were there, yep, same time frame. Anyways, then we ended up meeting. I went to RAF Milton Hall for my first operational assignment in the UK. And then we ended up meeting in Brindisi, Italy, doing kind of operation, deny flight, amongst a couple of other names, delivery, forge, deny

Jim Cardoso: 5:29

flight, joint guard, I think a bunch of names, all basically

Kirk Smith: 5:36

Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, essentially the no fly zone, and then some soft missions, as well as the hostilities, if you will, came to a close with i Four, s4 and then that kind of rolled into k4 and all the things that were happening that that time frame, if you will, in the Balkans, interesting to kind of see how that has what has changed and what hasn't changed in that region of Europe, if you will, certainly different than when you and I were there. But it is interesting now to kind of see how some of those things continue and remain many, many years after, you know, what we would have said were the completions of those missions, but then continued that assignment with a CONUS assignment, so Herbert field, then I would, you know, kind of say the obligatory schools and staffs stayed, continued to fly to 53 You know, throughout that time frame, whether it was, you know, as a squadron pilot flying the line, or on a on a staff at the group, or the wing level, the oh six command level. And then ultimately ended up going back to RAF Milton Hall in the 21st special operations squadron to be the commander. And that was my last 53 flying assignment. As they were actually already in the process of deactivating. The Air Force was in the process of, kind of basically recapitalizing trading in the H 50 3s and they were being replaced by CV 22 squadrons. So I deactivated, or inactivated, I think is the correct word, the 21st SOS at re Milton Hall in 2008 and then, kind of back to obligatory, if you will, staff and schools ended up as the vice Wing Commander, following you actually, or the wing advice, I think, is the right term, Cannon, Air Force Base, COVID, New Mexico garden spot

Jim Cardoso: 7:40

and and

Kirk Smith: 7:43

yeah, and then went to SOCOM from there. So after I was at Canon for about a year, Afghanistan the second year, and then went off to US Special Operations Command, where we ran into each other. You were on the SOCOM staff, and I was working at the time for Admiral McRaven is as commanders Action Group Director. And I was fortunate enough to get a promotion out of that assignment, Herbert field. So now AFSOC Air Force Special Operations Command Headquarters, where I was the Director for Strategic Plans and requirements and programming, so that a five slash eight back to SOCOM, back to Afghanistan, and then special opera, Special Operations Command Europe, from there, after 14 months in Afghanistan, as the Deputy Commanding General for the subject, so that the Special Operations Joint Task Force, slash NATO Special Operations element as well. And I'll come back on that a little bit. I think if we talk some on kind of, where does NATO see itself now, in kind of a, I'll say post CT world, not being totally post CT, but certainly the way NATO views things. Yeah, we'll definitely have a different Yeah. And then, and then ended up so that Stuttgart for two years is soccer, and then I was fortunate enough to get selected as the D com at AFRICOM, so seven kilometers away from patch barracks to Kelly barracks. And with that came the promotion at three star, and stayed as the decom there at Africa Command for a little less than four years, which is a little bit of an anomaly, but some of that was thanks to some political activities. With respect to the Senate not confirming three and four stars again, due to some political agendas, had nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do with the individuals that had to do with the political agenda. So my replacement cannot get confirmed. So my retirement was extended about a year, basically, while we were waiting for those, those things to work themselves out. And then once I was able to finally retire, we decided. We didn't want to leave Europe yet. Kids are grown out of the house, sons off the payroll. Son is at university, or daughters at university in the United Kingdom. And we decided to stay in Europe a little bit longer, so we immigrated to Norway, and that's where we live now, about 45 kilometers south of Oslo. So

Jim Cardoso: 10:18

as I can, you know, obviously there's an audio only broadcast. But we're, you know, for, for those out there wondering, we are looking at each other over teams, and I can see in the background, it's, well, it's still light outside. It looks like, but it's so what time is it there? About seven at night or so, or,

Kirk Smith: 10:36

yeah, 715 so right now it's getting dark. I mean, so you know, not, not excessive at all, but it the sun sets about 830 and then it's kind of totally dark, if you will, by about nine, we're still obviously two months, two and a half months away from the longest day. So it will the days will stretch, but we're still pretty far south here, quite honestly, in Oslo. So you don't see the extremes that you think about. You know, up north of the Arctic Circle. So, but it can get dark in the winter time in gray, but this time of the year, it is magnificent. So we live, ironically, renting the home of he was the former chief of the Norwegian Air Force. He's now the senior mill rep in Brussels for Norway at NATO headquarters. It's about 300 meters off of the Oslo fjord. And so you're looking at the backside, and you can see the sun. I'm looking out at the fjord, and it is an absolutely gorgeous day,

