The USA in the Horn of Africa

[…] Interactions, programs, and activities with Foreign Security Forces (FSF) and their institutions to build relationships that advance U.S. interests; Enabling partner states (PNs) to grant the US access to territory, infrastructure, information and resources; and / or build and apply their capacities and capabilities consistent with US defense objectives. (Joint Chiefs of Staff 2017, v)

(Joint Chiefs of Staff 2017, v)

This chapter introduces security cooperation as an instrument of remote warfare, both in the general sense and in the specific case of US counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa. We argue that there is a twofold security / strategy logic: it serves to build the capacity of foreign security forces to deny safe havens to terrorist organizations within their own borders or region. and to secure American access to bases, airspace and foreign security personnel, “thicken” political partnerships with overseas governments, and create new patterns of cooperation, influence and leverage.[3]

The idea that security cooperation is “political” is not new. It underpins much of the recent practice-oriented literature on the limits of recent capacity building by Western partners (Biddle, Macdonald and Baker 2017; Matisek 2018; Reno 2018; Tankel 2018b). However, a stronger focus on the policies that encourage the use of security co-operation activities rather than the policies of the agents receiving such assistance provides an alternative calculus for reviewing the debates about their effectiveness. Much of the existing dialogue between academics and practitioners about US security cooperation activities in the Horn of Africa has focused on failures in capacity-building in Somali and regional security agents (Reno 2018; Ross 2018; Williams 2019). When the political dimensions of US military aid are discussed, it is usually in the context of how mismatches in the political interests of the US and the recipient have undermined the effectiveness of partnering efforts. We argue that this is problematic because of a greater sensitivity to the twin The security and strategic logic of security cooperation may help us better understand the obvious mystery of why these activities persisted despite their well-documented military failures.

To be clear, we are not arguing that only the strategic logic of security cooperation explains its use, nor are we arguing that the various forms of access its use creates offset failures in partner capacity building. In addition, we are aware of the methodological challenges that arise from documenting the relationship between security cooperation and securing the various forms of access discussed above, as we are aware that there is not necessarily a clear “transmission belt” between the two. However, as we document by examining various primary sources, referring to the use of military aid from the Cold War era, and empirical investigation of contemporary US counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa, the use of security cooperation as an instrument of remote warfare can be so Understand that it has assisted the pursuit of broader strategic goals.

Our analysis takes place in three steps. Section 1 introduces key trends in post-war military aid, with a particular focus on the Bush, Obama and Trump presidencies. Section 2 unpacks the dual security and strategic logic of security cooperation as an instrument of remote warfare. This framework is used in the final section of this chapter to examine the role of security cooperation in US counter-terrorism operations in the Horn of Africa. Somalia, our main case study, has been the center of American security cooperation activity in Africa for the past decade (Ross 2018). It is also a symbol of US support for “Fabergé egg militaries” who are “expensive, shiny, and easy to break” (Matisek 2018, 278-279). While their use in Somalia was stronger than in military operations in other parts of Africa, this case is seen as representative of the broader demand for and use of security cooperation in fragile states (Reno 2018, 498).

Security Cooperation in US Foreign Policy: From the Cold War to Trump

Military aid, of which security cooperation is an integral part, has long been a key instrument of American foreign policy.[4] It is estimated that the USA provided military support to over 100 states after 1945 (Kuzmarov 2017). An estimated US $ 390 billion was spent on military and development aid during the Cold War (Matisek 2018, 273). This served several strategic purposes. In addition to supporting partners in defending against communist expansion, this was an important channel through which the US stabilized access to overseas markets (Kolko 1988) and secured access to overseas bases (Kuzmarov 2017).

