State collapse, insurgency, and counterinsurgency
Subtitle: lessons from Somalia
By: J. Peter Pham
Contributors: Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute; Army War College (U.S.). Press
Publisher: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Carlisle, PA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 70
ISBN-13: 9781584875949
Subjects: Failed states; Insurgency; Counterinsurgency; Politics and government; African Union Mission in Somalia; Shabaab (Organization)
Description: For more than 2 decades, Somalia has been the prime example of a collapsed state, resisting multiple attempts to reconstitute a central government, with the current internationally-backed regime of the "Federal Republic of Somalia" struggling just to maintain its hold on the capital and the southeastern littoral -- thanks only to the presence of a more than 17,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force. Despite the desultory record, the apparent speedy collapse since late 2011 of the insurgency spearheaded by the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Movement of Warrior Youth, al-Shabaab) -- a militant Islamist movement with al-Qaeda links -- has made it fashionable within some political and military circles to cite with little nuance the "Somalia model" as a prescription for other conflicts in Africa, including the fight in Mali against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies. This monograph takes a closer look at the situation in order to draw out the real lessons from the failures and successes of the counterinsurgency effort in Somalia.
Notes: "November 2013."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-70).

Also available online in PDF format from Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) web site.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Identity and legitimacy among the Somali; title: From union to fragmentation : a brief history of modern Somalia; title: The failure of the transitional federal government; title: AMISOM : peacekeepers with no peace to keep; title: The Islamist insurgents; title: The Somalia that works : "bottom-up" versus "top-down"; title: Famine changes the game?; title: AMISOM turns the tide, al-Shabaab mutates; title: Another Somali government; title: A lesson about legitimacy and the limits of military force in counterinsurgency; title: Conclusion.