Jim Cardoso: 11:33

nice. Well, enjoy it while you got it. No doubt about that. You know, until you went through that, I I forgot some of the lines of, you know, of connection that you and I had over the I knew we had him, but then, especially when you brought up a cannon, was when I was like, Oh, that's right, you're right behind me. A cannon. Yeah, that was, I like, Canon. It was very different. Just building up into a soft base. I thought that was a neat assignment. And then, of course, we ran across each other back at SOCOM headquarters as well. You know, I've found that I asked I had, you know, Scotty, how on the podcast as well. You know, you know, I both know him well and and I asked him this question as well. I found that most long time soft operators, they and leaders, they rarely just kind of stumble into special operations by accident. What? What kind of drew you into the air commando world.

Kirk Smith: 12:25

I think what I would what I would say, is so the aircraft to start with, right? I was just enamored with the age 53 I remember marching back from Jack's valley as a four degree, right, that first year that you're at the Air Force Academy, you spend your whatever the field training time was, two weeks, two and a half, three weeks, whatever it was, right? But you're marching back, and on our march back, there was a fly by of an 853, and I just kind of fell in love with the aircraft. And, you know, loud, ugly,

Jim Cardoso: 13:05

magnificent, snarling beast, no doubt, yeah, and

Kirk Smith: 13:09

so that kind of drew me in, and then kind of got to the point where the mission, and really, I mean to be cliche, it wasn't so much the mission as it was, the crew, working with the crew, any age 53 was not a huge cruise. You know, crew of six, two officers, four, enlisted. But it was just, it was just, what a great environment, right? Dealing with people day in and day out, and making the mission work because of the way you made you brought the crew together. And then you talk about a two ship, a three ship, a four ship, and you multiply your six times, you know, by the number of aircraft. And it just, it was just fun. I just enjoyed the, you know, the challenges, if you will. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 13:53

I was sort of the same. I sort of got pulled into, I think I thought more like soft just, I wanted to do something after being a FAPE. Not that dude, not that being a FAPE was unimportant. It's a needed duty. And I enjoyed it while I did it. But then I was one to, you know, again, to use a kind of a euphemism, get on the pointy end of the spear. And for me, that was a draw. And then I got drawn to helicopters after that. And but I, love to pay the same reason. Love the crew, love the fact that and the kind of missions we did. I mean, everybody had to do their job or else you're gonna get you're gonna get hurt or killed in a lot of the missions we did. So it was really enjoyable. I mean, collaborating with and just working deeply with these people, and just getting to know them and trusting them. I mean, trust them like them, like, like, like, brothers across the squadron across the four. So it was, yeah, I agree that was, that was something precious that really can't be replicated. You had, okay, so over your career, you talked a little bit about that you had, you know, a lot of senior positions work with. Europe, NATO, Africa. We're gonna, we're gonna touch on all those. So let's get into some of the National Security Strategy evolutions going on there. So let's talk about Europe, not the native collective. Let's, we'll hit that. But let's, let's talk about Europe in terms of, you know, the European nations as lateral and bilateral and multilateral partners. You know, as we discussed, you're living in Norway. You still spend a lot of time with their European partners. What is the sense of the future you're, you're, you're getting from them, and their view of the best next steps for national security policy? Yeah,

