What’s up with Kenya invading Somalia?

Somalia, as we all know, is kind of a disaster. The country is struggling with a brutal famine, hasn’t had a real government for about 20 years, and has basically lurched from crisis to crisis for decades.
Things have, however, been especially bad in the south of the country over the last few years, because the south is largely controlled by a group of violent Islamists known as al-Shabaab, a group which frequently uses terror tactics against civilians, and has waged a vicious civil war against the country’s would-be central government. Over the last month, things in the region have reached a boiling point, fuelled by a combination of famine and food shortages, a deteriorating security situation, and ever-bolder attacks by both al-Shabaab and Somali pirates.
Kenya, Somalia’s neighbour to the south (see map below), has for a long time been anxious about the destabilising effect Somalia’s anarchic state has been having along the two countries’ shared border, including generating a sprawling refugee camp in Kenya filled with half a million or so Somalis fleeing terrorism and hunger, as well as spill-over violence and al-Shabaab attacks on tourists visiting Kenya.
About three weeks ago, Kenya, finally reaching the end of its patience, decided to take military action in Somalia, and sent an estimated 1 500 troops, together with tanks and helicopters, across the border to pursue al-Shabaab. The stated goal of the invasion was to hunt down the members of the group responsible for the kidnapping and killing of several European tourists who were visiting Kenya, but Kenya has since said that its ultimate goal is to attempt to destroy al-Shabaab’s ability to launch attacks against Kenyan targets.
According to Richard Downie, a fellow and deputy director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Kenya’s real military objective is to create a buffer zone in Somalia.
“In essence, Kenya wants to keep al-Shabaab at arms’ length from its border. It has already experimented with the idea of carving out a buffer zone inside Somalia. Earlier this year, it backed the formation of an autonomous region called Jubaland, or Azania, providing money and supplies to a hastily cobbled-together local governing authority under the leadership of a former Somali defence minister. This initiative never really got off the ground so this time round Kenya is taking the lead role rather than relying so heavily on local partners.”
The Kenyan invasion sparked a controversy within Somalia’s putative Western-backed government, with Somali president Sheikh Sharif Ahmed opposing the incursion, while Somali prime minister Abdiwelli Mohammed Ali committed the country to working with Kenya to roust out al-Shabaab. Recently, the prime ministers of the two nations signed a joint appeal for international help in dealing with al-Shabaab, but the situation is fragile.
The move has also sparked other tensions – for example, Kenya has tetchily accused Eritrea of supplying arms to al-Shabaab, an accusation that Eritrea shrilly denies. Sudan, which is mired in its own problems, including the recent formation of the independent country of South Sudan, has been watching events with a very jaundiced eye, as have the other nations of the Horn of Africa.
It’s an open question whether or not Kenya will be able to achieve a measure of success against al-Shabaab. Counter-insurgency is a tricky business, as we learned from watching events in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Kenyan troops are not specially trained for this type of warfare. What’s more, military action is costly, and Kenya may not be able to afford a prolonged campaign. The best hope is that Western governments, which recognise al-Shabaab as a terrorist organisation, will provide some kind of help to the campaign against the terrorists.
So what?
So what does this mean for the region? Well, it really depends on the outcome. If Kenya succeeds in working with Somalia’s central government and, perhaps, Western allies to decimate al-Shabaab, that would be excellent news for the whole region. With al-Shabaab gone, Somalia would have a shot at being a real, functional state that could clamp down on piracy and deal more effectively with food issues, and the whole Horn would be much more stable as refugees could head home and borders could calm down.
However, if this is just another failed military jaunt, it could have damaging long-term effects on the entire Horn of Africa. Trust between the nations of the region, already low, would fall to new depths, and conflicts between Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia may be possible. Economic integration, which would vastly improve the region’s economic prospects, would become impossible and more violence would become ever-more likely.
In short, a lot is riding on Kenya’s military. Let’s hope they’re up to the job.