Somalia and Ethiopia
Somalia’s prime minister swept into Mogadishu in an armoured convoy on Friday a day after his Ethiopian-backed forces drove Islamist rivals from the city they had ruled by sharia law since June.
I haven’t commented on this before because I have been trying to process it all. I am happy of course to see the Islamists suffering a defeat, but I have some mixed feelings about this.
Some are holding up Ethiopia’s tactics as an example of how we should conduct our military operations:
Why are they achieving what American forces in Somalia in 1993 did not and what American forces in Iraq today apparently are not?
More “boots on the ground” may be part of the explanation. The Ethiopians are not attempting to have a “light footprint.” They are not worried about whether they will be seen as “occupiers” or whether their “occupation” will be viewed as benevolent.
I don’t hold that that is factually correct, we have had reletively little difficulty in driving Islamists out of entrenched positions when we choose, the more difficult task has been defeating them when they hide amoung civilians, which is something that the Ethiopians and Somali forces will still have to accomplish. Leaving that factual assertion aside though, it is pretty clear that America is bankrolling the Ethiopian offensive and this will be presented as a new model for how to fight Islamists.
While somewhat akin to working with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, this situation is somewhat different. The Northern Alliance was a native force already engaged in a civil war against the Taliban. Ethiopia by contrast is a sovreign state, which while acting partially in its own interest, is also partially functioning as a mercenary army in the employ of the United States.
This last aspect concerns me, not because it isn’t viable, but because it is. It is probably cheaper for us to outright fund another nation to war on our behalf then for us to do it ourselves, and quite possibly more effective, as lesser sophistication can be counter-balanced with greater brutality and less concern for civilian welfare.
Beyond the moral difficulties with such a position though (which are themselves quite signifigant) should we make a practice of this behavior it would have tremendous long term negative effects. Reliance on mercenary forces as the primary means of foreign policy is a sure path to national weakness.
Ethiopia’s actions in Somalia, and our support of them, do not in themselves constitute any fatal departure down this path, and are probably justified and prudent when taken on their own. Looking at this as an ‘easy answer’ though and expanding upon this sort of policy would be a tremendous mistake.