Kirk Smith: 15:35

it's interesting. So you, you made an important distinction there. The nuance between, if you look at the NATO alliance as a collective and then you talk about the bilateral or multilateral relationships, and that, to be blunt, that didn't really hit me kind of the significant difference there until I was the soccer commander. And I'll come back to your question. And you know, obviously leading back to that. But you know, as a soccer Commander, I was the US, as you said, European Command, soft component, which allows you to be exclusive, right? You want to, you want to, you want to work with all of your allies and partners, but you don't have to in the sense that it you're not in NATO. It's not part of the Alliance. You're not, you're not a NATO entity, if you will, official NATO entity, part of NATO. But you know, I, as the soccer Commander, I didn't have to represent NATO in that way. So I had the ability to be exclusive on who we work with, when we worked with him, which, to be honest with you, one of the biggest, you know, advantages to that is, quite honestly, security classification and who you can share intelligence with makes a big difference. You know, as opposed to my counterpart at the time, nshq, NATO soft headquarters at the time, it was Admiral Colin kilrain. He and I had a great relationship, but he had to be totally inclusive. Everything he did had to, had to kind of be geared towards, including all of the NATO allies. And he and I would talk about that often, not, yeah. I mean, there were, there were pros and cons to each right? I mean, there's always a benefit or a disadvantage, however you choose to look at it. So to your question, right now, it's interesting. I one of the things I'm doing in my you know, now, retired classic, you know, retired general officer, Senior Advisor, mentor, dude, yeah, how you want, how you want to phrase it as I'm a senior advisor, working with A Canadian company who owns the contract support agreement arrangement with joint Warfare Center. Joint Warfare Center is a NATO entity in Stavanger Norway, two star headquarters that does command, command post, Computer Aided exercises, and I am a Senior Advisor for their high con so working with that Canadian company and helping that Canadian company, as they emulate and simulate what you know, a higher command would do during these exercises. And of course, that's NATO, but as you look at that picture and what the conversation is, and then as I go out and do other things with other companies or entities, and you talk individually to our European allies and partners. You can, you can be more specific, I guess, is probably the best way to put it right. You can talk very specifically about certain things with Norway. So if I'm talking to some Norwegians, it's a little different conversation than, if I'm you know, at the joint Warfare Center, talking to the alliance, or kind of giving them perspective, the Alliance perspective, and I think certainly from a you know individual, if you will, multilateral, bilateral, A lot of conversation right now. Obviously, NATO aside, is what is the future of the transatlantic relationship with each one of these individual European countries. So there'll be a transatlantic relationship, ie, US and NATO, and there'll be a transatlantic relationship with US and the UK us and Norway us and Sweden us, and insert European country here. So each one of them views it a little bit differently. Clearly, I would say Germany, France and the UK have a different perspective on what that transatlantic relationship can and will look like than, say, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. And it's really interesting to kind of hear each one of their thoughts and perspectives and in some cases, fears on what that may look like in the future. And again, it's all based on kind of that multilateral, bilateral, Vice NATO perspective. Uh, UK, Germany and France. You know, much longer partners within the NATO alliance. And you know clearly much longer partners and allies with the United States, because those nations, as they are currently formed, have been around a lot longer than when you talk about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. You know newer nations, at least in their current iteration, and that relationship with the US. So it's kind of interesting talking to each one and understanding and then you get into, because you're talking multilaterally and bilaterally, if you will, you get into some of the other things that are not necessarily directly security and defense related, but certainly will have impacts on what does that relationship look like? So, yeah, really good example, and we will not go into in any detail that still needs

Unknown: 20:48

to be developed. Yeah, it's kind of new, but

Kirk Smith: 20:52

it's important, right? Economics and what this looks like is going to play a big role. Who are they going to buy weapons from? Are they going to develop their own weapons? Do they have the ability, if you will, to develop their own weapons? Some of these nations are just simply don't have the industrial wherewithal right now, really smart, great technology, very innovative, but they just don't have the capacity, if you will, whether it's the raw materials or the manufacturing capacity. And each one of them looks at it a little bit differently. So I think those are kind of important nuances, if you will. As you talk about our European allies and partners, how they view the future the transatlantic relationship individually, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 21:32

it's really interesting, how you draw the distinction between the larger, more developed, you know, larger economically more powerful countries, longer partners. You know, we've, you know, we, you know, people talk about the special relationship between the US and the UK at times, and then the newer, newer nations, no less interested in in democracy and the national security, national stability, but just, it's a different, you know, a different atmospheric and, you know, the classic national, you know, grand strategy, model of dime, diplomatic, information, military, economic you know, as we record this, the, you know, the President Trump's tariff plan has just been unrolled yesterday or last night. And you know, as we record this, we're kind of still the world is sort of absorbing it and seeing what the next steps are, but not questionably, there's going to be next steps and significant ramifications. And I'm sure our European partners are looking very closely at where that could go.

Kirk Smith: 22:34

Yeah, you know, so to add one more layer of nuance, not that we need to go into any depth on it, but then you throw in the EU, right, which, as a block, is incredibly powerful economically. Yeah, the EU, I'm gonna, I may get my numbers a little bit wrong, but recently, talked about 80, or, I'm sorry, 800 million euro the EU is looking to spend on defense and security, right? So this is, you know, part and parcel, if you will, to percentage of GDP. So we can talk about that vis a vis NATO, but the EU is looking at, how do they invest the economic wealth and power that they have into security and defense? And then again, to further nuance and slice this even thinner, how does that impact the United Kingdom and Norway, who are Europeans, but not in the EU, and will they benefit from those funds? It's conversations that are happening here in Europe as they kind of look, not divided by any means. I mean, I probably, I think it's probably fair to say we've never really seen Europe more united than we have, I would say over the past six months. You know, it really, starting with the most recent invasion of Ukraine, from the Russian Federation invasion. But Europe has really become unified. And now, kind of, as things happen economically, we're going to see that gel even more. But there continue to be those, not divisions. I don't want to use that word continues to be those. You slice those different ways on well, how does Norway participate in that? How does the UK participate in that, as they are not EU members? Now