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara told Congress in the 1960s that the United States provided military aid because “military officers were the coming leaders of their nations. It is priceless for the United States to befriend such men ”(House of Representatives 1963, 291). Military aid, he emphasized, generated “important economic by-products for our foreign policy in relation to the stability and economic progress of the less developed and emerging countries” and helped to secure “access to bases and facilities overseas” (House of Representatives 1963 , 60). All three of these dynamics were evident in the Horn of Africa. Before the communist coup that overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, Ethiopia received military aid worth 286 million US dollars after World War II (Kuzmarov 2017). Thereafter, the patterns of material assistance were rearranged to reflect the region’s new political landscape, and the flow of military aid was diverted to neighboring Somalia (Oberdorfer 1977). As the Washington Post Openly reported at the time, the US agreed to “provide weapons worth US $ 40 million in return for the use of Somali air bases and ports” (J. Ross 1981).

Such practices continued after the Cold War. Military aid was an integral part of the post-9/11 effort to deny transnational terrorist organizations safe havens in fragile states (Biddle et al. 2017; Ryan 2019; Tankel 2018b; Watts and Biegon 2017). Billions of dollars have been spent by the US and its coalition partners to train, equip and advise tens of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi soldiers on counterinsurgency campaigns in both countries. While these activities were carried out on a smaller scale, military support was also central to what shaped Maria Ryan’s “war on terror on the periphery” (Ryan 2019, 2020). Crucial to the fight against terrorism in Africa were the shifts outlined in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, a hugely influential defense planning document that highlighted the Pentagon’s evolving approach to combating irregular warfare (Ryan 2019, 144-152). A number of important adjustments to US defense strategy were outlined, including a shift from larger military interventions to addressing “multiple irregular, asymmetric operations” (DOD 2006, vii). This required:

Maintaining a long-term presence in poor visibility conditions in many regions of the world where [US] Forces traditionally do not work. Building and using partner capacity will also be an integral part of this approach, and the use of substitutes will be a necessary method to achieve many goals. Indirect cooperation with and through others, and thus the population’s refusal to support the enemy, will help to change the nature of the conflict. (DOD 2006, 23)

Maintaining a long-term presence in poor visibility conditions in many regions of the world where [US] Forces traditionally do not work. Building and using partner capacity will also be an integral part of this approach, and the use of substitutes will be a necessary method to achieve many goals. Indirect cooperation with and through others, and thus the population’s refusal to support the enemy, will help to change the nature of the conflict.

(DOD, 2006, 23)

These commitments remained a central part of Obama’s counter-terrorism policy. For example, the 2012 Defense Strategy Review placed the training, equipment and advice of foreign security forces at the center of the ongoing war against al-Qaeda. “As the US forces withdraw in Afghanistan,” states the detailed document, “global counter-terrorism efforts will be more widespread and will be characterized by a mixture of direct action and support to the security forces” (DOD 2012, 4). In the influential Security Sector Support Policy of the Obama administration, in the context of the dual security / strategy logic of security cooperation, it was noted how activities related to security cooperation aim at more than just the security and governance capacities of the partners to strengthen. They also worked to promote partner support for U.S. interests, including military access to airspace and fundamental rights. improved interoperability and training opportunities; and cooperation in areas such as law enforcement, counterterrorism and drug control (The White House 2013).

Despite the removal of some of the Obama-era restrictions on the use of force, the Trump administration has retained security cooperation as a key tool in the fight against terrorism (Biegon and Watts 2020). In the 2018 National Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the meaning of “Augmentation[ing] the ability of key foreign partners to conduct critical counter-terrorism activities ”(The White House 2018, 23), which remained an integral part of the military response against transnational terrorist organizations. The Trump administration has institutionalized a process that can be traced back to Obama’s “fulcrum in Asia” and recalibrated the overall strategic direction of US defense policy. According to the 2017 National Security Strategy, China and Russia are “actively competing against the United States and our allies and partners” (The White House 2017, 25).

The (re) emergence of great power competition as an organizational lens for American foreign policy creates new uncertainties, also for the course of long-distance warfare. According to Stephen Tankel (2018a) with a focus on the Trump administration[ing] Learning about great power conflicts and rogue regimes, security cooperation with and support from allies and partners will continue to be critical to the achievement of global defense goals. Indeed, both the 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy emphasize the continued importance of such activities in addressing transnational security challenges in Africa, while adding that they also have a limit[ing] the malicious influence of non-African powers in the region (Ministry of Defense 2018, 10; see also The White House 2017, 52). While the immediate focus of these activities may be realigned to reflect the new strategic focus on competition for great powers, security cooperation is likely to remain an important tool in America’s counter-terrorism toolbox.

