Actually, 21st century Africa seems like it might end up being a pretty exciting place in general. And I'm not even saying that to be morbid.

          Well, we’re not at war with North Korea, and I don’t really have anything productive to say about the Pentagon’s continued incontinence (aside from my complete lack of surprise at anything that’s come out of the latest Wikileaks controversy), so let’s talk about Somalia. We’ve all heard about the ongoing problem of unchecked piracy, and it seems like the US official position that Somalia is a potential breeding ground for extremism has gained a good deal of traction with the press recently. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that Somalia is once again at the top of Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace’s Failed States Index. For all of the worry regarding the future of Somalia, I find myself feeling strangely calm. Recent events, to do both with Somalia specifically, and the ongoing conflict between the nation-state and non-nation structures in general, suggest that a new pattern for dealing with insurgency and state failure may be emerging from the ongoing conflict between the Somali Transitional Federal Government and Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen.
          The roots of today's Somalia lie in the early modern period. From about AD 1150, Somalia existed as a Muslim nation, benefiting from positive relationships with neighboring countries as well as a superior position from which to establish a minor trade empire. Over the following centuries, Somalia was a part of or ally to the various African Islamic empires that held control over North Africa. By the early 19th century, successor states to these empires had been established, and were fairly prosperous. The Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century saw vigorous resistance from the Dervish leader Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, who was so successful militarily that he was able to establish a Dervish state lasting until the British finally managed to pacify the area with a campaign of aerial bombardment in the 1920s.
          After the Second World War, Britain retained control of its Somali possessions and gained control of Italian Somaliland as a protectorate. Under British rule, the Somali territory Ogaden and the area called the Northern Frontier District were ceded to Ethiopia and Kenya respectively, and a referendum in French Somaliland resulted in the territory becoming the nation of Djbouti in 1958, divisions which set the stage for later violence. By 1960 Italian and British Somaliland became the Somali Republic, and adopted a constitution by popular referendum the following year, though rivalry between traditional groups continued.
          This government was destined to last less than a decade, as a military government assumed control of the country following the assassination of the Somali president in 1969. Despite successful campaigns of urban works and literacy programs, resistance continued to this government until the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party was formed in 1976, which many sources characterize as the real beginning of the Somali dictatorship. After the initially successful Ogaden War against Ethiopia ended when the Soviet Union began providing aid to their opponents, the Somali military government became increasingly repressive, a trend which, along with economic mismanagement, caused the outbreak of the Somali Civil War.
          The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party was overthrown by a coalition of tribal and resistance groups in 1991. Ali Mahdi Muhammad was selected as interim president, but several key groups, most notably the United Somali Congress, Somali National Movement, and the Somali Patriotic Movement, refused to recognize Mahdi. Forces still loyal to the former president occupied the southern Somalia until 1992, exacerbating the violence. In December of that year, the United Nations created a peace-keeping force, United Nations Operations in Somalia (or UNOSOM) which was largely ignored by the combatant groups. The United States soon organized international efforts to create a region within Somalia that was secure enough for humanitarian work to proceed unimpeded, which was largely successful.
          With the withdrawal of US troops in 1993, and the establishment of UNOSOM II, the leader of the Somali National Alliance, Mohamed Farrah Aidid began to view the international forces as a threat to the system of tribal powers that had grown up, and in which Aidid was a prominent leader. Staging attacks first on Pakistani troops, the resulting violence culminated in the First Battle of Mogadishu, made famous for the story of a downed Blackhawk helicopter, and ultimately in the withdrawal of UN forces.
          Somalia’s current notional government, the Transitional Federal Government, was formed in 2004 by the four major clan groups, and later expanded to encompass representatives of the Islamist opposition, as well as other groups (this is kind of a curt explanation of what happened, but it’s more or less accurate). This government held several elections, and began to expand its influence until 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union gained control over much of southern Somalia, and established Sharia law there. Declaring itself the rightful government of Somalia, it prosecuted a successful military campaign against the TFG, occupying Mogadishu. It was defeated by an international group, with most of the heavy lifting on the ground accomplished by Ethiopian troops. The ICU shattered under this defeat, its most notable successor organization, al-Shabaab forcing the Ethiopian troops from the country in early 2009.