Jim Cardoso: 24:09

that's that that gives, you know, listeners hearing this can that's something for them to look forward to, and just kind of, kind of looking, you know, consider as they're consuming their national security type of news and reports. I think that'll be very interesting as it continues to evolve. But let us turn to NATO for as a whole now. So you live in a founding NATO country, founding NATO member, but you also work very closely with the newest members of NATO in Scandinavia, on Sweden and Finland. So what discussions are you hearing on the shifts, I guess, in the Alliance's expectations in the future, especially regarding US leadership, and even any perception that the NATO members, the European NATO members, may need to quote, unquote, go it alone.

Kirk Smith: 24:55

Yeah. So a recent NATO exercise that I. Is that it was kind of, it was all said in jest, and this is going on now, probably almost eight weeks ago now. But there were kind of conversations about, oh, so the US is going to leave NATO, the US is going to leave NATO. And it was all you know as, really the I wasn't the only American there. There were a couple of uniformed joint Warfare Center folks who are on their staff who wear the US flag on their shoulders, whether they were Army or Air Force individuals. But you have to, there's a little bit of you gotta have a little bit of thick skin, right, you know? And some of these comments are made well, you

Jim Cardoso: 25:39

a long time member of the soft community. You need to have a lot of you need to have thick skin. The Pavel community need to have thick skin as well. So you probably have elephant hide at this point. So I think you're good to

Kirk Smith: 25:49

go. I mean, it's one of those things that you just kind of you, you take it in jest, you take it good naturedly, and then you get the opportunity to kind of tell you know whether it's in a NATO construct, or, as we talked about earlier, a bilateral or multilateral construct. That's a little bit of, hey, look, we all understand that we serve elected officials, right? That that's kind of, that's just shared value that we have here in NATO, right? Civilian elected leadership, civilian control of the military. We all understand that elected officials have agendas. And I don't mean that negatively. I mean they have a political agenda, political goals, constituents that they have to answer to, and they're going to do things for those reasons. They all have the good of the nation in their hearts and in their minds what they want to do, but they're going to make decisions that are not going to be favorable. Certainly seen favorable by all, and that's certainly what's happening here in Europe now. As you know, you see whether it's tariffs or whether it's previous kind of security conversations made. I just read an article just now, before we came on, Jim that the US Secretary of Defense will not attend the next Ukraine contact group. This will be the first UK Ukraine contact group without a US Secretary of Defense representation is going to be co chaired by Germany and the UK. So those decisions and things that have been said, Right? Are having impacts here. You have to kind of just kind of roll with it a little bit. But what I do kind of try to preach, if you will, to whether it's a NATO audience or a multilateral, bilateral list. Hey, look, we're going to get through the political machinations. Right? These things will happen. Decisions are going to be made that are not popular, whether it's in each individual nation, as seen by the Alliance writ large, but at the military level, there will continue to be trust fellowship, if you will, to use that term, and interoperability, it will not go away. We know that, and we've learned too much over the past 80 years. Coming up on 80 years now for the history of NATO to let that slip away. And as evidenced by, I mean, great, I just made that comment at that NATO exercise I was at. And that Friday, as I was returning, there was a combined interoperable flyby of Oslo city, center of A, B, 52 and new and two Norwegian F, 30 fives. And I kind of highlighted that to my Norwegian friends when I got back and I said, I told you, right, this is not going to end, guys, the military to military interoperability, trust, friendship is not going to end. We will let the other things happen as they will, and we will continue to move on.

Jim Cardoso: 28:43

That's a great viewpoint. And you know, I would agree with you, you know, I'm here in Tampa, as you well know, splits and comments so calm are here, and both of those combatant commands have large international, you know, presence, and I was actually at a conference a couple months ago with with that had some of our, some of the partners that are also in NATO, they're the senior national reps for their countries, and they said pretty much the same thing. You said, I don't say which countries, because then people will start saying, you know, narrow it down to names and stuff like that. But two or three of them said pretty much same thing. You said, Yep, there's, you know, we're family. Sometimes family squabbles. Sometimes family doesn't always agree on where you need to get to, but the relationships and the shared experience is just it's just too deep and so and the military professionals will continue doing what they do. The professional politicians will continue doing what they do for all the right reasons. I mean, and like you said, having agendas, it's not said in a, in a in a in a bad way, it's just, it's just the reality. So I think that most military professionals and most professionals who deal in this world at a high level understand that that the core of NATO, the relationships and the partnering and the. Shared sense of what's best for the Alliance will continue.

