Securing Somalia, Whatever the Cost

Somalia has posed a key security challenge for the international community in recent decades. Islamic extremism, warlords, famine and piracy have cemented the country's reputation as a failed state. Since it formed in 2007, however, the 22,000-strong African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) force has helped to stabilize the country, making notable gains against the militant group al Shabaab.

Notwithstanding the force's successes, the European Union, AMISOM's largest financial contributor, decided recently to cut funding to the mission by 20 percent. For African member states with troops on the frontlines, the decision has been hard to accept. Reports have circulated that AMISOM soldiers have not been paid in months and likely will not receive wages again until the European Union resumes funding in September. Now, countries such as Kenya and Uganda have threatened to pull out of AMISOM, and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has vowed that participating African states will not fill the funding gap left by the European Union's cuts. Despite their grumbling, African member states have too much at stake in war-torn Somalia to leave the country anytime soon.