Somalia: US's Hidden And Forgotten Forever War

Latest stories

An uncompetitive Detroit risks becoming even more so

Raimondo wants more and better tools to curb Huawei

US provocatively points new nuke-tipped missile at China The cost of US involvement in Somalia

Between 2007 and 2020, the US spent at least US$2.5 billion on counterterrorism operations in Somalia, according to Costs of War, a 2023 Brown University study . This amount was largely spent by the US Department of State and does not include the unknown expenditures of the US Central Intelligence Agency and US Defense Department.

For comparison, between 2001 and 2022 the US spent approximately $2.3 trillion , or nearly 1,000 times more, on“counterterrorism” wars in Afghanistan.

The U.S. spends time and money training the Somali National Army, assisting in surveillance and drone strike operations. Many of their activities are not publicly traceable.

According to one US congressional staffer who wished to remain anonymous,“even the US government's own officials do not know the total amount that has, and continues to be, spent on counterterrorism in Somalia.”

Understanding the crisis in Somalia

Located in East Africa on the coast of the Indian Ocean, Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world.

Decades of civil war coupled with extreme droughts have caused roughly 17 million people to exist in dire living conditions .

In 2022, about 43,000 people died from drought, while more than one million have been displaced so far just in 2023 by drought, famine and ongoing violent attacks. The nexus of climate chaos and political violence poses significant challenges for the Somali government.

And yet, the counterterrorism and climate policies enacted by the Somali government continually exacerbate these problems.

President George Bush visits US military personnel in Somalia on Dec. 31, 1992. Photo: Larry Downing / Sygma via Getty Images / The Conversation

In 2005, under the Bush administration, the CIA backed an unpopular and violent attempt to overthrow the Union of Islamic Courts. The group comprised about a dozen local Islamic courts in southern Somalia that solved social disputes, reopened schools and ended roadblocks erected by violent warlords.

The Union of Islamic Courts was generally popular among the Somali people living within their jurisdiction and seen by many residents as a welcomed alternative to the prior decade of civil war that decimated the region.

The US global war on terrorism

In the post-9/11 era, US government officials were wary of an Islamic government coming to power in Somalia and were fearful of the Union of Islamic Courts. When the CIA's effort failed to topple the group, the US government then backed an Ethiopian military invasion of Somalia in late 2006.

During this brutal two-year invasion, many members of the Union of Islamic Courts were killed or chased out of Mogadishu, and a small group of youth began a recruitment campaign using the slogan“al-Shabaab ,” or“the youth” in Arabic.

In my view, this US-supported Ethiopian invasion was largely responsible for creating the conditions of political uncertainty and violence that prevail today.

Al-Shabaab portrayed the US-backed Ethiopian invasion in religious and nationalist terms and painted the US and Ethiopia as Christian invaders of a Muslim country.

After two years of war, Ethiopia withdrew its troops, claiming their mission to rid the extremist threat was accomplished.

This assertion proved to be false, as al-Shabaab insurgents recaptured nearly all territory lost by the UIC.