Kirk Smith: 30:04

Yeah, and you know, to, you know, as a counter, if you will, to the comment that the SEC death may, may not participate in the Ukraine contact group today. You know, Secretary Rubio, Secretary of State, was in Brussels, meeting with SEC Gen at the ministerials, and basically his his comment was, we are as involved in NATO as we have always been, and we will continue to be involved in NATO, right? So, you know, the messages will be heard the way they want to be heard. They'll be said the way they're told to be said, and the Alliance will continue on. Is my personal belief, right? We will get through this. I think I heard it best, and this was several years ago now, and I think it was whether it was President Macron or or another, you know, French foreign minister, a French foreign the French foreign minister. Just because we're allies doesn't mean we're always aligned, right? And the alliance is incredibly has proven itself to be incredibly effective. Yeah, it may not always be the most efficient, and that's on purpose. That's why it was designed that way, but it is incredibly effective, both politically, as a political alliance and as a military alliance.

Jim Cardoso: 31:16

Yeah, so that's, that's, that's, I think that's spot on and look, and we'll watch this evolve going forward. It's going to be, it's going to be an interesting time. There's no question about that, a dynamic time. I like to, I like to say your final position. So let's pivot a little bit. Your final position on active duty. You're the deputy commander of us Africa Command Now, unlike Europe and NATO, Africa has, you know, been vastly underreported in the media. First of all, AFRICOM set up a little differently than other combatant commands, especially other geographic combatant commands, right? I think it was designed to be slightly different. Could you talk briefly about the design of AFRICOM so people understand that, and then we'll talk a bit about the kind of the the current policy considerations? Yeah,

Kirk Smith: 32:04

absolutely. So, you know, AFRICOM as it was originally set up, obviously, while it is called a combatant command at the time, certainly as it was established. You know, Somalia aside, not a lot of combat, if you will, going on, especially, you know, with us boots on the ground, in and around, if you will, at the time, there's conflict.

Jim Cardoso: 32:27

There's always conflict in Africa, right? But as far as combat, like war time, combat, it's different, yeah,

Kirk Smith: 32:37

yeah, no. I mean, so it was, it was really kind of meant to be, how can a combatant command, if you will, a geographic combatant command, to look at the opportunities on the continent of Africa with respect to, how do you how do you take advantage of, and again, in a good way. I don't mean take advantage of African partners. I mean take advantage of the opportunities that are there in in Africa, whether it was literally an incredible wealth of natural resources, whether it be oil and gas, whether it be rare earth minerals, whether it be, you know, precious metals, I mean, all of those types of things, whether it was the population, which is a, you know, a plus and and a minus, right? I mean, it's a, you know, average age. I think when I left, the numbers that we were using were the kind of the average age in the continent of Africa is 19 years old. Think about, think about what that means for, you know, the quintessential youth bulge opportunity there, in terms of workforce, right? And what you can do with that, some certain are certainly challenges there, with respect to, without opportunity, education, medicine, social structure, what? What does that youth bulge turn into? And certainly the concern was, as we saw, you know, really, from, not certainly, the inception of AFRICOM, but as you as AFRICOM grew, we saw the spread of the violent extremist organizations, organized, if you will, the organizations, the Veos, as an entity, not individual bad actors, but kind of that, that, you know, franchised, if you will, uh, movement from, you know, the Middle East, whether it was Afghanistan, Syria, you know, the Arabian Peninsula. Saw those, those movements onto the continent of Africa. And what does that mean? There was a lot of emphasis put on defense, diplomacy and development was kind of, in fact, AFRICOM used to, and I can't speak now, so that, you know, don't take this

Jim Cardoso: 34:48

itself. May have changed. There's no question about that. It may have changed. That's

Kirk Smith: 34:52

right. They called themselves the 3d command defense, diplomacy and development. That has changed. Yeah, significantly. You. With, you know what? What has become of USA ID, yeah, which is by and large at the time when I was serving. They're still the biggest contributor money wise, funds wise, into what happened on the continent of Africa. Their budget was much, much, much greater than AFRICOM budget, if you will, to do things now they probably had a fairly

Jim Cardoso: 35:21

senior person in AFRICOM from USF, probably in a fairly senior USA ID person assigned AFRICOM, I would think, right as kind of an oversight role. I would guess, yes, that's right.

