Costs of War
Published April 17, 2023
Tags Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí
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Making Crisis Inevitable: The Effects of U.S. Counterterrorism Training and Spending in Somalia

Paper

According to political scientist Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí (Senior Research Fellow, University of Oxford), the United States government says its goals in Somalia are to eliminate Al-Shabaab and promote peace and reconciliation. But its policies are having the opposite effect, not just contributing to conflict, but ensuring it continues in perpetuity.

"It is highly unlikely that continued US training operations and US counterterrorism spending in Somalia...will produce anything but the continuation of unrest in Somalia"

The U.S. spends more on counterterrorism in Somalia each year than the Federal Somali Government earns in tax revenue, flooding Somalia with funding for militarized counterterrorism and thereby diverting resources away from real conflict resolution solutions. This report calculates that the United States has disclosed spending over $2.5 billion on counterterrorism assistance in Somalia since 2007, most of which consisted of State Department funding. Notably, this total excludes spending on U.S. military and intelligence operations in Somalia, both of which are undisclosed.

The report details how militant groups carrying out terrorist attacks have only proliferated in the wake of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Somalia, in part because U.S. efforts favor the centralized Somali government, which is at odds with the decentralized dynamics of Somali politics, and thus undermined the kinds of bottom-up peace building efforts that have been proven successful in other parts of the region. The paper also details how Somali forces trained by the U.S. have been co-opted and misused by the Somali political elite for purposes like bodyguard duty, roadblock policing, or attacking political opponents. These forces are exacerbating conflict.

The US has spent $2.5 billion, but there is an unknown additional sum spent on secret operations.

About the Author

  • Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí

    Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí

    Senior Research Fellow in Political Philosophy and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government
    eniola.soyemi@bsg.ox.ac.uk
    Website

    Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí is Departmental Lecturer in Political Philosophy and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. Prior to that, she was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She obtained her Ph.D. in Political Science (political philosophy) from Boston University. Before entering academia, she worked at Chatham House, and then at the Guardian Newspaper where she was based in the press lobby of the UK House of Commons.  
    Her research is focused in African and Contemporary political, moral, and legal philosophy, where she studies questions of democracy and democratic practice in African countries and beyond. Her research has appeared in the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Philosophical Forum, and the Routledge Handbook of African Political Philosophy. Her other works have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker Radio Hour, the Guardian (UK), the Conversation, the Republic Journal, Ilora Magazine, and Premium Times Newspaper. She is working on her first book, Law's Moral Legitimacy (with Bloomsbury Publishing).