Conception of security cooperation as an instrument of remote warfare

At the center of the current debate on remote warfare is the trend towards countering security threats at greater physical, political and strategic distances. The Oxford Research Group defines remote warfare as a term that describes combat approaches that do not require the use of a large number of own ground troops (Knowles and Watson 2018, 2). While there was a certain “pick and mix” approach to the way these were cataloged, various tactical practices were examined under this label, including manned and unmanned air forces, military support, cyber operations, information sharing, private military security companies and special forces (SOF). While western states can conduct direct combat operations against common security challenges, they do so from the air or with elite SOF units, not with their conventional ground forces. The bulk of the fighting is instead delegated to local security forces, whose military capacity is strengthened through security cooperation and tailored operational support packages that often include embedded SOF advisors, air force and information sharing (Knowles and Watson 2018, 2-3).

In this debate, security cooperation offers the attractive prospect of shaping the security situation on the ground, especially in places like Somalia, where important but not vital security interests are threatened. Security cooperation can help bring together the capacity of security agents to conduct military operations of a standard or scale that exceeds previous capabilities, and thus better cope with common security challenges (Biddle et al. 2017, 100). This intuitive safety logic has two dimensions. On the one hand, it is an effort to improve the ability of some foreign security forces to deny transnational terrorist organizations unregulated spaces from which they can operate (Tankel 2018b, 101). On the other hand, it offers the opportunity to enable other foreign security agents to participate in coalition operations alongside or instead of American armed forces (Ross 2016, 96–97). What the security logic of security co-operation has in common as a remote warfare tool is that in theory, if not necessarily in practice, it can “reduce the need for US troops to conduct the fighting by improving the ally’s ability to do so themselves.” do “(Biddle et al. 2017, 91-92).

This geographic access takes several forms and is not limited to just fundamental rights overseas. As mentioned in the broader literature, it can also include access to airspace Conduct aerial reconnaissance and strike operations; foreign military personnelto build partner capacity, participate in joint counter-terrorism raids and provide information; and transitwhether this is intended to carry out military operations in a neighboring state or to supply US forces in the theater again (Tankel 2018b, 105-107). In this way, the strategic logic of security cooperation can help provide the USA with territorial access to partner countries, but also a certain technical access to the partner security agents who conduct most of the frontline fighting in long-distance wars.

To repeat it again: the provision of military aid does not automatically lead to direct influence (Ross 2016, 94). From the perspective of principal-agent theory (Biddle et al. 2017), political dynamics are central to the effectiveness of partnering efforts. Efficacy issues arise from the agency’s significant loss in the use of these programs, stemming from the challenges posed by adverse selection issues, asymmetries of interests, and the difficulty of overseeing beneficiaries’ use of military training and equipment (Biddle et al. 2017)). In controversial locations of security cooperation such as Somalia, there can also be competition for influence among security cooperation providers, which further complicates the matter. One respondent who was involved in the UK partner-building effort in Somalia said: “When you are there as a team of 15, you have no automatic influence.” […] So you need time to build relationships instead. You compete there with other national players for influence ”(quoted in Watson and Knowles 2019, 3).

Even in such situations, however, security cooperation activities can help generate the various forms of access described above. As Knowles and Watson document, for a comparatively modest investment in manpower and resources, the UK was able to secure access to AMISOM’s operations and intelligence room through its partner-building efforts in Somalia: “A high level of access – which could lead to more effective partnerships in the Future “(Knowles and Watson 2018, 4). In addition to the political dynamic, intrinsic within The provision of security collaborations that affect the effectiveness of the associated programs and the political context that influences the client’s decision to provide assistance to the “agent” are therefore also worth considering.