Kirk Smith: 35:34

So, I mean, every combatant command has a has a policy advisor, right? You know, typically a former ambassador that sits alongside, if you will, the commander certainly has a seat at the table with the commander to talk about foreign policy. But there was also a senior USAID rep there at AFRICOM as well to kind of provide that perspective, but from a defense perspective, really, again, as we even, as we go back and talk about combat, right? Absolutely, troops on the ground in combat, day in and day out, whether it was Somalia or certainly what we saw in West Africa in the time that I was there in the Sahel, security cooperation was really where was kind of the bread and butter, if you will. How do you think about security cooperation? And again, I'll go back to kind of the opportunities and the challenges. If you don't take advantage of the opportunities with some well placed security cooperation to help manage what could be significant conflict and instability, you're you're missing the boat, essentially, right? So a lot of effort on AFRICOM the time that I was there, on, how do you think about security cooperation to help strengthen, build resilience, if you will, within some of those societies, within the governments to help them deal with the challenges that they knew were going to be coming, whether it was a violent extremist organization, whether it was a global competitor that was going to try to take advantage of the space, or whether it was famine or drought, right? Kind of think about any one of those. How do you, how do you think about that? And that's where a lot of effort from AFRICOM was placed towards thinking about, how do you do security cooperation in a smart way? So

Jim Cardoso: 37:18

you can't, you know, you kept mentioning when I was there, when I was there, which, which, you know, is not that, not that long ago, but I would say, um, so going forward now, now we've already talked about USA ID obviously is not going to have as large a role, because there really is no USA ID anymore. Um, but do you think that the threats and opportunities in Africa have changed that much? Or what would you kind of see as the main threat? Let's concentrate on the threats going forward that the the Trump administration is is going to need to face.

Kirk Smith: 37:54

Yeah, so I think you'll continue to see, you know, terrorism, so the violent extremist organizations as as a challenge there, you know, without getting into the philosophy of, why do the EOS do? What the EOS do? Are they really external threats, or, you know, threats to the US, homeland. You know, kind of words matter, ways you talk about ex ops, external operations. Are those organizations capable of external operations. Do they have aspirations? Do they have capabilities? Those are all things that clearly, the command AFRICOM has to continue to pay attention to, and our intelligence apparatus has to continue to pay attention to and understand, I would say, one of the bigger challenges, you know, so certainly I'm going to come back and touch on the European piece is migration, and what that means to the to the European continent, not just the European continent, as you see, you know, migration to the US is also being something, whether it was, you know, directly from the African continent to the US, or through South America, South and Central America, which we did see some of so again, migration, immigration, depending on kind of where you are, you know the term of art in Europe team tends to be migration, Vice immigration, as they talk about, especially across the Mediterranean Sea and into southern Europe. So certainly what Europe was concerned about, and then also both the US, if you will, a shared concern, again, to caveat, the time I was there, was, how were our global competitors taking advantage of the opportunities on the continent of Africa to gain a foot up, if you will, So principally the Russian Federation and People's Republic of China certainly concerns and they each approached it differently. China much more long view. I'm not saying anything here that you know people aren't, yeah, wouldn't, wouldn't, don't, already know, right? China has a very long view. They think about things very strategically, much, much, much less militaristic on the. COVID of Africa, very economic, politically, culturally, if you will, influencing the Russian Federation. Much more militaristic. Certainly go back several years ago and the prevalence of the private military corporations, Wagner in particular, and what they were doing so in some instability, to then make a case for why they need to be there to help protect and uphold some of the more autocratic African nations, or take advantage of unstable situation to make it an autocratic African nation that they could then take advantage of, whether it was to extract gold from, you know where where that nation laid, or where that country sat, or just simply get paid to protect the government. So each one of them approached it a little bit differently, and both, I think, the United States and Europe recognized the challenges that came with both Russia and China having increased influence on the continent of Africa. It will be interesting now going forward to see if the US withdraws interests and activities on the continent of Africa, how much leeway does that give China and Russia to take advantage of that space? That vacuum is going to get filled by someone. It'll get filled by an ISIS affiliate, it'll get filled by an al Qaeda affiliate, it'll get filled by China. It'll get filled by Russia. Someone is going to fill that Hezbollah even, right? We even saw, you know, hints of that. So it'll be interesting to see where the US goes as it thinks about the continent of Africa. Europe is very interested in that. So kind of playing it back now to Europe, right? They're very interested. I oftentimes get questions here as I engage even on the private sector side, if you will, on Hey, what do you think about Africa from your experiences in Africa? What should we be thinking about? Should we invest more in Africa? You know, those types of questions Europe is paying a lot of attention. Beyond the migration aspect of it. They're paying attention to, what is China gaining? Are they monopolizing the rare earth minerals there, cobalt, lithium, etc. So really, really interesting to kind of see where that goes, Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 42:15

