Realizing the Horn of Africa in a New Context: Challenges and Opportunities for Peace in Somalia

In 1991 growing political pressure and infighting led to the collapse of the Somalia government. Key institutions of governance disintegrated, and public services could no longer be provided. The Somali National Army was amongst the key institutions that collapsed and, in its place, warlords and clan militias emerged to fill the gap. Henceforth for over two decades, these non-state actors competed over control of both political and economic power while other radical organizations such as Al-Shaabab emerged with an objective to establish an Islamic state. This instability thus led to displacement of populations, insecurity both at the domestic and regional level. This thesis seeks to examine how the collapse of Somali impacted the military and why moving forward in the transitional period, reforming the military is vital to the future of Somalia and geopolitical and economic stability. The thesis adopts state building and realism as it theoretical frameworks and argues for the need of military reforms within the conceptual frameworks of security reforms. Specifically, the thesis reiterated that if the Horn of Africa and the greater Eastern Africa region is to experience geopolitical and economic stability, then the SNA should undertake key reforms in order to reinforce its capacity to resolve domestic instability in Somalia which is the causal factor in geopolitical and economic instability caused by threats such as terrorism, piracy, and bilateral tensions between regional states. The study suggests that reforms in the military such institutional capacity building, coordination of security assistance, and establishing civilian oversight over military is critical in reviving the capacity of SNA and with it, the first step towards restoring regional stability.