Alternate View: Somalia Strike and Offshore Balancing

By Tom Donnelly

OK, I'll take the bait.

To offer the killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan as evidence of the success of a strategy of "offshore balancing" would be myopic in the extreme. By press accounts, it was a very well conducted SEAL raid, but let's not confuse good tactics with good strategy.

Let's begin with U.S. strategy toward Somalia. Since the withdrawal from Mogadishu in the wake of the "Black Hawk Down" incident -- and let's remember why this was Osama bin Laden's favorite movie, an exemplar of America the "weak horse," unable to run the course -- keeping that failed state from becoming an al Qaeda haven has been a very narrowly run thing, at best. Arguably, the single most effective step in accomplishing that goal was the Ethiopian invasion that removed the Islamic Courts Union. Certainly, our support to the various UN-approved governments there hasn't made a lasting impact -- local "proxies" or "indigenous forces" have failed to establish anything remotely resembling stability. We've been safely offshore, but haven't achieved much balance.

The East African franchises of al Qaeda haven't been enough inconvenienced, either. Nabhan had a pretty good terrorist career -- he was supposedly responsible for the 2002 attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya and may have had a role in the 1998 bombings of American embassies -- even if he didn't make Osama-sized headlines. Indeed, the "theater" from Sudan south to Tanzania has been a relatively good one, from an al Qaeda point of view, at least in comparison to Arabia or South Asia, where they've had to confront U.S. forces, NATO forces, and Afghan and Iraqi allies that we've invested in hugely, and where AQ has thus had to retreat.

So far from being an advertisement for "offshore balancing," the experience of Somalia and the Nabhan incident -- as gratifying as the tactical result may be -- look more like further expressions of the limitations of an over-the-horizon posture. That's hardly the end of the world in Somalia; Iraq and even Afghanistan (if for no other reason than the proximity of Pakistan) are obviously of greater strategic importance. But it is indicative of the inherent problem of offshore balancers, who begin with the means and think about the strategic ends.

Conversely, recognizing the necessity of an "on-shore" commitment doesn't mean we still don't have to make choices. But it's better to think of Somalia and lesser theaters of the larger Long War as economy of force efforts, rather that seeing them through the offshore-onshore lens. We must find a way to keep our focus on the fact that instability and violence across the greater Middle East -- which decades of experience indicate is endemic to the current regional political order -- engages our most fundamental security interests. We've already come ashore, and cannot easily withdraw.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute is the coauthor with Frederick W. Kagan of Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (2008). Among his recent books are Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (2007), co-edited with Gary J. Schmitt; The Military We Need (2005); and Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (2004).