and that's, that's, you know, and really, like I said, there's really not much attention paid to, at least from the media perspective, but it's hard to see where the current administration is paying much for attention, either except beyond the migration or immigration piece. So at I think you're spot on with some of the the concerns there. So let's, let's, let's do one last pivot, and we're going to pivot so you are the you you know you were the Sauer Commander. You were the deputy commander for AFRICOM. But for most of your career, you're a SOF guy, so and you spend a lot of time not just in SOF, but with and not just even joint SOF, like joint, you know, Army, Air Force, Navy, but also partner nation SOF. And in fact, you spent time as a Deputy Commanding General for NATO SOF in Afghanistan. So talk to us about just your experiences working with our partner nation, SOF, some of the capabilities, some of their methodologies, kind of how they how they operate, and how they interoperate with the US and with other partners as well. I think, you know, I've talked about soft on this podcast before. We, like I said, I talked about a lot of that with Scotty Howe, but you have a unique perspective with the NATO SOF piece as well.

Kirk Smith: 43:31

Yeah, so, yeah, if you go back, you mentioned and SOC alpha so the NATO Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan, right? The number of NATO allies that we had contributing troops to that mission, of course, that was a different mission, if you will, than the US mission in Afghanistan. So you had Resolute Support, and then you had, you know, kind of enduring freedom. And there was a nuance between the two, obviously with different Roe, different goals, different end states. What was interesting, though, is regardless, the NATO allies, the European NATO allies that contributed to endoc, each had a unique role to fill. A lot of it was based on, obviously, what the NATO mission was, but also what each individual nation's parliament allowed them to do. So they had they had caveats, they had limitations. They had things that they couldn't, couldn't do had, you know, they could go do certain things, but they had to be enabled by X, Y and Z, for example, many of our partners, if they were to go do specific missions. They had to have a, basically a US JTAC along with them, for example. Or they had to have, you know, particular j

Jim Cardoso: 44:51

tech being a Joint Terminal air, air controller for some, some folks, J tech, What in the world's at? Sorry, yeah.

Kirk Smith: 45:00

Sorry, or they had to have a US medic, for example, with them, you know, trained to a certain level. And that was all just, if you will, risk management, right? I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. That was just the way they manage the risk to kind of get approvals, if you will. So, but you saw as I left that position in Afghanistan, and went directly to soccer. It was really interesting. Then coming back to Europe, if you will, from, you know, kind of a pure CTE, if you will, thought process, back to Europe, where it really was about, and this is now, you know, roll back the time 2018 so right? Russia had already done its Georgia incursion in 2008 done the Crimea and Don boss incursion in Ukraine. 2014 and now it's 2018 and pretty much every partner on the Eastern Front was aware of what Russia's intention was going to be, which was to continue to press the limits right. How can we, how can we continue to press NATO, if you will, to kind of see how much resolve they have. We could go along and in depth about, you know, why Russia did its most recent invasion of Ukraine, if you will, another podcast did, yeah, that's right, was that invited, if you will, because of the stance that Ukraine was taking towards whether it be the EU or NATO, or the stance that the EU and NATO was taking towards Ukraine, all those conversations, but what I want to get to, really, is talk about How the perspective was completely different when I got dealing with European allies and partners, and I'll say partners, because at the time, as you mentioned earlier, Sweden and Finland were not NATO Allies yet. So they were partners, but they were not allies. And man, do you want to talk about some cagey nations, Finland and Sweden, in the way that they manage their relationship right with NATO, with the US all under the shadow of Russia, really interesting to watch and deal with them. And now all in the best way possible, some incredibly savvy operators, soft operators, incredible capabilities, incredible access and understanding of an adversary that we simply didn't have, and to do things with those two nations at the SOF level, was incredible to get insight into how they operated, how they how they thought, how they approach problems, and, most importantly, How they saw the enemy, if you will, right? The Russian Federation different perspective than we had. Then you talk about the Baltics, right? And, and, you know, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. I went and did a resistance Operating Concept workshop in Riga, Latvia, and my I was the keynote speaker, and I remember getting up on stage and saying, I feel so unbelievably hypocritical as a US general officer standing here talking to you, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia about resistance. This is in your DNA. This is what your nation has done for decades, and last time we resisted in the US was 1776, right? Who am I to come tell you about resistance and resilience? They really got it. They do get it. They continue to get it. And we learned, I think we learned an incredible amount leading up to, unfortunately, what was the invasion of Ukraine, then, from our your Ukrainian partners as well, that we're working with and doing, you know, I would say we would go there and help them build a schoolhouse. But the reality was, is our Green Berets were coming back having learned more than they taught them, bluntly put. So I don't know what that kind of gifts to what you what you were looking for, Jim, but I mean that to see that difference from what we were doing in Afghanistan to what our European allies and partners are doing, you know, kind of pre most recent invasion of Ukraine, and now currently through that, and I don't mean at that strategic level. I really mean at the operational and tactical level to see kind of what those capabilities were. And boy, nothing made us better interoperable partners, honestly than Afghanistan right to learn how to communicate with each other, to learn how to plan with each other, to learn how to support each other. It was, you know, it was blood and treasure lost. I did it for everybody that was involved. But the lessons learned were incredible, and I have not seen them falter at all since then, every one of my the allies that I dealt with when I was at Africa Command. Now we had moving on from SOC here. Was like, hey, we want to continue to work with you here on the continent of Africa, because what we learned in Afghanistan we have to retain, because we're going to need it in the future. And it's been incredible to watch, yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 49:59

