Hey DC,

I doubt the US (or any other western nation) will undertake a large scale military intervention in Somalia due to the lack of national will, the strain our military is currently under and the cost associated with such operations. Not to mention the incident from 1993. Ethiopia would probably be the most ideal target for AS since the government there isn’t too shy about antagonizing them. Even one of the locations of Sunday’s attack in Uganda was an Ethiopian restaurant. But I guess the regime in Addis has the country locked down pretty tight (fingers crossed) for the terrorist resort to bombing softer targets elsewhere.

Anything that resembles large scale coin (ala OIF and OEF) doesn’t seem very likely to me. Instead, I see the US operating through proxies and orchestrating other activities that don’t require actual American boots on the ground. For instance, providing assistance to the “Somali government,” funding CT programs in neighboring countries, training frontier corps, police and military units in neighboring countries, patrolling the coast, etc. Maybe once in a while a HVT snatch like the one that took place a few months ago. For now this is Africa’s problem and as you suggested there are definitely options other than Operation Somali Freedom. Hopefully these options don’t end up propping evil regimes as well as making us new enemies.

Just my $.02