foreign powers and multilateral agencies often played roles that prolonged or exacerbated local tensions.
The post–Cold War conflicts in Somalia have deep historical roots, embracing the precolonial, colonial, and independence periods. The promises of political independence were undermined by the enduring effects of colonial policies, by corruption, and, eventually, by a military coup that installed a dictator who manipulated social divisions to maintain power. During the Cold War, Somalia allied first with the Soviet Union and then with the United States. As the East-West conflict waned, Washington abandoned the Somali dictatorship, and warlords and their clan-based militias overthrew the regime. The central government disintegrated in 1991, and Somalia fell into chaos. State institutions broke down, and basic services, if they were provided at all, were supplied by nongovernmental actors. Islamist organizations, especially, played critical roles in restoring order and reestablishing social services. External powers intervened, both to provide security for the Somali people and to advance their own interests.
The first post–Cold War intervention began in 1992 with a UN mandate to monitor a ceasefire and to provide protection for famine relief operations. It fell apart in 1993 with the downing of two US helicopters and the deaths of eighteen US soldiers and approximately one thousand Somalis, mostly civilians. The second intervention began in 2006 with CIA support for anti-Islamist warlords and culminated in a US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia the same year. External involvement accelerated the growth of a jihadist movement that quickly dominated the antiforeign insurgency. The UN, the AU, and IGAD were the most significant multilateral actors, lending their support to a new transitional government, while the EU joined in brokering peace talks and funding peacekeeping operations. The United States, Ethiopia, and Kenya played crucial roles, acting unilaterally or in conjunction with other entities, while neighboring Uganda and Djibouti also intervened in Somali affairs, mostly under AU and IGAD auspices. Turkey and the United Arab Emirates joined the UN, the EU, the UK, and the United States as the Somali government’s primary security partners.1 Eritrea, a regional outlier, supplied weapons to the jihadist insurgency, primarily to counter Ethiopian influence, while the al-Qaeda network also provided critical support.
The interests of external bodies and powers were not always in accord with those of the Somali people. The UN and US interventions that favored one warlord over another (1992–95), followed by Ethiopian incursions and support for diverse warlords (1996–2000), generated enormous hostility among the Somali population. The imposition of a corrupt transitional government by outside powers (2004), CIA backing of a new warlord coalition (February–June 2006), and a US-endorsed Ethiopian invasion and occupation (July 2006–January 2009) resulted in a backlash that intensified popular support for al-Shabaab (The Youth). This Islamist youth militia, inspired by Somali veterans of the Soviet-Afghan War, found recruits among the country’s unemployed young men. The Ethiopian invasion sparked an antiforeign insurgency, with al-Shabaab at its helm. While the organization maintained a local focus, targeting primarily Somali military and government officials, it also established ties with al-Qaeda and expanded its attacks to Westerners working in Somalia and to neighboring states that were associated with the intervention.2
By early 2007, al-Shabaab insurgents had gained control of much of southern Somalia, provoking another round of foreign military interventions. In February the UN Security Council used Chapter VIII powers to authorize the African Union Mission in Somalia, which eventually sent some 22,000 peacekeepers to restore order. The conflict continued, and the election of yet another foreign-backed government in 2012 did little to resolve it. The government had limited authority outside the capital and relied on AU forces for defense. Its operations were characterized by widespread corruption and monopolization of power. Al-Shabaab continued to exploit legitimate local grievances for its own ends.
Setting the Stage: Somalia during the Cold War (1960–91)
A brief description of Somalia during the last decades of the Cold War provides a framework for understanding the conflicts that followed in its wake. A union of British and Italian colonies that had been joined at independence in 1960, Somalia was the object of US-Soviet competition.3 With the Gulf of Aden to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east, Somalia was strategically placed to control access to the Red Sea and to Middle Eastern oil routes. The country was plagued by both internal and external problems that provided outsiders with opportunities for influence. Colonial boundary treaties had left millions of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. After independence, successive campaigns to unite all ethnic Somalis in a Greater Somalia led to numerous border conflicts and devastating regional wars. Inside Somalia, ethnic Somalis shared a common language, culture, and religion. However, genealogical groupings, reified by colonial policies as distinctive clan identities, were manipulated by political leaders to mobilize constituents and consolidate power.4 Ethnic minorities, set apart by race, class, region, language, and occupation, suffered harsh discrimination. Among the most vulnerable were the Somali Bantu, a recently coined umbrella term for people with Bantu-speaking ancestors who settled along the Shabelle River centuries before the arrival of Somali speakers, as well as those in the Jubba River valley whose ancestors were brought to Somalia as slaves in the nineteenth century.
The first democratically elected postindependence governments were challenged by sectarian and patronage interests, corruption, and disputes over the country’s expansionist goals. Relations with the United States were uneasy. Fearing Somali designs on its primary regional allies, Ethiopia and Kenya, Washington balked when Somalia requested military aid shortly after independence. The Soviet Union stepped into the gap. In October 1969, General Mohamed Siad Barre, commander in chief of the Somali army, seized power in a military coup. The following year, after Somalia expelled a number of US diplomats, military attachés, and the Peace Corps, Washington terminated all economic aid. Moscow intensified its military and economic assistance programs, and Siad Barre soon proclaimed that Somalia would follow the tenets of scientific socialism. During the early years of his regime, the country made important strides in mass literacy, primary education, public health, and economic development, particularly in the rural areas, while new laws on marriage, divorce, and inheritance expanded women’s rights. However, the military strongman also abolished local authority structures, suspended the constitution, banned political parties, and imprisoned or killed dissenters.
Somalia’s political, economic, and social tensions were exacerbated by the Somali-Ethiopian War of 1977–78. As one of sub-Saharan Africa’s most heavily armed nations, Somalia possessed a 22,000-man army that had been trained and equipped by the Soviet Union and its allies. Ethiopia maintained an even stronger military apparatus, a 40,000-man army that had been trained and outfitted by the United States. A 1974 military coup had ousted the US-backed emperor of Ethiopia, and the new rulers had embraced Marxism-Leninism. Yet the alliance with Washington endured. Then, in July 1977, Somalia invaded Ethiopia in an attempt to annex Somali-inhabited land. The Kremlin, which was courting the Marxist regime, was furious. Aided by some 18,000 Cuban soldiers, advisors, and technicians, the Soviet Union threw its full weight to Ethiopia. The OAU, which viewed Ethiopia as the victim of Somali aggression, ignored Siad Barre’s appeals for assistance. Although it officially distanced itself from Somali aggression in 1977, the United States covertly supported Mogadishu’s war effort through third parties, mobilizing military aid through a consortium of allies led by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and France. Unable to sustain the war without more substantial external support, Somalia was forced to withdraw from Ethiopia in 1978. Washington became a mainstay of the Siad Barre regime after its retreat. Between 1979 and 1986, the United States provided Somalia with $500 million in military aid, making it one of the largest recipients of US military assistance in sub-Saharan Africa.5 Somalia had effectively switched sides in the Cold War.
US aid notwithstanding, Somalia was in dire straits by the mid-1980s. The Ethiopian war, corruption, and mismanagement had run the economy into the ground, dissipating the development achievements of the previous decade. Onerous taxes stimulated rural unrest, which was brutally repressed. Determined to crush all political opposition, Siad Barre
