State collapse, insurgency, and counterinsurgency : [electronic resource] lessons from Somalia / J. Peter Pham

By: Contributor(s): Language: English Publication details: Carlisle, PA : Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2013Description: 70 pSubject(s): Online resources:
Contents:
Introduction -- Identity and legitimacy among the Somali -- From union to fragmentation : a brief history of modern Somalia -- The failure of the transitional federal government -- AMISOM : peacekeepers with no peace to keep -- The Islamist insurgents -- The Somalia that works : "bottom-up" versus "top-down" -- Famine changes the game? -- AMISOM turns the tide, al-Shabaab mutates -- Another Somali government -- A lesson about legitimacy and the limits of military force in counterinsurgency -- Conclusion.
Summary: 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.
Item type: electronic publication
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Holdings
Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
SIPRI Library and Documentation CD2014 G14_236 Available G14/236

Title from PDF title page (SSI, viewed November 18, 2013).

"November 2013."

SIP1407

Includes bibliographical references (pages 56-70).

Introduction -- Identity and legitimacy among the Somali -- From union to fragmentation : a brief history of modern Somalia -- The failure of the transitional federal government -- AMISOM : peacekeepers with no peace to keep -- The Islamist insurgents -- The Somalia that works : "bottom-up" versus "top-down" -- Famine changes the game? -- AMISOM turns the tide, al-Shabaab mutates -- Another Somali government -- A lesson about legitimacy and the limits of military force in counterinsurgency -- Conclusion.

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.

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