US security cooperation as long-range war in the Horn of Africa

The external training, equipment and advice of African security forces is not new. The European powers relied heavily on locally built militaries to reinforce their own ground forces throughout the Empire (Johnson 2017, 173–194). During the Cold War, the US government provided military support to states in the Horn of Africa (Kuzmarov 2017). The region was a place of acute east-west competition in which both superpowers represented their respective ideological and geopolitical interests throughout the region (Makinda 1982, 98-101). The provision of military aid had both security and strategic logic. It should help maintain access to air and naval facilities in Ethiopia and later in Somalia. defend the internal stability of partner governments; and to maintain the openness of the strategically important Bab-el-Mandeb waterway, a key artery of world trade (Lewis 1987, 3). These efforts to address the security challenges in the Horn of Africa beyond the horizon were fueled by the deaths of eighteen Army Rangers during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, popularly known as the “Black Hawk Down” incident. As Robert Patman (2015) has argued, the resulting “Somalia Syndrome” triggered deep skepticism about interventions in local humanitarian crises and shaped later remote war campaigns in Africa.

After the 9/11 attacks, Bush administration officials feared that the senior leadership of al-Qaeda would move to the Horn of Africa after they were driven out of Afghanistan (Ryan 2019, 82-83). Based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF-HOA) was established in October 2002 to coordinate counter-terrorism across the region, with a focus on partner capacity building and civil-military operations (Ryan 2019, 85-88). After leaving the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 against the backdrop of the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, al-Shabaab became the main target of the CJTF-HOA’s activities. This al-Qaeda group has fought an effective insurrection against the Somali federal government and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which was founded in 2007 in support of the nominal Somali state. Al-Shabaab temporarily controlled large areas in central and southern Somalia, carried out terrorist attacks in neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia and infiltrated Somalia’s security and intelligence services (Reno 2018, 502–503).

Beginning in the presidency of George W. Bush, successive US administrations have used security cooperation among other remote intervention practices against the advice of local partners to behave “cautiously” in order to minimize the risk for peacekeeping contingents (Wikileaks 2007a).[5] In 2007, the DOD’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was authorized to carry out air strikes from manned / unmanned aircraft and SOF raids against the top leadership of al-Shabaab. Between 32 and 36 covert strikes are said to have been carried out by January 2017. The first drone attack is said to have taken place in June 2011 (Bureau of Investigative Journalism 2017). Such strikes, while disruptive, formed a small part of a larger package of intervention: “American Strategy to Contain and Ultimately Combat Al Shabaab Relief[d] on AMISOM and the Somali National Army ”(Zimmerman, Meyer, Lahiff and Indermühle 2017). This shows the central importance of security cooperation for this particular long-distance war campaign.

According to the Security Assistance Monitor (2019), Somalia received military aid of at least US $ 248.6 million between 2006 and 2008.[6] A 2009 diplomatic cable broadcast from the American embassy in Ethiopia raised concerns about providing military support to the fledgling Somali transitional government without strengthening its ability to govern and deliver public services as such measures involve involvement of the USA on the morass of a Somali increase civil war in the name of the fight against terrorism ”(Wikileaks 2009a). With that in mind, it wasn’t until 2013 that the Obama administration lifted restrictions on the provision of defense equipment and services to the Somali Army (Ross 2018), and efforts to build capacity in the Somali National Army (SNA) continued to gain momentum according to the announcement of the Guulwade (Victory) plan in April 2015, which aimed to create 10,900 security forces that could facilitate AMISOM’s withdrawal from Somalia (Reno 2018, 500).

Despite these efforts, the SNA remained chronically understaffed, poorly managed and poorly equipped (Matisek 2018, 278–279). According to Paul Williams, it was just a named army, largely limited to defensive and localized operations, unable to conduct a coherent national campaign, and often reliant on it [others] for protection, for securing the main supply routes, for logistical support and for evacuating victims ”(Williams 2019, 2). The progressive infantry company Lightning ‘Danab’, one of the few comparative successes of US partner building activities, was generally operated separately from the SNA (Williams 2019, 2) and was reportedly isolated from the influence of some Somali government officials (Reno) on 2018, 508 -509). Given these and a host of other political, contextual, and operational challenges (Williams 2019), the focus of US security cooperation efforts in the Horn of Africa has been on AMISOM.

