Most discussion in the naval blogosphere related to Somalia is centered on piracy. But the real threat to US and western interest there is al Shabaab (AS). Recent offensives by AMISOM and pro-government ASWJ militias have done little to break the stalemate in Southern Somalia between TFG and AS. While a weak TFG government receives military support from AMISOM (primarily made up of forces from Uganda and Burundi), AS enjoys a consistent supply of munitions, fighters, and funding from various sources, much of it via the sea.
To provide some perspective on the scope of the problem, understand that Somalia’s coastline stretches more than 3,300 km, which is roughly equivalent to the combined shores of California and Florida. Disrupting support to AS at sea is not a trivial matter and any calls for an all out blockade cannot be taken seriously. That said, given the sufficient attention and effort, there are opportunities to address the problem. These efforts include selectively building partner capacity, discrete unilateral/multilateral at sea and in port interdictions of illicit maritime shipments, and supporting intelligence efforts.
There are many players involved - or who should be involved - in dealing with this issue while AMISOM does the heavy lifting against AS ashore. A few decades ago, Somalia had one of the largest and most professional Navies on the continent. Today three different nascent navies struggle to deal with the scourge of piracy, and protect Somalia’s fisheries while al Shabaab operates under the radar: Somaliland’s Coast Guard, Puntland’s Coast Guard (established 2000), and the TFG Navy (reestablished 2009). All three of these organizations are under-funded, under-equipped, and under-motivated. Current training efforts are conducted by contractors funded by various countries such as Norway.
On the US side, complex C2 arrangements handicap any sort of coherent strategy or action against AS maritime facilitation. At the headquarters level, since the Unified Command Plan was redrawn in 2008, AFRICOM has owned the land of Somalia and territorial waters out to 12 nautical miles. CENTCOM runs most operations outside of territorial waters and owns the majority of naval forces. At the operational level, NAVCENT’s counter-piracy operations in the Somali Basin and Gulf of Aden are run by the rotating leadership of CTF-151, involve numerous EU, NATO and non-aligned countries; all operating on their own caveats, and none focused on disrupting al Shabaab. NAVAF’s limited forces occasionally working off East Africa are primarily devoted to theater security cooperation. On the special operations side, SOCAFRICA inherited a security force assistance program from SOCCENT to assist the Kenyans in developing a maritime security and law enforcement capacity. The situation on land is equally complicated, with CJTF HOA owning various bits of the problem. Additionally, the USCG runs training in Djibouti and another capacity building mission in Yemen, separated from Somalia by a major maritime rat line crossing the Gulf of Aden.
The tensions and boundaries between the Geographic Combatant Commanders/interagency, tactical/operational levels, policy/authorities, and special operations/general purpose forces hamstring our efforts in Somalia’s waters, while the enemy operates freely in the fastness our bureaucratic seams provide.
The UK has been involved in a number of capacity building efforts in East Africa, including on the maritime side. Of course Somalia’s coastal neighbors -- Djibouti, Kenya, and Tanzania further to the South have their own maritime issues and capacity limitations. Other international partners, such as the United Arab Emirates, the largest export partner of Somalia (mostly charcoal and livestock) should be involved in any discussions to counter AS facilitation. This trade, while vital to Somalia’s fragile economy, is taxed as it passes through the enemy-controlled port of Kismaayo, providing AS a major source of funding.
It’s easy to see there are many Indians running around this problem, but no Chiefs. The root to a solution in my opinion lies in leadership. Who will step up to take that role?
The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.
*Somaliland CG photo courtesy of Brendan Bannon.
No comments:
Post a Comment