Washington's Long War and its Strategy in the Horn of Africa

As Washington's geostrategy has evolved after the September 11, 2001 airliner bombings of the World Trade Center and Pentagon by Islamic revolutionaries linked to al-Qaeda, the Horn of Africa has taken on vital strategic importance.

In the thinking of U.S. defense planners, the Horn occupies the western end of an "arc of instability" that runs through the Middle East, the Southern Caucasus and into Central Asia to Afghanistan's eastern border. The vast area encompassed by the arc contains the world's largest supply of energy reserves, is composed mostly of states with authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian governments that are subject to instability, and has a predominantly Muslim population, a disaffected portion of which provides recruits for and support of violent Islamic revolutionary movements.

Washington's overriding interests in the arc of instability are to contain and suppress Islamic revolutionary movements in order to secure strategic resources and prevent further attacks on U.S. soil, and to cultivate stable and friendly governments in the area that will serve broader U.S. aims in its competition with the power centers of China, Russia and India.

After Washington's initial response to 9/11 of invading Afghanistan and overthrowing the Taliban regime, it set out on a course of effectively unilateral action, outlined in its 2002 National Security Strategy, which announced that the U.S. was committed to maintaining global military supremacy and was ready to fight preemptive wars against states that threatened its vital interests by harboring "terrorists" or developing weapons of mass destruction. The generally multilateral approach of previous U.S. administrations was abandoned in favor of organizing "coalitions of the willing" under Washington's leadership.

The test of Washington's strategy came in its invasion and occupation of Iraq that had the ambitious and comprehensive aims of demonstrating the effectiveness of U.S. military might to hostile powers and creating a model of regime change to serve as an example of market democratization to be emulated by regimes and publics within the arc of instability.

The failure of Washington's self-imposed test caused defense planners to rethink their strategy. Facing a Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq, Washington no longer had the military resources necessary to make its unilateralist strategy credible. A shift in policy was necessary to protect U.S. interests and it was made through 2005 without the publicity attending the National Security Strategy. Nonetheless, the new strategy has been declared openly and frequently since it was put into place in March.

Conclusion

After having failed in its unilateralist short-cut strategy in the arc of instability, Washington has opted for a long war that inserts it into the briar patches of regional balance-of-power politics where it faces being drawn into taking sides with dubious partners with their own agendas. This is not to say that any other course, save withdrawal, is open to Washington, but only that the long war is going to be tortuous and is likely to have limited success.

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In light of today's analysis, we encourage you to read some recent past PINR analyses on the Horn of Africa region:

"Intelligence Brief: Sudan"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=376

"Intelligence Brief: Eritrea"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=380

"Intelligence Brief: Somalia"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=383

"Intelligence Brief: Ethiopia"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=387

"Intelligence Brief: Djibouti"
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=390