When It Comes to Somalia, It’s Always Complicated

[Deeq A.]

People attend a march in support of the Somali government’s plans for universal suffrage in preparation for a one-person, one-vote presidential election in 2026, in Mogadishu, Somalia on November 26, 2024. Feisal Omar/REUTERS

When President Trump was elected to a second term in office, advocates for Somaliland, the autonomous region that has sought international recognition as an independent state for decades, saw real promise for meaningful change. With prominent members of Congress calling for recognition of Somaliland and the White House indicating that the matter is under active review, anticipation is growing.

But a largely justified enthusiasm for Somaliland and the potential of deepening relations with Hargeisa is sometimes proposed as a solution to the thorny problem of how to pursue U.S. interests in Somalia itself. Policymakers who are exhausted by the fractious politics and glacial pace of political reform in Somalia and eager for a way out of this particular “forever war” should not indulge in this fantasy. It’s true that what the U.S. has been trying for decades has yielded very limited returns. But it is equally true that extremist organizations with the intent to harm Americans continue to operate in Somalia, and the country’s weakness continues to attract a wide variety of external influences into a strategically vital and extremely fragile region.

Somalia is the site of a jumble of competing international influences, as Turkey draws ever closer to Mogadishu, the UAE courts Somaliland, and Egypt seeks to check Ethiopian influence by warming to Somalia’s federal authorities. Yemen’s Houthis have cooperated with al-Shabaab and the Islamic State in Somalia. China is poised to capitalize on any rift between Somalia’s federal government and Washington.

Amid this geopolitical churn, it can be easy to forget how much internal political dynamics matter. The federal government’s recent creation of a new state that encompasses territory claimed by Somaliland and by Puntland is a good reminder. From a distance, it’s easy to write off Mogadishu’s maneuvers as mere paper power grabs; the federal government has trouble enforcing its own authority in the capital city, much less countrywide. But real constituencies relegated to minority status in Somaliland and Puntland backed the initiative, and real clashes have ensued between Puntland’s forces—who notably had been focused on combatting ISIS-Somalia—and troops aligned with the central government. The exposed fault lines are both symptomatic of what ails Somalia and new venues for self-interested opportunists from abroad.

At the end of the day, domestic anxieties over representation, self-determination, and access to resources and opportunities are at the heart of Somalia’s dysfunction and the reason it makes such an easy target for extremists and profiteers alike. No foreign security force can resolve these issues, and no commercial deals can sustainably quiet these animating concerns. U.S. interests in countering malign actors, ensuring freedom of navigation, and preventing additional conflict and crisis in the Horn are affected by these dynamics, regardless of our troop presence, the African Union’s mission, or Somaliland’s status. Whether or not the U.S. government has an appetite for diplomacy, understanding Somalia’s domestic politics will be essential to anticipating threats and influencing the future of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Washing our hands of Mogadishu is not an option.

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

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