          It seems like the last round of interventionalist action in Somalia went really well, right? The defeat of the Islamic Courts Union, who, despite alleged ties to al Quaeda, came off as a pretty reasonable bunch, often seen trying to mediate the excesses of al Shabaab, who were their youth wing and military arm at the time. There are certainly those who think so. Personally, I’m not sure that I’m inclined to agree with Bruton’s rough handling of the reaction to the ICU for a while variety of reasons.
          First and foremost, I’m not sure that the ICU was ever going to provide a stable government for Somalia. Even before they became a distinct organization, al Shabaab was a difficult element for the ICU to control, harassing citizens, abducting journalists, and murdering wounded JVA troops in a hospital, all of which the ICU felt compelled to apologize for. By the time of the Ethiopian campaign, the jurisdictions of various Islamic courts varied wildly from hardline extremist enforcement to far more moderate policies. Why don’t I think that extremist elements would have been satisfied with moderate Islamic rule? Ask Hamas. Or Hezbollah.
          The notion of treating with more moderate elements of al Shabaab and other ICU successor organizations has two substantial problems. The first is that the notion that these groups continue to remain capable of replacing attrition losses because they present a viable-seeming alternative to the Transitional Federal Government. I rather assumed that this view of al Shabaab was based on sources that I'd been unaware of, but I honestly can’t find any report that characterize al Shabaab as anything other than the radical former military arm of a defunct organization which receives non-trivial aid from foreign sources. As true as this may be, the fighting will have to end some day, and reconciliation with militants, in groups or by the individual, will have to come. This brings me neatly to the other problem with the notion of negotiating to bring al Shabaab moderates into the fold: the moderate ICU successors are already starting to join up. Which I guess isn't really a "problem" with the idea, per se, but it does make the complaint seem rather petulant.
          The situation is indeed different than it was in 2007. Alongside the African Union peacekeepers and Somali military are not only reconciled ICU groups, but troops from autonomous areas of Somalia which had previous considered the fighting over Mogadishu to fall squarely into the category of “somebody else’s problem.” I admit that the situation doesn’t seem to be improving rapidly, as violence intensifies, and I’ll even concede that the rate at which the African Union peacekeepeing forces are growing is inadequate. But the addition of Guinea, a Muslim nation itself, is signaling a potential shift in the way that insurgency is combated. Guinea is hardly the first nation in the region to express discomfort with the spread of extremism in nations with which they share significant demographics, nor is Uganda the only nation working toward greater involvement.
          There appears to be a growing sense that failed states are not simply areas that are dangerous because of their tendency to breed extremism and insurgency, but present a significant risk to the development and stability of their neighbors. This isn’t really news, but the fact that it’s an idea that appears to be gaining widespread traction suggests that a new paradigm of local interventionalism. A combination of the object lessons of failed and failing states which supported extremist elements, the emerging threat they pose to their neighbors, as well as the emergence of local governments that are capable of supporting their own security concerns has the potential to shift the focus of international military aid onto local forces, and the supposition is that they'll be better equipped to deal with the usual problems.
          Shortness of supply lines, troops trained to fight in local climates and cultures, cultural and historical commonalities, and the likelihood of greater domestic support in the face of a much closer and more palpable threat make it seem like counter-insurgency efforts by regional power groups should be more successful than those by the high-handed West. Shorter supplies of supplies, troops who lack modern equipment and training, cultural and historical rivalries, and the likelihood that intervening nations face non-trivial problems of their own make the prospects seem kind of dim. Either way, with the continuing development of these nations into trans-regional powers, I’m kind of excited to see what happens.