yeah. And I think. First of all, combat. It's going to reveal the seams and reveal the weaknesses, and we reveal the things that need to be improved upon. And no question, it did that. Like you said, it was, it was tragically so sometimes, but and then, but then, then real tragedies, not learning those lessons, and then just become lessons observed. And that does no, nobody any good. So I'm glad to see that's happened. I mean, you know when us, when you ask somebody, an American, you say, okay, when I say special for special operations, what you think you're gonna hear? You know, Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Rangers, hopefully, air commandos, which is what you and I did, but our partner nations, they have, I mean, not just incredible capability, but I love how you brought out just their their insight they have too, and how they apply unique capability and reduce budget for capability, using their insight to that specific thing they need to do well. And then you can mix those together, as you said, for that combined effect, that was a that I mean that that's that's a great lesson learned, and hopefully we continue to learn it and get better because of it. Um, so we're kind of wrapping up now, you know, we've been at it for I could look, I could, I could do this all day. I mean, I'm enjoying the conversation. And like, you know, I said, before we got on, you said you're going to be in Tampa for soft week, right? So I would say anyone who's listening, especially if you're in Tampa, and if you can get over to soft week, that's not till the first week of May, but you'll see Janice, I over there. You'll see myself over there, and you'll see Lieutenant General Smith walking around there as well. It's a pretty, pretty great program, but any final thoughts on what we've talked about today, or anything else that you may have missed before we wrap it up.

Kirk Smith: 51:45

Jim, it was a pleasure. These types of things are great, I think, to keep us thinking and keep people thinking collectively about, you know what? It's not all doom and gloom, right? It may not always Look sunny, but there's always great opportunity out there, as long as you don't have your eyes, you know, if you will blinded or shuttered to the point that you're not looking, you know, for the opportunity that's there. I think these types of conversations kind of keep people thinking and keep you moving down the right the right path. I think collectively, as an interested observer, as a active participant, as someone providing advice or guidance, I think it's valuable.

Jim Cardoso: 52:30

Well, I appreciate that, and I know you're doing another conversation later on tonight, and I'm sure a lot of people are picking your brain, and rightfully so. And I've always enjoyed our conversations from the time it was Captain Cardoso and Captain Smith, up till the up till the current day, you always have, I always learned some from you, Kirk so thank you for your time today. Thanks, Jim. It was a pleasure. A special thanks to our guest today, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Kirk Smith. He served as the commander of Special Operations Command Europe, as well as deputy commander of United States Africa Command. It's been a terrific conversation today, and the only thing better would have been to have it over a beverage. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did next week on at the boundary, our guest will be Dr Zachary Selden. He's an associate professor at the University of Florida, and was previously the director of the defense and security committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He also authored the book economic sanctions as instruments of American foreign policy. We'll be talking with him about that book and the ideals and realities of sanctions for our next episode of the podcast. Thanks for listening today. If you like what we're doing, please share this podcast with your colleagues and network. You can also follow GNSI on our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI, and check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, or you can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter. You music that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.