Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Last week, President Biden announced that he's sending American troops back into Somalia. Here's White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Karine Jean-Pierre: The President has approved a request from the Secretary of Defense to reestablish a persistent US military presence in Somalia to enable a more effective fight against Al-Shabaab, which has increased in strength and poses a heightened threat.
Melissa Harris-Perry: The United States has a long history of military presence in Somalia, dating back to the early 1990s when President H.W. Bush ordered US troops into the country, then it was embroiled in civil war. President Clinton withdrew the troops in 1994, but after 9/11, American troops reentered Somalia during our country's sweeping counter-terrorism efforts abroad.
In the waning days of his presidency, President Trump ordered the withdrawal of all American troops from the country. Now, less than a year and a half later, President Biden is sending back 500 service members. Here to help us understand why is Omar Mahmood, Senior Analyst for Somalia for the International Crisis Group. Omar, thank you for joining us all the way from Mozambique today.
Omar Mahmood: I'm happy to be here.
Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, let's just start at the core. Why did President Biden send troops into Somalia?
Omar Mahmood: I think, in part, it is essentially reversing the decision made in the waning days of the Trump administration which was not necessarily to take troops away from the fight in Somalia, but basically reposition them within the region so just not have them on the ground physically in Somalia.
These troops are, essentially, training part of the Somali national army. I think that training has suffered over the past year and a half and so, essentially, Biden made this decision to send the troops back in. It really coincided with Somalia's political cycle because it came the day after very long overdue elections were finally completed.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Right. Let's go back a bit. Help us to understand what US military involvement in Somalia has been.
Omar Mahmood: Essentially, the US has been trying to take a counter-terrorism approach to contain the group Al-Shabaab and so Al-Shabaab is this militant actor within Somalia, but it's also an actor that governs large parts of south-central Somalia and is locked into combat with the government there. This is a war that's been going on for 15 years, a war the US has been part of, really, from the very beginning.
At this point, it's essentially about containing Al-Shabaab more than anything. If you look at the sort of read between the lines in the announcement from the White House about this, it was about getting that training program started up again for the Somali national army, but also about ensuring that Al-Shabaab's leaders who are engaged in attacks outside of Somalia are targeted. It's more about containing, I think, this to Somalia, ensuring that Al-Shabaab doesn't become a regional threat or something beyond.
Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. Go back further for me, though, because I guess part of what I'm wondering is when the US is in Somalia, is it effective? Has our intervention led to a protection of either Somalia or US interests in this sense?
Omar Mahmood: This is where I think the counter-terrorism focus is a bit too narrow. That's one subset of a wider set of issues in Somalia that are chiefly political at its core. Essentially, the US has been involved in trying to contain this group Al-Shabaab, but I would argue those efforts really haven't worked that well. Yes, sending back some troops or resuming airstrikes does place pressure on the group at some level, but it doesn't alter the long-term trajectory of the conflict.
These US troops have been on the ground before, you know strikes have been going on before at high rates sometimes, yet Al-Shabaab is still a very strong actor in the Somali sphere. I think we have to see the counter-terrorism approach in these dynamics as just one subset of a bigger puzzle. It's only one part of the security picture, to begin with. Then the security picture's only one part of the wider issue we see in Somalia. Then, really, that comes down to the political dynamics, the conditions that allow a group like Al-Shabaab to thrive because of political grievances in that Somalis are kind of so divided internally.
Melissa Harris-Perry: All right. What are some of those conditions? Help us to understand what Somalia faces as a nation that allows this set of political realities to exist?
Omar Mahmood: Essentially, Somalia is coming back from a very tough period of state collapse. In the early '90s, the previous government collapsed, and for about a decade, there wasn't really coherent structures on the ground. Rather, starting from the mid-2000s, there was this attempt and this support from the outside to really start re-instituting a federal government in the country. That's made significant progress over the past 15 years as well, but it's docked by consistent divisions between the Somali political elite, which basically means they're not on the same page, and so that benefits an actor outside the system, like an Al-Shabaab if the system's not United against it.
Then, on top of that, you have very significant layers of grievances at the community level because the 1990s period after state collapse, there was very intense civil war. A lot of those grievances haven't been addressed, so hasn't been comprehensive reconciliation. A lot of the communities then, at the lower level, aren't getting along with each other either.
Again, that benefits an actor like Al-Shabaab. I think you can try to target Al-Shabaab and you can try to attack it, but at the same time, if we're not addressing these political dynamics, we're not addressing the social grievances, I think they'll always find room to maneuver.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Help us to understand also what I understand to be the actual sort of context of environmental and poverty concerns as well.
Omar Mahmood: Somalia does sit in a very harsh arid environment. It's typically a population that's quite nomadic. Unfortunately, we've seen as a result of some of these climate changes over the past decade, reoccurring droughts. There's two rainy seasons in Somalia and right now about four of them in a row have failed. There hasn't been enough rain on the ground, and that puts extreme pressure on raising cattle and then, of course, even the small sedentary farming that happens in the country as well.
Right now there's a very significant drought ongoing. The current rains have also been below schedule. The projections for the next rains also look below schedule, and so there's a very real risk of these compounding dynamics morphing into a famine. This is something we've seen at least three times over the past decade in Somalia. It's a very difficult environment as well from that perspective.
Melissa Harris-Perry: We're talking about 500 troops. That can feel like a lot or very few, I suppose, depending on whether your daughter or mother or a son is among those who are there, but is this the sort of space the US is likely to be in forever and being careful with that language forever, but the sort of forever war space, or is this a place where progress can be made by our presence?
Omar Mahmood: I think this is part of the challenge when you look at a redeployment of a couple of hundred troops, how does that fit into the wider picture so you don't get trapped in one of these ongoing wars? Honestly, this has been ongoing for 15 years in Somalia. What we would argue is we do need to look at that wider picture and kind of take a different approach, perhaps.
There is the military approach, this is part of it. I think at some point, there needs to be a more inclusive political settlement that would include whoever you could bring in from the militant groups. I don't know if you can just continue to really fight ongoing forever, but so sort of the difference, or I guess the reason why I think the US feels comfortable about doing this now is because they didn't feel progress was being made the last couple years, so under the previous administration, and then because of these elections that were supposed to happen, which were 16 months overdue, so there wasn't much progress being made. With the conclusion of that cycle, I think the US feels a little more hopeful that now there's a different trajectory and they can sort of claw back some of the gains. What we would argue though is that's not a long-term solution still.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Just one last question for you. Obviously, you're talking about the Biden administration, right? Both of us are using the shorthand of the US, right? The US sees it this way and that way. I'm wondering, I guess, about public attention. We are here at the end of a very difficult couple of weeks in domestic concerns, it's been difficult to even find space to talk about US political questions. I'm wondering about not only the domestic politics for the Biden administration but for the American people who may not have their eye or their attention on Somalia, if there is one takeaway for our listeners about this conflict, what would you have that to be?
Omar Mahmood: I think our takeaway would be that the military approach is not going to resolve this conflict. What we've seen from the US thus far is, again, a default to a military approach, a default to a focus on counter-terrorism. We would argue that needs to be a much broader, holistic strategy to really get at the root causes of this, to really make progress to ensure this is not an ongoing endless war.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Omar Mahmood, senior analyst for Somalia for the International Crisis Group. Thanks so much for taking the time.
Omar Mahmood: Oh, thank you for having me.
[00:10:52] [END OF AUDIO]
Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
