Hybrid Wars: The Horn Of Africa, the Scramble for Somalia; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Color Revolutions?

Somalia

Overview:

This civil war-torn country appears to have passed the crest of its over two-decade-long crisis and is finally on the road to recovery, although it will likely be a prolonged and sinewy one that might take a few more decades to fully play out. At this stage, Mogadishu is struggling to assert its authority throughout the rest of the country, and herein lays the major hindrance to any effective reconstruction efforts. Somalia has been bloodily divided into a handful of warlord-ruled territories, neither of which really wants to cede their hard-fought sovereignty to the other, let alone to a central authority responsible for everyone. As a means of attempting to adapt to this reality, Somalia implemented a federal system in 2012, although it had transitional plans to do so ever since 2004.

Despite the US officially recognizing the Mogadishu authorities in 2013, it’s practically impossible to speak about a “national” government and likely will remain so for the indefinite future. The official military does not have the capacity nor the international support to simultaneously combat Al Shabaab terrorists (which have proved to be a very formidable and internationally destabilizing threat) and ‘federal warlords’, and the obviously pressing priority has thus fallen towards fighting the former. More than likely, Somalia will never return to the cohesive political unit that it once was prior to 1991, and this is a geopolitical reality that the federal government, its various warlord principalities, and the international community appear ready to accept and deal with. For as many challenges as it opens up, there are also a few opportunities for self-interested and ambitious actors to exploit.
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