The six AMISOM contributing states listed in Figure 1 received US $ 1.28 billion in military aid between fiscal 2006-2018 (Security Assistance Monitor 2019).

This support was given both directly to AMISOM contributing states and indirectly through the United Nations Support Office in Somalia (Ross 2018). Examples of the first form of support are the use of the Counter-Terrorism-focused Section 1206 / Section 3333 Program (US $ 730.5 million) and the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (US $ 59 million).[8] As a region, East Africa was allocated US $ 275.9 million in funds from the Counter-Terrorism Partnership Fund between fiscal 2015-2016 and US $ 112.2 million in Section 1207 (n) Transitional Authority funds between 2012 and 2014 (Security Assistance Monitor 2019).[9] In addition, AMISOM has been allocated a minimum of $ 2 billion in funding through the U.S. Department of State’s Security Assistance Monitor 2019 account. According to a 2014 White House factsheet, US $ 512 million was allocated to support AMISOM through “pre-deployment training, military equipment provision and field consultants” (The White House 2014).

Consistent with the use of security cooperation to enable partners to participate in coalition operations, these funds have been allocated to fill important gaps in the counter-terrorism capacity of their recipients. Funds from Section 1207 (n) should be used, for example, to expand the capacities of “Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya to carry out counter-terrorism measures against Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda affiliates and Al-Shabaab” (Serafino 2014, 5 FN). Ebenso wurden CTFP-Mittel angefordert, um die Intelligenz, Überwachung und Aufklärung der AMISOM-Mitarbeiter, das Verbot der Terrorismusbekämpfung, die Bekämpfung von improvisierten Sprengkörpern sowie die Kommando- und Kontrollfähigkeiten zu verbessern (Büro des Unterstaatssekretärs für Verteidigung 2016, S. 5–6). Ein derart enger Fokus auf das „Einstecken“ größerer taktischer Kompetenzen ohne Aufbau der institutionellen und logistischen Architekturen, um diese zu unterstützen, hat Fragen nach der Nachhaltigkeit dieser Gewinne aufgeworfen, sobald die Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten ausgeschaltet sind (Ross 2018).

Wie in der breiteren Literatur erwähnt, ist die Wirksamkeit von Aktivitäten der Sicherheitskooperation umstritten (Biddle et al. 2017; Matisek 2018; Reno 2018). In Somalia gab es eine Überbetonung des Aufbaus der taktischen Fähigkeiten lokaler Sicherheitskräfte auf Kosten der politischen und institutionellen Reformen, die für eine langfristige Konfliktlösung erforderlich sind (Williams 2019, 13), sowie eine Unaufmerksamkeit für eine umfassendere Strategie (Ross) 2018). Diese Ausführungsfehler werden durch die strukturellen Grenzen dessen verstärkt, was die Sicherheitskooperation unter Bedingungen des Staatszusammenbruchs erreichen kann. Diese resultieren aus der falschen Ausrichtung der Interessen zwischen den USA und verschiedenen lokalen Akteuren (Reno 2018, 505; Williams 2019, 15–17; Matiesk 2018, 278–279). Lokale Partner behalten ihre eigene Agentur und im Falle Somalias fehlte der politische Wille oder Anreiz, ihr Verhalten entsprechend den amerikanischen Sicherheitspräferenzen neu auszurichten. Laut einem namenlosen Pentagon-Beamten ist „die Beseitigung von al-Shabaab der einfache Teil; Der schwierige Teil besteht darin, die Institutionen Somalias zum Arbeiten zu bringen “(zitiert in Matisek 2018, 278). Diese Hindernisse stehen im Einklang mit den Hauptagentenproblemen, die die Verwendung dieses speziellen politischen Tools kennzeichnen. Die bloße Entfernung zwischen dem Spender als Auftraggeber und dem Empfänger als Agent, die es der Sicherheitskooperation ermöglicht, als Mittel zur Fernkriegsführung zu dienen, untergräbt auch ihre Wirksamkeit als Sicherheitsinstrument (Biddle et al. 2017).

