The geographic "verticalization" of US combatant commands? Finally?
A North-South world deserves North-South Areas of Responsibility (AORs)
The Combatant Commands are organized either on a geographical basis (known as Area of Responsibility, or AOR) or on a functional basis. Each Combatant Commander has command and control over the joint military forces within its AOR, regardless of branch of service.
The current combatant command structure came about as follows:
IndoPacific Command (1947)
European Command (1952)
Southern Command (1963)
Central Command (1983)
Northern Command (2002)
Africa Command (2008)
Space Command (2019)
A pretty logical extension over time, with IndoPac coming right on the heels of WWII and our occupation of defeated Japan, then Europe in response to mounting tensions with the Sovs there, then Southern just a year following the Cuban Missile Crisis, then Central as we got more deeply involved in the Middle East following the Carter Doctrine, then a gap until 9/11 triggers Northern, the Global War on Terror splits off Africa as its own problem set, and then Trump initiates the Space Force, which needs it own command — beyond the wild blue yonder.
[There are four other “functional” commands: namely, U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), and U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). As a side note, I have visited and presented at all of them — save for the newbie SpaceCom (still hoping!).]
Trump 2.0, we are told, is looking to slim this roster — not a bad idea, and of particular interest to me.
From America’s New Map:
Resurgent isolationism checks America’s instinct to manage the world. Climate change plus multipolarity compel us to split the difference by focusing on our hemisphere.
In its own strategically intuitive way, the Pentagon has mentally prepared itself for the world of tomorrow. Consider a global map of US Combatant Commands and you quickly notice that the dominant lines run north-south, using oceans (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian) to divide the world into three vertical slices: the Western Hemisphere (Northern Command on top, Southern Command below), Asia (Indo-Pacific Command), and the busy Center slice comprising European Command on top, Central Command in the middle, and Africa Command below.
The US Navy has long ruled the open oceans as the world’s preeminent “blue water” fleet, meaning we possess the only navy that can swiftly mass forces anywhere in the world and conduct large-scale operations for long periods. In today’s strategic landscape, the notion of superpower navies contending for “sea control” is limited to individual regions, such as China-v-America in the Western Pacific or China-v-India in the Indian Ocean.
As a result, when we view the American military’s regional “areas of responsibility” (AORs), we find in each instance that the most troubled seams are found within those vertical slices—not between them. For example, America’s immigration crisis is currently fueled by the climate-ravaged Northern Triangle states found along our Northern/Southern Commands’ seam. In the Center, we locate (a) Russia versus EU/NATO (European Command); (b) Central Command working the Middle East terrorism/Iran beat to limit spillover into the European and African AORs; and (c) Europe’s Mediterranean climate-fueled migrant crisis pitting it against both North Africa (Africa Command) and the Persian Gulf (Central Command). Finally, in Asia (Indo-Pacific Command), we find China taking on all comers—but particularly India—within what could be called Indo-China Command because of that dyad’s signature rivalry.
So, you get the idea: the great disparities of our age are latitudinally dispersed (climate, demographics, eventually rising South) and no longer longitudinally all that distinct, yielding us three “vertical” slices of a wall map of the world (each with its own production/demand hub of, from left to right, North America, Europe, and East Asia).
In other words, what separates and distinguishes these three vertical slices is less compelling and profound that what separates the North versus the South in each of those three slices.
Between the three slices we witness “decouplings” of varying degrees (US decoupling from Europe/Africa/Middle East and US decoupling from Asia — despite all the talk about “containing” China.
For now, there is far less logic in, and impetus for, the Center and Asian slices decoupling, as they weren’t all that terribly strong to begin with — as America was the great global integrating force for so long. Instead, with America withdrawing globally, there is increased logic in Europe’s seeking out stronger ties with both India and China to balance Russia (and fill in the abandonment by Trump).
So, what is Trump planning?
Word is, Southern Command folds into Northern Command, yielding a truly verticalized Americas Command (one assumes the new monicker).
Also, we are told to expect the demise of Africa Command, being folded back into from whence it came — European Command, the commander of which is to no longer be double-hatted as SACEUR, or Supreme Allied Commander of Europe (i.e., the military commander of NATO).
So, six (truly) regional commands (Space Command is sui generis — as in, everywhere and nowhere at once!) reduced by two to make four.
Could I see a late-term Trump, having blessed Israel’s eradication of Gaza and supported Israel’s regime-changing beatdown of Iran, and flush with the Nobel-winning victory that is the Abraham Accords realized (KSA’s price for joining in on the Iran beatdown), deciding to dis-establish Central Command as his Administration’s trophy for ridding America of that huge, OBE strategic burden?
Yes. Yes, I could.
That would complete the verticalization of the COCOMs into my three slices of the Americas (West), Asia (East), and Europe-Middle East-Africa (Center) — each with its own dedicated US regional Combatant Command.
[As a side note: I suspect Trump leaves Russia out of the COCOM breakdown, like it once was during the post-Cold War period of the 1990s. It wasn't until 1997 that the Unified Command Plan (UCP) formally assigned the former Soviet European republics and the whole of Russia to EUCOM, which then (and still now) —rather fantastically — stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At the same time, the former Soviet Central Asian republics were assigned to CENTCOM.]
Again, I am astonished to admit that — of all people — Trump is accelerating that which I predicted would unfold much more slowly.
Again, despite having, in my mind, written for administrations beyond the one set in motion by the 2024 election (then upcoming during my writing of the book), I am more than surprised to find myself providing yet another Rosetta Stone-like book (see The Pentagon’s New Map for Example #1) for yet another chaos-unleashing Republican administration with a nihilist streak and a tendency to engage in Big Bangs (Bush with the GWOT and the Iraq takedown); Trump with the USG, USMCA, NATO, world trade … the list expands by the day.
I don’t offer that observation as unsubtle patting my own back regarding foresight but more as an admission that it gets harder and harder to stay ahead of events in this world.
More and more — and triggered by Trump’s various Big Bangs, we are hearing establishment voices arguing for a new hemispheric focus. Here’s a prominent one:
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: A Better Way to Defend America; Base More U.S. Forces in the Western Hemisphere—and Fewer in Asia and Europe
Think about how long and how vociferously Trump has complained about paying for US military bases in other Western/Asian allied nations he simultaneously accuses of “ripping off” America in trade?
Then recognize how much Trump and SECDEF Hegseth have re-oriented the US military from an East-West perspective to one laser-focused on Southern border security — i.e., where the real wars are!
Then realize that absorbing SouthCom into NorthCom would be the equivalent of the child reabsorbing the parent: now, the US “homeland” becomes the entirety of the Americas.
From East-West to North-South, it is happening.
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