State Collapse, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Somalia - Softcover

Pham, Peter J; Strategic Studies Institute; Army War College

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782665404 ISBN 13: 9781782665403

Publisher: Military Bookshop, 2013

Synopsis

For more than 2 decades, Somalia has been the prime example of a collapsed state, resisting multiple attempts to reconstitute a central government, with the current internationally-backed regime of the "Federal Republic of Somalia" struggling just to maintain its hold on the capital and the southeastern littoral-thanks only to the presence of a more than 17,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force. Despite the desultory record, the apparent speedy collapse since late 2011 of the insurgency spearheaded by the Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (Movement of Warrior Youth, al-Shabaab)-a militant Islamist movement with al-Qaeda links-has made it fashionable within some political and military circles to cite with little nuance the "Somalia model" as a prescription for other conflicts in Africa, including the fight in Mali against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies. This monograph takes a closer look at the situation in order to draw out the real lessons from the failures and successes of the counterinsurgency effort in Somalia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Military Bookshop
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1782665404
• ISBN 13: 9781782665403
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80