Ungeachtet dieser Hindernisse für die Umwandlung militärischer Unterstützung in gewünschte politische Ergebnisse eröffnet ein erweiterter Fokus auf die strategische Logik der Sicherheitskooperation einen alternativen Kalkül, um die gut dokumentierten Misserfolge dieser Aktivitäten zu qualifizieren. In Übereinstimmung mit unserer früheren Konzeptualisierung der Sicherheitslogik der Sicherheitskooperation hat die Sicherheitskooperation den amerikanischen politischen Entscheidungsträgern trotz der Verluste der Behörden und der Veruntreuung von Hilfsgütern ermöglicht, zumindest einen gewissen Einfluss auf den Boden in der Region auszuüben und gleichzeitig die konventionellen US-Bodentruppen von der Masse der Bevölkerung fernzuhalten Frontkampf. Die durch die Behörde des Abschnitts 1206 bereitgestellten Schulungen und Ausrüstungen verbesserten die Fähigkeit von Frontstaaten wie Äthiopien und Kenia, ihre Grenz- und Küstenregionen vor dem Beitritt zu AMISOM besser zu überwachen, was dazu beitrug, die Freizügigkeit von al-Shabaab einzuschränken. Die Sicherheitskooperation hat auch die Beiträge der AMISOM-Truppen zum Kampf in Somalia selbst angeregt und erleichtert. Durch den Einsatz von Truppen bei AMISOM konnte die Uganda Peoples ‘Defence Force sowohl auf friedenserhaltende als auch auf Terrorismusbekämpfung ausgerichtete Finanzierung, Ausbildung und Unterstützung in den USA zugreifen (Williams 2018, 176).

In ähnlicher Weise hat die Regierung von Burundi als Voraussetzung für ihre Teilnahme eine 20-seitige Liste von Anträgen zusammengestellt, die sie für notwendig hielt, um sich AMISOM anzuschließen, darunter Lastwagen und Bulldozer, Flugzeuge und Hubschrauber sowie Büromaterial, Schlafsäcke und persönliche Ausrüstung und optische Geräte wie Nachtsichtbrillen (Williams 2018, 177). Während andere politische, institutionelle und normative Überlegungen die Entscheidung der sechs AMISOM-beitragenden Staaten beeinflussten, Truppen für den Kampf in Somalia bereitzustellen, war der verstärkte Erhalt von US-Militärhilfe neben anderen Möglichkeiten der finanziellen Unterstützung oft, aber nicht immer, ein motivierender Faktor (Williams 2018) ).

Darüber hinaus veranschaulichen Diskussionen in durchgesickerten Botschaftskabeln und öffentlichen Pressemitteilungen, wie Initiativen zur Sicherheitskooperation die politischen Partnerschaften mit wichtigen regionalen Staaten verstärken. 2007 erörterte der US-Botschafter in Kenia die „Synchronisierungsbemühungen“ am Horn von Afrika durch einen „vielschichtigen Ansatz, der fortgesetzte Militär- und Sicherheitsmaßnahmen umfasst“ mit anderen diplomatischen und Entwicklungsbemühungen. Er betonte auch “die Notwendigkeit, dass amerikanische Beamte und Auftragnehmer Somalia besuchen”, da “solche Besuche sowohl für den Betrieb als auch für die wirksame Bekanntmachung der guten Arbeit der USA in Somalia und der Region von wesentlicher Bedeutung sind” (WikiLeaks 2007b). In Äthiopien wurde die Bereitstellung von Flugzeugwartung als „entscheidend für die Fortsetzung einer tragfähigen (militärisch-militärischen) Beziehung zu einem bewährten Partner im Krieg gegen den Terrorismus“ angesehen (WikiLeaks 2007c). Diplomatic staff based in Addis Ababa expressed concern that, due to the repeated failures to repair two Ethiopian operated C-130s military transport aircraft and the anticipated closure of the US-funded Ethiopian Defense Command and Staff College, some within the Ethiopian military were aiming ‘to make China, and to a lesser extent Israel, their major military relationship’ (Wikileaks 2007d). Security cooperation activities also strengthened cooperation between regional partners, including on sensitive areas such as intelligence (Hurd 2019), and provided the US with technical access to partnering security agents.

