Yet when the most highly trained commandos from the most powerful military in the world attack a sandal-wearing militia and are forced to retreat, this will be seized on as a propaganda victory for al-Shabab.
I think what they achieved was to send these “sandal-wearing militias” a clear message that they need to move their operations further in land. Which is a shame (sarcasm).
Moving in sandals is not the most efficient way to move. While sandals represent an army that is able to get by with very little resources, how is it a winning strategy, when it ties, obviously, a very powerful force, as the SEALs found, to an area of the earth that is undefendable against U.S. forces?
After the debacle of Blackhawk Down in Mogadishu in 1993, the Pentagon steered clear of Somalia for years.
Buy now it is obvious that through its SOF (Special Operations Force) the Pentagon can hit anyplace on earth it chooses. The MICC (Military Industrial Congressional Complex) is a world wide structure, and there seems to be only one of them.
But more recently it has conducted a number of often unpublished raids into that country, with the blessing of the UN-backed government there.
This is because the U.S.A. has changed structurally and politically in the world. The U.S. has formed a World Consensuses.
So, While U.S. citizens are still mostly under the Washington Consensuses, the world has stopped forming a coalition with the U.S., but there is a consensus forming.
In fact our best partner, Great Britain, couldn’t even mass enough interest to form a Coalition with us into Syria. The U.S. has had to form a consensus and bring others into the Complex.
Sometimes they involve unmanned aerial drones, sometimes they involve US Navy Seals. A US Special Forces raid in 2009 on Barawe – the same town as this weekend\’s raid – located and killed its intended target, the al-Qaeda leader in Somalia, Ali Saleh Al-Nabhan.
Aerial drones and Navy Seals are a part of the consensus forming within the Complex, as the U.S. pivots towards the Indo-Pacific. The only real difference between a coalition and a consensus is that a consensus is like sitting down at a poker table, and there will be other players with different “cards”. The Navy Seals will eventually be replaced, as the U.S. pivots even closer to India, and the resources of the U.S. “moves” with it.
The US will undoubtedly be planning more such special operations raids, its plans given urgency by the scale and body count of al-Shabab\’s murderous attack in September on a Nairobi shopping mall.
Yes the US will undoubtedly be planning more such special operations, because the consensus is that these, more than the strategy of Nation Building, are working.
The message Washington clearly wants to convey to its enemies is: \”We will find you and get you, however long it takes.\”
And the message seems to be “working” pretty good. Good enough to turn it over to someone else that wants to get in on the Action #OODA #China #Russia #Turkey #Israel.
But to many in the countries visited by such raids, there will be accusations of a global superpower throwing its military weight around and acting outside the law to serve its own interests.
Somehow, when the interest also serves much of the developed or developing world, the U.S. interest seems OK 🙂
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