NOVEMBER 2020, QUINCY PAPER NO. 4 Ending the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Realigning Our Engagement with Our Interests in Somalia by Elizabeth Shackelford QUINCY PAPER | 1 NOVEMBER 2020, QUINCY PAPER NO. 4 Ending the Self-fulfilling Prophecy: Realigning Our Engagement with Our Interests in Somalia Table of contents I. Executive Summary pg. 3 II. About the Author pg. 5 III. Acknowledgements pg. 6 Introduction: U.S. Counterterrorism in IV. Africa pg. 7 The Somalia Case: Lessons Not V. pg. 10 Learned Defining the End Game and Working VI. pg. 14 Towards It Risks and Criticisms: The Potential VII. pg. 20 Downside of a Civilian-led Approach VIII. Conclusion pg. 24 IX. Endnotes pg. 25 About the Quincy Institute for X. pg. 28 Responsible Statecraft QUINCY PAPER | 2 SECTION I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I. Executive Summary In U.S. foreign policy circles today, the bar to justify ending a military intervention is higher than it is to keep one going. Small wars have become routine foreign policy tools, executed with minimal oversight or scrutiny. Somalia offers a clear example of how this approach leads to high accumulated costs for the American people with little to show in gains for the U.S. national interest. The current military-led strategy promises no end to lethal interventions, and the costs and risks associated with it exceed the threats it is meant to address. Expanding U.S. military activity over the past five years has done little to impede the Somali terrorist insurgency group al–Shabaab, but it has continued to overshadow and undermine diplomatic and development efforts to address Somalia’s political and governance problems. At the same time, military intervention has propped up an ineffective government, disincentivizing Somali political leaders from taking the hard steps necessary to reach a sustainable peace and build a functioning state. The U.S. military cannot be expected to stay indefinitely in ‘Today, the bar to Somalia to maintain a messy stalemate. Rather than reflexively increase U.S. military activity when it falls short of stated justify ending a military objectives, the United States should reassess its overall strategy in Somalia by returning to basic questions: Why is the intervention is higher than U.S. military fighting a war there? What U.S. national interest is the war serving? And are America’s actions in Somalia and the it is to keep one going.’ region furthering that national interest? Some U.S. national interests in Somalia are clear: preventing attacks on Americans and American property — U.S. embassies, citizens, and, of course, the homeland — and, to a measured extent, preventing attacks on U.S. partners in the region, based on common interests. Somalia also sits on the Gulf of Aden, a strategic waterway critical to international trade. Protecting the safe transit of commercial ships through the gulf and the Indian Ocean is valuable for the U.S. and global economies alike. Beyond those core goals, however, U.S. interests in Somalia are less evident. For example, is it in the U.S. national interest to have a functioning, uncorrupted, and inclusive government in Somalia, led by a credible central authority? Generally, yes, to the extent that this has implications for stability and strategic American interests in East Africa and the broader region. A stable and democratic Somali state, however, is not inherently essential to U.S. national security, so that interest must be balanced with the associated cost, risk, and the impact of the intervention which may work against that goal. America’s long-running but largely hidden war against al–Shabaab has been justified as necessary to prevent attacks on Americans and American interests, but the military operations are not commensurate with the actual risk al–Shabaab poses to America. Like U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, what began as an effort to track and target those connected to or planning direct attacks on U.S. interests expanded into a broad state-building effort to prop up a preferred government. Not only does it exceed the scope of that risk today, but U.S. military activity in Somalia also appears to be the driving force behind the threat al–Shabaab poses to Americans in the region. This raises the question of whether U.S. interests are served at all by a military intervention that puts U.S. forces in harm’s way and has cost billions of dollars. QUINCY PAPERS are produced by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a nonpartisan think tank that promotes ideas to move U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace. © 2020 by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. All rights reserved. QUINCY PAPER | 3 SECTION I: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Diplomatic and development interventions are far less costly and less likely to risk aggravating or expanding violent conflict, including actions against the United States. Reducing and ultimately ending U.S. military engagement, while reorienting around civilian capacities and enhancing its investment in diplomatic and development interventions would better align the costs and risks of U.S. intervention with its national security interests. This approach would not guarantee the facilitation of a functioning and democratic Somali state, but the military-led strategy has already proven unable to secure the same. Such an outcome might be attractive, but it is not essential to U.S. national security interests in the region, and guaranteeing it is beyond the capacity of the United States. Accordingly, the United States needs to launch a new civilian-led strategy in Somalia that aligns the investment, cost, and risk of the intervention to the national interests involved. Critics of this approach will argue that stepping down U.S. military engagement could lead other military interventions to wind down, too—in particular the regional peacekeeping African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) — and that this could open the door to a resurgence of al–Shabaab that could ultimately defeat the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). Al–Shabaab is a bad actor, and the insurgency has caused significant public harm, including an estimated 3,000 civilian casualties from 2017 to 2019.1 But this fact alone is not enough to justify continuing U.S. participation in war activities against it, with the accompanying cost and risks to American interests, as well as the risk that the use of lethal force by the United States could be compounding the conflict further by aggravating local grievances and propping up an ineffective government rife with corruption. The U.S. government should reorient its intervention in Somalia, leading with diplomacy and development endeavors targeted at political and governance challenges, while reducing and eventually ending military engagement. Congress and the American people should insist on a clear articulation of U.S. interests in Somalia, and interventions should be designed specifically to promote and achieve them. Key recommendations include: • End the military intervention as responsibly as possible, over a period of approximately five years, and shift the focus of engagement to encouraging better governance. • Prioritize the resolution of ongoing tensions and the conflict between the central government and the administrations of the five Federal Member States, by intensifying diplomacy, by pursuing milestones and metrics for progress toward a more stable state, and by including improved service delivery, inclusion, and development goals. • Empower and fund diplomacy adequately to meet the challenge. • Prior to ending the military intervention, leverage targeted military assistance to promote and incentivize progress on these political and governance priorities. • Dramatically increase congressional oversight of U.S. counterterrorism strategy—including deployments of Special Operations Forces (SOF), foreign military training, and drone strikes. A rebalance of U.S. focus and resources in Somalia could provide a playbook for winding down other U.S. counterterrorism missions that have similarly reached a counterproductive impasse. The aim should be aligning investment, costs, and risks with clear and articulated U.S. national interests and reducing to a minimum the potential negative externalities that military action often incurs. This shift need not result in retrenchment of America’s influence on the world stage. Indeed, enhancing the capacity and authority of civilians to lead in fragile states increases the potential for U.S. influence to be positive, or at least neutral, rather than unintentionally destabilizing at an even higher cost. QUINCY PAPER | 4 SECTION II: ABOUT THE AUTHOR II. About the Author Elizabeth Shackelford is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Quincy Institute and an independent consultant. She was a career diplomat in the U.S. State Department until December 2017, when she resigned in protest against the Trump administration. During her tenure with the Foreign Service, Shackelford served in the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Poland; Juba, South Sudan; the U.S. Mission to Somalia, and in Washington, D.C. For her work in South Sudan during the outbreak of civil war, Shackelford received the Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence, the State Department’s highest honor for consular work. Shackelford is author of The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age (PublicAffairs, 2020). QUINCY PAPER | 5 SECTION III: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Jessie Evans, Emily Renard, and Ambassador Stephen Schwartz