In 2016, following the completion of the first annual military-to-military engagement event African Partnership Flight, a US Air Force spokesperson explained that bringing together participants from the Kenyan and Ugandan air forces under US instruction would ‘build enduring relationships with (US) partner countries.’ Speaking to the collaborative spill-over effects of security cooperation, the spokesperson further noted that through such activities the US had ‘[built] a partnership and friendship that has helped open the door for further engagement, knowledge sharing and interoperability between our forces’ (quoted in Chavez 2016). A similar logic punctuates the US Army’s annual Justified Accord Exercise, initiated in 2017, which functions to improve the capacity of regional forces to support AMISOM and develop intra-personal relationships with, and access, to local forces. As Lapthe C. Flora, the then US Army Africa deputy, put it in 2019:

‘I cannot overemphasise the importance of exercises like Justified Accord […] They not only contribute to the readiness of African nations and peacekeeping operations, but they also provide valuable opportunities to work together and create professional relationships and friendships.’

(quoted in Valley 2019).

Finally, whilst it is difficult to document an exact ‘transmission belt’ between an increase in security cooperation and the production of access, the increase in security cooperation activities to combat al-Shabaab has paralleled the rollout of military installations across the Horn of Africa. Officially, the US operates only one military base in Africa, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti (Moore and Walker 2016, 686). Around this, however, a constellation of smaller ‘cooperative security locations’ orientated around drone, SOF and contractor assemblages have been operated, with suspected locations in Ethiopia, Kenya, the Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan and Uganda (Moore and Walker 2016; Turse 2018). In the case of the Seychelles, there is evidence to suggest that military assistance was used to thicken the US’ bilateral partnership with the host government following the basing of a small fleet of unarmed MQ-9 Reapers on the island to conduct anti-piracy and surveillance missions.

During an August 2009 meeting with AFRICOM commander General William Ward, Seychelles President Michel noted that his island was an ‘aircraft carrier in the middle of the Indian Ocean without the planes’ and welcomed ‘this resurgence of American military activity in the Seychelles’ (Wikileaks 2009b). Following the initial use of these facilities in September 2009, the overall level of US military assistance rose from $251,299 in FY 2010 (an accounting period which began on 1 October 2009) to $893,244 in FY2011 (Security Assistance Monitor 2019). Consistent with General Ward’s expressed commitment to strengthen bilateral military relations and improve the capacity of the islands’ coastguard (Wikileaks 2009b), $535,000 was allocated in this year via the State Department Foreign Military Financing programme for Metal Shark patrol boats and ‘Secure Video and Data Link equipment’ (Department of State 2014, 11). Following the suspected suspension of drone operations from this base at some point in 2012 (Moore and Walker 2016, 696), overall military assistance to the Seychelles declined from $627,580 in FY2012 to $464,555 in FY2013 and $268,224 in FY2014 (Security Assistance Monitor 2019).

Conclusion

Security cooperation offered the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations an attractive means of ‘squaring the circle’ on the use of military force. As a tool of remote warfare, it allows planners to exert limited influence ‘on the ground’ in complex overseas security environments, but without deploying large numbers of their own ‘boots on the ground’ to conduct frontline fighting. The security logic that is foregrounded in much of the study of these activities is an intuitive component of this feature of US military interventionism. However, as we have argued, this sits alongside a parallel set of strategic logics. Security cooperation has helped secure various forms of geographic and technical-political access, including on matters of basing, airspace and transit rights; thickened political partnership; and helped create patterns of cooperation, influence and leverage.

