Africom has just a few hundred permanent, uniformed staff. Its mission is to deter and resolve conflicts ‘by building partner nation capacity,’ according to Vicki Huddleston, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs. More so than other US regional commands, Africom would heavily rely on offshore balancing, particularly its proxy component.
Inasmuch as Ethiopia’s US-enabled invasion of Somalia was an early test of this partial offshoring construct, it proved a failure.
Better Proxies
In Somalia, the Ethiopian invasion and subsequent two-year occupation only served to rally the country’s Islamic extremists. Al Shabab coalesced from the remains of the ICU’s armed wing and launched a bloody, and surprisingly popular, insurgency against the Ethiopians.
Also targeted: the UN- and US-sponsored Transition Federal Government, formed under the protection of the Ethiopians, plus the new African Union peacekeeping force composed mostly of Ugandan and Burundian troops and funded by the United Nations and Washington.
Al Shabab also strengthened ties with al-Qaeda, which had sent operatives to advise clan forces during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu and, more than a decade later, still maintained a small presence in Somalia. The al-Qaeda-Al Shabab alliance helped Al Shabab pull off a twin suicide bombing in Kampala, Uganda, on July 11, 2010 that killed 74 people.
The Kampala attack was Al Shabab’s first foreign attack, but not its first suicide bombing. That came on Oct. 29, 2008, when 26-year-old, American-born Shirwa Ahmed blew himself up outside a government building in northern Somalia, killing more than 20 people.Ahmed was one of as many as 50 young, disaffected Somali-Americans Al Shabab has recruited mostly from the large Somali community in Minneapolis – and mostly by painting Al Shabab as freedom fighters against the Ethiopians. Ahmed was ‘as American as apple pie’ before Al Shabab got to him, according to an acquaintance.
The recruitment of Somali-American youths sparked fears that some young people might return to the United States to conduct terror attacks. In cooperation with leaders of the Somali-American community, the FBI launched a major operation to intercept returning recruits.
Al Shabab’s rise spawned the first large contingent of American-born international terrorists. That alone was reason for Washington to regret backing the Ethiopian invasion. ‘We’ve made a lot of mistakes and Ethiopia’s entry in 2006 was not a really good idea,’ Acting Assistant Secretary of State Donald Yamamoto said in a 2010 speech.
Although the Obama administration insisted that backing the Ethiopians was wrong, the new regime in Washington was still very much in favour of using proxies to advance US policy goals in Somalia. It was simply a matter of choosing better proxies.
A new constellation of US partners quickly aligned following the Ethiopians’ final departure in January 2009. As the Ethiopians retreated, Washington increased its support for the African Union peacekeepers, whose softer approach –plus the critical fact that they weren’t Ethiopian –meant they were less unpopular with everyday Somalis.
With training and logistics provided by US military personnel and DynCorp contractors, the African Union nearly doubled the size of its Mogadishu peacekeeping force to 9,000 troops. By the end of 2009, Washington had invested $135 million in the peacekeepers’ training, equipment and payroll.
With its Ethiopian protectors gone, in January 2009 the TFG collapsed. Many of its officials fled the country. Into the power vacuum stepped an unlikely new leader: Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist and former president of the ICU.
Counter-intuitively, Ahmed vowed a closer alliance with the African Union, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union. Washington was quick to back Ahmed as he reformed the TFG. ‘We’re in a very promising moment. It’s fragile, but all new beginnings are,’ a State Department official said.
In May 2009, Washington provided the TFG with $2 million to buy weapons on the local market. With millions of dollars in acknowledged and covert funding, Washington also bankrolled an Ethiopian programme to donate $250 per man plus guns, rockets and ammo to any Somali clan that could raise a militia force to fight Al Shabab – this according to Somalia Report, a new online publication run by famed war correspondent Robert Young Pelton.
On top of all that, between 2009 and 2010 Washington shipped, via DynCorp, nearly 100 tons of weaponry to Uganda for onward distribution to TFG fighters. US officials also pushed for the EU to offer training and funding for the peacekeepers and TFG forces.
Today, Ahmed’s TFG and the AU peacekeepers still represent the main fronts for US efforts to resolve Somalia’s two-decade crisis. As the famine worsens and pressure grows for Washington to play a larger role, the TFG and African Union will most likely be the vehicles for that intervention. ‘That's going to require an international response, and Africa will have to be a partner,’ Obama said of the famine on July 29.
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Maduka
“Offshore balancing” might sound great to American policy makers far removed from the troubles in Africa. But mark my words, there will be hell to pay in the future.
America will have to make compromises with very nasty dictators and box itself into a corner when the people rise up against these unsavoury fellows. America will be accused (rightly so) of being a more malign influence in Africa than China and in a World where China is now Africa’s largest trading partner, this is a risk that should not be taken.
I respect America’s technology, but its strategic incompetence is legendary.It is as if all the lessons of Afghanistan (Mujahdeen during the Soviet invasion have been unlearned).
This kind of thing never ends well.
Yankee go home!!
aaron
Offshore balancing practices in Africa are highly unlikely to be applied to East Asia. The U.S. will use a mix of offshore concepts with traditional practices such as permanent bases in East Asia. Gotta give the author credit for trying, but it’s too hard to compare East Africa with East Asia. America’s allies in East Asia are stable, established powers which have similar strategic interests to the U.S. In contrast, Africa is a mess of shifting powers and interests. You’d need to write an entire book to distill any similarities which these two regions have in terms of their importance and focus for the U.S.
SManikCCBC
This is the first time I have heard of the term “offshore balancing”. It is surprising that this method isn’t brought up more in debates about military action. The concept is sound in its self that offshore balancing would protect America’s interest and American lives at the same time. This strategy also seems like a viable way for President Obama to get American foot soldiers out of Afghanistan and Iraq and still have a military presence in both countries. If the method can work in Libya it should work more efficiently in Iraq and Afghanistan because the troops on the ground would be American trained and supplied Iraqi and Afghanistan armies. Although it could also be more difficult because in both Iraq and Afghanistan the enemy isn’t an army like it is in Libya, it is just a bunch of locale cells. This strategy defiantly has the potential to change the way America gets involved in conflicts abroad.
yang zi
offshore balancing is a smart strategy. but this requires a responsible US administration. down the road, it might develop into a mercenary force. for example, if some anti-government force want US help, US can extract a promise to pay for the mission. If US use this model on Iraq, it could have all the Iraq oil.
Libya is the same, the new gov. should pay the cost of NATO bombs.
GFKjunior
How about we mind our own business and leave the ‘offshore balancing’ strategy to anyone but us. It costs us to much to keep the U.S. empire going.
Lighthouse
You do realize the ‘U.S. empire’ has evolved right? It is no longer just the US, but China and every other modern or modernizing country in the world that has a stake in the world becoming stable so financial markets can become more predictable and therefore more profitable.
Even if you want leave the ‘offshore balancing’ to someone else, it cannot be done because no else has the unified capability to do so in a short amount of time. The US has the largest and most profitable financial markets of any country and since stability is directly to them, the US almost has to intervene to keep prices stable.
As a side note: The current financial markets have only been around for the past 30 to 40 years. The Internet has only been around for about 15 years. The current Internet where I can have a live conversation with people from all over the world has only been around for the past couple years. All the bugs are still being worked out. These are growing pains. Suck ass growing pains.