Somalia as a blueprint? Get real.

Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
NYT, January 13, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Military operations in Somalia by American commandos, and the use of the Ethiopian Army as a surrogate force to root out operatives for Al Qaeda in the country, are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe.

I can't believe that the Pentagon seriously believes Ethopia's recent offensive in Somalia aimed at expunging the Islamic Courts Union is a viable blueprint for any future counterterrorism missions. What kind of blueprint would that be anyway?

"Let al Qaeda operatives hide in a lawless country for years until they hitch their star to some rising nascent Islamist movement and just hope the new Islamist government tempts fate with a neighboring country friendly to the U.S. willing to invade them before they can establish stable terror camps at attack the West"?

That doesn't exactly sound like a solid plan to me. In fact, I think it didn't pan out very well for the U.S. in Afghanistan before September 11th. How about instead of backing warlords who are so two-faced that they were the one's attacking us a decade ago, why don't we invest more building political stability or backing up transitional governments in weak states?

U.S. military force isn't the ultimate pancea for terrorism and insurgencies. Jobs, political stability and government that is a viable alternative to warlordism and tribalism are. Strategies that minimize long-term diplomatic or political investments in favor of rapid military solutions don't always work. They give the illusion of providing maximum flexibility to the U.S. when all we are reallying doing is just sitting around waiting for a perfect moment to act that may never come.

If you don't agree with me, just look at how far our much heralded combating WMD strategy has gotten us since its inception in 2002. As Gedde Watanabe would say, "Nothing, absolutely nothing."

Updates: Somalia and Export Controls

First, I wanted to say that I'm surprised by how successfully the transitional government of Somalia routed the ICU over the last week. The transitional government President, Abdullahi Yusuf, returned to Mogadishu today. There has been some protests and violence, but the media hasn't characterized it as distinctly Islamist:

On Saturday, security forces fired in the air to disperse crowds, as youths burnt tyres and threw stones, witnesses said. At least two civilians were killed and several others injured by gunfire, but it was not clear who was responsible. President Yusuf has always been wary of going to MogadishuAnother protest was held in the town of Beledweyne, near the border with Ethiopia, with one death reported.

If Somalia's Islamists are anything like the Taliban, they should be able to put together a guerrilla campaign in a year - if they disperse now. I'll definitely be keeping an on developments southern Somalia over the next few weeks. On to the second topic: export controls. Export controls are the least glamorous component of the U.S. arms control and nonproliferation regime, but they have the potential to throw a huge monkey wrench in how the U.S. does business abroad. Case in point - the State Department slapped down Lockheed Martin for using the "but we had a DoD contract" excuse:

According to the charging letter that preceded the consent agreement, Sippican continued to provide technical data after a TAA had expired, provided technical data to parties not authorized under the TAA, and provided technical data explicitly excluded by a proviso to one of the TAAs. In particular, Sippican provided controlled technical data classified at a level higher than Secret even though the TAA in effect at the time only permit transfer of data up to the Secret level. During discussions with DDTC, Sippican attempted to argue that it transferred the classified data in question because that was required by the Navy contract. [snip] DDTC is, of course, correct that a government contract does not eliminate the need for an export license. That being said, it seems that DDTC did not fully understand the background that I surmise led Sippican to make that argument. This would not be the first time that military contracting officers, anxious for the contract to proceed rapidly, pressured contractors to provide deliverables or data without going through the 3-4 month wait (or more) for an export authorization from DDTC. Indeed, in more than one instance with which I’m aware, the contracting officer has represented that no license was necessary precisely because the military was requesting the unlicensed export.

If the $3 million fine tacked on the consent agreement doesn't cause a palpable chilling effect in the defense industry, I don't know what will. The flap with the UK over to technical data for the Joint Strike Fighter that was just resolved last month is just the beginning. Once promised international cooperation on politically-sensitive, big-ticket weapons systems - such as national missile defense (if Congress doesn't kill it before then) - starts to take off of a few years from now, we will see just how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Return to Mogadishu and the Japan-Iran connection

The only thing surprising about Ethiopia's campaign to unseat the Islamic Courts Union and install the Transition Federal Government of Somalia is how rapid their advance to Mogadishu has been. I'm pretty surprised that the ICU forces have continued to use the tactics of a conventional army so late into the conflict. It probably would have been smarter for Somali Islamists to have switched to dispersed geurrilla tactics after Ethopian troops crossed the border in serious numbers to reinforce Baidoa back on December 8th. The ICU is just too poorly armed to successfully use conventional tactics against the relatively well-heeled Ethiopian military. As the last paragraphs of the article on the conflict from today's Post suggests:

Witnesses reported seeing a large number of foreign fighters in the convoys heading south. Islamic movement leaders had called on foreign Muslims to join their "holy war" against Ethiopia, which has a majority Christian population. Hundreds were believed to have answered the call. Residents told the AP that Islamic leader Hassan Dahir Aweys had arrived in the frontline town of Jilib, 65 miles north of Kismayo, earlier Thursday with hundreds of fighters aboard 45 pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns. Islamic fighters have gone door to door in Kismayo recruiting children as young as 12 to make a last stand on behalf of the Islamic movement, according to a U.N. report citing the families of boys taken to Jilib.

Pressing local children into service is an act of desparate act of a group looking towards martyrdom, not one preparing for an insurgency. Did they learn nothing from the defeat and subsequent rebirth of the Taliban in Afghanistan? Massing militiamen just creates larger targets for Ethiopia's Russian-made attack helicopters. For those interested in the Japanese angle on the current flap over Iran's nuclear program, I would definitely suggest giving Michael Penn's "Oil and Power: The Rise and Fall of the Japan-Iran Partnership in Azadegan" a read. Its a quick read covering Japan's involvement in the exploration of Iran's Azadagen oil field and it provides a solid description of how Japan was caught between the bellicose stubbornness of the Bush and Ahmadinejad administrations. Thankfully the Japanese managed to back away from their investments without incurring huge losses, but things did get interesting - at one point the Iranians suggested the Japanese provide technical cooperation to the Iranian nuclear program as a way ensuring it is peaceful.