In consideration of emerging debates on the effectiveness of remote warfare, we have highlighted the need to account for the dual security and strategic logics of policy tools like security cooperation. The intersecting features of remote warfare, as expressed through its kinetic and non-kinetic dimensions, are illuminated in the recent history of US policy in the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, the US has consistently used security cooperation alongside other remote practices of intervention. The ability of the US to confront al-Shabaab directly or indirectly has been contingent on Washington’s capacity to secure access and partnerships in the region. The significance of security cooperation in a country like Somalia needs to be understood against the backdrop of the conditions that elicited the turn toward remote warfare on the part of the US and other agents. Absent alternatives, security cooperation programmes have provided a pathway to continued intervention, the ‘remoteness’ of which applies only to the intervening actor, not the local communities for whom political violence is intimate. This is not to claim that US intervention in the Horn of Africa has been successful or that its failings are fixable using more or different configurations of remote warfare practices. Rather, it is to suggest that the dynamics of remote warfare need to be analysed holistically, and in conjunction with the twin security and strategic purposes they serve.

Remarks

[1] The authors would like to thank Maria Ryan, Simone Papale and the reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this chapter. Any mistakes remain our own.

[2] As explained in the Joint Publication 3–20 security cooperation, security force assistance ‘is the set of DOD [security cooperation] activities that contribute to unified action by the [United States Government] to support the development of the capacity and capabilities of [Foreign Security Forces] and their supporting institutions, whether of a [Partner Nation] or an international organisation (e.g., regional security organisation), in support of US objectives’ (Joint Chiefs of Staff 2017, vii).

[3] Beyond this, security cooperation activities in Africa can also be theorised as having a political-economy component, see (Stokes  and Waterman 2017, 838–840; Ryan, 2020).

[4] For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between Security cooperation and the other channels of US military assistance, see (White 2014).

[5] American SOF have also been active in Somalia from 2007 onward providing local security agents training, advice, mission planning, communication support and medical expertise (Stewart 2014). They have also conducted covert kill-capture raids against Al-Shabaab’s leadership (Mazzetti, Gettleman  and Schmitt 2016).

[6] This figure has been calculated by subtracting peacekeeping operations funding from the total military assistance allocated to Somalia during this period. As the Security Assistance Monitor notes, whilst ‘the US has historically appropriated Peacekeeping Operations assistance to Somalia with the intent to support both the Somali National Forces and AMISOM […] [the] US Government reports do not provide details about how [Peacekeeping Operations] amounts are divided between the two security providers’ (Chwalisz 2014).

[7] This table is modified from (Williams 2018, 174).

[8] Prior to its consolidation into the larger Section 333 authority as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the ‘Global Train and Equip Authority’ was used to build the capacity of foreign military, maritime and border forces to conduct counterterrorism operations and support US coalition missions. For a more detailed discussion of this authority’s history and purpose, see (Ryan 2019, 153–156). Authorised in the FY2015 NDAA, the Counterterrorism Partnership Fund was intended to build partner capacity principally in frontline states in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, border security, airlift, counter-improvised explosive device capabilities and peacekeeping (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 2016, 2).

[9] The Section 1207(n) Transitional Authority was a three-year transnational authority, attached to the Global Security Contingency Fund in the FY2012 NDAA, which supported counterterrorism operations in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. It had two specific goals: ‘enhance the capacity of the national military forces, security agencies serving a similar defence function, and border security forces of Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya to conduct counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda affiliates, and al Shabaab’ on the one hand, and ‘[t]o enhance the ability of the Yemen Ministry of Interior Counter Terrorism Forces to conduct counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliates’ on the other (Serafino 2014, 5 FN).

[10] This table has been generated from data from (Security Assistance Monitor 2019). The total US military assistance figure includes support provided through both Pentagon-managed security cooperation programmes and State Department-managed Security Assistance programmes.

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