Over at The American Conservative, Michael Horton highlights Somaliland as “a success story without billions and bombs.” He writes:
“The autonomous but unrecognized Republic of Somaliland has also eradicated piracy from its shores and thwarted the jihadist group al-Shabaab’s expansion within its borders. Somalia hasn’t managed any of this, despite the billions of dollars expended by the international community over nearly two decades. Rather than spending money it has never had on advanced weaponry, drones, and a large unwieldy army, Somaliland has instead focused on the two things that always form the backbone of successful counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency: good governance and reliable human intelligence.”
Horton is right. The United States is spending $900 million this year
on Somalia without much to show for it. The appointed government in
Mogadishu is now ranked by
Transparency International as the world’s most corrupt country, worse
than even Yemen, North Korea, and Venezuela. Somaliland’s resources are
not unlimited (they spend one-third of their $350 million budget on
defense and security) but even a fraction (say $20 million) of what
U.S. taxpayers send to Somalia could go a long way to enhancing
Somaliland’s security anchor role in the region.
The necessity for the United States to tap into Somaliland’s success is
a subject I have also addressed since returning from a trip to the
unrecognized country last month. Dumping money on Mogadishu is wasteful,
destabilizes Somalia, and replicates the mistakes of
U.S. and United Nations aid in Iraq. If the Trump administration hopes
to achieve its security goals in the region, it should not blacklist the
region but instead assign a military liaison.
The fact that Donald Yamamoto, the U.S. ambassador to Somalia, has
not only refused to step foot in Somaliland as ambassador to Somalia but
also increasingly prevents U.S. aid to be spent there is policy
malpractice and directly undermines the Trump administration’s Africa policy.
But, Horton could go even further: In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and
Somalia, one of the chief impediments to peace and stability has been
the proliferation of militias. Dumping aid into these countries often exacerbates the problem, which
is why Yamamoto’s policies in Somalia have backfired so profoundly. To
counter the militia problem, the U.S. spends billions of dollars
worldwide with little to show for its efforts. But while the rest of
Somalia descended into political chaos and gang warfare, Somaliland
successfully folded various regional militias into a single cohesive
army.
How they did so can provide a roadmap for permanent solutions
elsewhere.
It’s long past time that defense and diplomatic metrics be measured in results and successes rather than dollars spent.
Just as the Republic of Georgia has become the model for defeat of
systematic corruption, with the U.S. government and NGOs funding
seminars in its Tbilisi for politicians from the developing world to
learn how the Georgians achieved the impossible, perhaps Hargeissa can
provide a similar function for those countries emerging from conflict
but still beset by militias.
Dr. Michael Rubin (PhD)
aei.org
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