Like a fire left smoldering out of sight, the US war in Somalia has burned on for years, quietly escalating into one of America’s most persistent post-9/11 conflicts. For a decade, the United States has conducted military operations against al-Shabaab in Somalia under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the war authorization enacted days after the attacks on Sept. 11. In the quarter century since this AUMF became law, America’s military has conducted over 534 drone strikes in Somalia as part of the so-called “Global War on Terror.”
Now, that fire is intensifying.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration has dramatically escalated US air operations in Somalia, conducting over 200 strikes against al-Shabaab and ISIS-Somalia. Many have been carried out in coordination with Somalia’s federal government, as the United States continues to expand a militarized counterterrorism campaign that receives remarkably little attention at home.
These strikes come amid the Trump administration’s growing militarism around the world, including the Iran war, deadly attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific seas, and threats of regime change or annexation from Greenland to Cuba.
Meanwhile, the second Trump administration has conducted strikes in Somalia at an alarming rate, authorizing more than double the number of strikes carried out by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden combined in just 20 months. Despite their magnitude, these operations are not an isolated phenomenon. They are the latest chapter in a decades-long cycle in which five successive US administrations have turned to military force in pursuit of stability and counterterrorism objectives in Somalia.
The United States has long claimed to support Somali state-building and other nonviolent efforts to facilitate peace and stability in the nation. When looking back at the tangible impacts of Washington’s actions in Somalia, though, its longstanding militarized engagement has been the hallmark of US influence in the country.
In the early 1990s, the US participated in the failed United Nations-backed intervention in Somalia, aspects of which inspired the popular book and movie Black Hawk Down. More consequential for today’s conflict was the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, which came amid the growing “War on Terror.” That invasion, and Ethiopia’s subsequent occupation, contributed to a devastating humanitarian crisis whose consequences continue to be felt today.
Airstrikes and reliance on militarized counterterrorism grew throughout the Bush and Obama presidencies. But the first Trump administration dramatically accelerated the campaign. In Trump’s first term, the US conducted 219 airstrikes in Somalia — quadruple that of the two previous administrations combined. This military escalation, of course, did not translate into lasting security. Even as US airstrikes increased from 39 in 2017 to 63 in 2019, Shabaab remained resilient, with reports estimating the group still controlled 20% of Somalia. Then, in the final weeks of his first term, Trump abruptly withdrew US forces from Somalia and left behind a vacuum for al-Shabaab to emerge as a more powerful insurgent force.
President Biden attempted to mitigate the escalation by redeploying troops to Somalia in 2022. But restoring the US military presence without fundamentally reconsidering the strategy or addressing the root causes of instability merely reinforced the same cycle.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump succeeded in returning to office, in part, by promising to serve as a “president of peace,” leaving hope that US engagement in Somalia might take a different course. Instead, he has taken the opposite approach, dramatically ramping up US military operations, which have only sowed more violence and instability.
Somalia is not a conflict the United States can simply turn away from in the name of “America First.” Government fragility, civilian casualties, mass displacement, and persistent violence have many causes, but decades of US policy have played a consequential role in shaping the country’s trajectory.
Supporting a more peaceful and resilient Somalia is in Washington’s security interest, but it’s also a responsibility born from the lengthy American history of intervention. If the US is serious about ending endless wars and supporting long-term stability, it must fundamentally reimagine its engagement.
Forging a new path isn’t possible without rethinking how Washington approaches the matter of counterterrorism, and it will require serious investment in long-term solutions. In a new report, the Friends Committee on National Legislation examines the shortcomings of current policy and offers Congress a roadmap for a more constructive approach to peace in Somalia. Central to this approach is reining in the unchecked expansion of US military operations in Somalia, and demanding greater transparency around where, why, and against whom US force is being used.
Lasting security depends on the strength and legitimacy of Somali institutions, not the number of US airstrikes conducted. If Congress doesn’t support Somali-led reconciliation, democratic development, and diplomacy that builds trust between the government and its people, its actions are bound to fail.
Lastly, decades of conflict, displacement, and climate shocks have created conditions in Somalia that military force alone cannot resolve. Yet the United States continues to devote enormous resources to a counterterrorism strategy centered on airstrikes and other military operations, even as the underlying drivers of instability persist. The result is a familiar imbalance: investment in military responses that can disrupt armed groups in the short term, without addressing the political, economic, and humanitarian conditions that allow violence to endure.
The fire of US military entanglement in Somalia has been left to smolder in the periphery for too long. Its costs are borne not only by the Somali civilians living amid persistent conflict and instability, but also by US servicemembers placed in harm’s way and American taxpayers financing a military campaign with no clear endpoint. After decades of US involvement, the persistence of al-Shabaab and Somalia’s deteriorating security raise fundamental questions about what this approach has actually achieved.
Those questions are becoming more urgent as the Trump administration accelerates US military operations in Somalia. If left unchecked, the consequences will almost certainly not end when the administration does. Expanded military operations can deepen instability, displacement, and grievances, while leaving future administrations with greater US entanglements and fewer easy paths out of them. Twenty-five years after the 2001 AUMF opened the door to an era of sprawling counterterrorism operations, Somalia illustrates how difficult those wars can be to contain.
After decades of fanning the flames of war in Somalia, the question is not simply how much longer the United States is willing to fight, but what another generation of militarized policy will leave behind.
Top photo: Two boys carry water down a road next to an IDP camp near Jowhar, Somalia, in 2013 (Tobin Jones/AMISOM/Wikimedia Commons)
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