MANDA BAY NAVAL BASE, Kenya—The C-12 twin-engine turboprop drops through a break in the clouds, and Kenya’s tropical Lamu Archipelago, surrounded by coral-green waters, emerges like a lost continent. Cuticles of virgin white beach line a jungle that stretches back into the country’s interior. Banking, the pilot spots a short airstrip cut out of the foliage. The station below is one of the remotest outposts in an expanding U.S. network of staging bases in Africa. The clouds close when the rainy season arrives in mid-March, and Manda Bay can go for weeks, even months, without so much as a mail ... Read More