Abstract
This book is an excellent and comprehensive examination of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Initially, AMISOM was formed in response to the emergence of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia, which asked the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (a coalition of East African Nations) for assistance. An Islamic religious organization known as the Union of Islamic Courts gained military control in Mogadishu in 2006. This created significant concern about their possible cooperation and coordination with Al Qaeda in East Africa for terrorist operations and served as a rationale for Ethiopia to intervene, engage, and defeat the Islamic Courts Union. In turn, AMISOM emerged as a means for Ethiopia to exit after the instillation of the TFG in Mogadishu as the operative government.
The TFG was succeeded in 2012 by the present Federal Government of Somalia. The initial AMISOM force structure includes Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, Ghana, and Malawi with participation from Kenya (in 2012) and Ethiopia (2014), which became increasingly dominant actors. AMISOM was mandated tasks beyond peacekeeping, including war fighting, protection for various political actors, counterinsurgency, state-building, and support for electoral process development. This study of the African Union’s AMISOM effort provides an excellent contribution toward comprehension of critical inputs of peace enforcement and peacekeeping across the continent.
The first half of the book presents a sequential narrative of AMISOM efforts. Williams’ focus on issues challenging operational functions serves as both a prologue and a segue into the second half of the book, which addresses strategic issues as points of analysis regarding their location along a continuum of success and failure. Williams has developed an analytic framework of relevant issues making it interesting for type construction useful to theory development. This review focuses on that material concerning operational challenges.
One challenge identified and discussed concerns the array of logistics. AMISOM’s relationship with the United Nations (UN) Support Office for Somalia was problematic. AMISOM had limited capacity to incorporate the UN’s assistance in all its forms. One factor of this array concerned the quality and extent of personnel relationships between the operational functionaries of the two organizations. These relationships suffered weakness of information sharing, incompatibility of organizational processes, and poor management of assets. This was in turn linked to the separation of command and control, which was supposed to facilitate accountability and transparency of operations, particularly avoiding civilian harm. The modern bureaucratic procedures were in conflict with Somali capacity, cultural norms, and the array of vectors involved in field operations connected to the conduct of peace enforcement, peacekeeping, risk management, and other areas.
Another matrix of indicators involves elements of security reform in the African Union policy framework applicable to the Somali National Army. Williams identifies several issues for reform, which could also be discussed along the dimension of internal and external macro variables. The most prominent internal variable and pivot point is Somali clan politics. It is the Gordian knot of Somali reconciliation and security reform. Integration runs counter to the basis of clan power equations and is illustrated by the difficulty of traversing the command and control landscape across Somalia between the central and regional governments.
The most significant external variable is the participation of the two nation-states sharing contiguous borders with Somalia—Ethiopia and Kenya. Their participation has been crucial in the fight against Al-Shabaab and is genuinely appreciated, but their role presents a conundrum. The actions of both reveal agendas that vary from the international mandates for Somalia in favor of their own national border protection policy. The other factors Williams cites include integration, corruption, coordination, resource allocations, command and control, accountability, and more. These issues are dependent on both internal clan politics in Somalia and the agendas of Ethiopia and Kenya.
The remaining chapters in the analysis section deal with issues pertaining to protecting civilians, communication, and stabilization. What struck me as a reader and a sociologist, with some experience in military frameworks, was the precepts associated with the guerrilla war literature and most recently with counterinsurgency doctrine developed by General David Petraeus, for example, do not take territory you cannot control or adequately govern. The entire AMISOM and Somali effort ignored this wisdom: resources, functionaries, expertise, and so on. Locals have managed well but have certainly been in danger due to lack of capacity and preparation for governance to follow military action. As Williams argues, stabilization efforts during the post “surge” AMSIOM period have lacked the resources and force enablers. Also, fragmented command and control has not been resolved because it is a political conundrum of both internal and external macro conditions.
In conclusion, Williams’ book is extremely valuable as an upper mid-level analysis, occupying the sector of the middle range of analytical space between important views of the immediate conflict, such as studies of Al-Shabaab and more abstract visions of structure and process in peace development at regional and global levels. He has identified several “actionable” domains of pertinent issues, which must be considered by all actors involved in the planning and preparation of coordinated interventions. It represents the basis of a solid theoretical model of sociopolitical issues that will have impact on all such operations to varying degrees. Thus, it is an excellent text for courses concerning international intervention, peace enforcement, and peacekeeping in both civilian and military educational institutions.
