The U.S. Navy will station a big-deck ship in the Gulf of Guinea later this year, backing a verbal commitment for a “persistent presence,” a senior Navy official said Wednesday.
In November, the dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry will begin a roughly six-month deployment to Western Africa as the Navy tries a new concept it has dubbed the Global Fleet Station program.
“The idea behind this is that you have a ship that can be present in the area, that can have visit/dwell time, and repeat a circuit of countries … where you embark teams that bring knowledge, skills and ability,” said Rear Adm. Phil Greene, director of Strategy and Policy, Resources and Transformation for Naval Forces Europe.
The Fort McHenry, homeported in Little Creek, Va., is expected to sail the Gulf of Guinea, working with representatives of participating African nations from Ghana south to Angola. It will also work with representatives of Senegal and Cape Verde.
“Part of the beauty of the Global Fleet Station is that it can be tailored to respond to the needs of the region,” Greene said. “Based on our interaction with the emerging partners and friends, it can be responsive to those [individual nation] desires, in terms of knowledge skills and abilities that they request.”
The program follows the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Safety and Security Ministerial Conference, held in Benin in November, in which 11 Gulf nations signed off on a cooperative agreement.
The Global Fleet Station concept is “closely aligned” with the task to be provided by the still-developing U.S. Africa Command, Adm. Harry Ulrich, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe, said in May during a visit to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C.
AFRICOM also will look at missions related to humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and medical assistance, Greene said.
The Fort McHenry will have a multinational staff, Greene said, partnering with nations such as France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and others who have an interest in developing maritime security in that region.
