In the quiet summer hallways of the United Nations headquarters in New York, decisions are reportedly being made that will shape security in the Horn of Africa, the fight against violent nonstate actors, and the democratic shoots of a fragile nation – Somalia.
Somalia is in East Africa on the Gulf of Aden, adjacent to major Red Sea shipping lanes that carry a significant share of global trade, making its stability vital to international commerce, regional security, and U.S. strategic interests. Decades of poor governance and economic fragility have allowed terrorist organizations such as Al-Shabab to establish safe havens and project instability across East Africa, including Red Sea piracy, threatening U.S. partners, maritime trade and broader regional stability.
The United States believes Somalia’s political leaders have made insufficient progress in assuming responsibility for their own security, Reuters reported earlier this month, and has warned it will oppose any support for the continuation of the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission (AUSSOM), the UN security mission in the country beginning in 2027.
While Somali forces increasingly lead counterterrorism and other security operations, AUSSOM still depends on U.N. logistical support for transportation as well as food and medical services. African Union officials warned in an emergency meeting last week that without U.N. support, the mission will be unsustainable.
The State Department has a Level Four, “Do Not Travel” warning in place for the nation, which has been scarred by terror attacks, assaults and kidnappings by criminal gangs and armed groups, exacerbated by poverty, weak governance and dire humanitarian conditions.
Somalia has been rated one of the most dangerous countries in the world by commercial assessors, despite years of international assistance, including nearly $2 billion contributed to the U.N. support mission by the United States, according to the State Department. That mission, AUSSOM, currently has nearly 12,000 personnel supporting Somali security forces.
Washington’s frustration is understandable – and is a hallmark of new U.S. foreign policy priorities not only in security, but also in global health. U.S. foreign policy is now marked by warnings of American funding withdrawals, rapid-fire transitions to partner country ownership and severe consequences of failure.
The premise makes sense: International partners cannot want stability more than a country’s own government. However, just like in global health where pandemics don’t recognize political borders, national security also requires a thoughtful, measured approach.
That matters because al-Shabab remains one of al-Qaida’s strongest affiliates. According to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Al-Shabab, a designated terror organization, is “responsible for the assassination of Somali peace activists, international aid workers, numerous civil society figures, and journalists, and for blocking the delivery of aid from some Western relief agencies during the 2011 famine that killed tens of thousands of Somalis.”
The terror group continues to control large areas of southern and central Somalia and has repeatedly shown its ability to exploit political divisions and weak state institutions. Military pressure has limited the group’s reach, but hasn’t eliminated the conditions that allow it to survive.
And while the majority of its attacks have been targeted at East African countries, the terror group has directly attacked U.S. military bases overseas, including the 2020 attack at the Manda Bay military base in Kenya. The United States has disrupted al-Shabab terror plots against the homeland, too. In December 2025, a Somali al-Shabab operative received life in U.S. prison for a plot to recreate the attacks of Sept. 11, including pursuit of a commercial pilot license and other detailed attack planning.
It’s not all dark. Somalia has made meaningful progress that often receives less attention than its setbacks. In late 2023, Somalia completed the International Monetary Fund’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries debt relief process, eliminating $4.5 billion in debt after years of painstaking and difficult economic reform. Somalia is now attracting new international financing and private investment, demonstrating that sustained reform can, in fact, produce real results. Committed individuals, including journalists, aid workers and democracy activists, as well as civil society groups, remain engaged in shaping Somalia’s future.
Even with this progress, though, Somalia faces deep challenges. Since the collapse of its authoritarian regime in 1991, no direct national elections have been held. The political system, including implementation of constitutional amendments passed in 2024 that favor direct “one-person, one-vote” elections and extend the mandates of the presidency and parliament, has fallen into fragmentation. There are also consistent credible reports of human rights abuses by both state and nonstate actors.
But debate on issues of national security shouldn’t be framed as a choice between writing a blank check and walking away.
Similar to the approach that the administration says is governing the America First Global Health Strategy, the United States can emphasize country ownership and greater responsibility for financing, implementing, and sustaining programs over time. The principle is not that the United States can or should withdraw abruptly, but that U.S., and other international support should slowly and transparently reinforce local leadership, measurable reforms, and shared accountability while also investing in sustained economic and political progress to thwart recruitment into terror groups.
Somalia’s security sector deserves the same framework. Rather than treating assistance as open-ended or halting it before Somali institutions are ready, Washington can use its leverage to transparently and fairly secure concrete commitments from Somali leaders while maintaining support tied to clear benchmarks in security sector reform and fiscal accountability.
The idea is clear: Somali leaders should increasingly assume responsibility for their country’s future, but international partners should recognize that building effective institutions takes time. Abruptly withdrawing support before those institutions are ready risks creating the very vacuum that al-Shabab has spent years trying to exploit.
The United States has learned repeatedly that preventing instability is less costly than responding after a crisis has taken hold. Strategic patience and thoughtful and transparent planning pay off. The current debate over AUSSOM is much more than the future of one peace mission, but about building a strategy that encourages greater Somali ownership while preserving hard-won security gains that safeguards our own security.
A stable Somalia, governed by capable institutions and increasingly able to provide for its own security, advances both Somali aspirations and American interests.
