Does Ankara have ‘the magic bullet’ to finally bring peace to the Horn of Africa?

Somalia strikes fear into many nations, not least the United States, who inevitably remember to shocking humiliation that was ‘Black Hawk Down’ of 1993. Maritime nations think, ‘there be pirates’. African countries like Kenya and Uganda, who contributed to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), remember their soldiers being killed, often in quantity, when their isolated positions in the hinterland were overrun by the al-Qa;ida linked terrorist group, al-Shabaab.

But on July 27th the parliament of Turkiye approved a motion to allow the deployment of its military forces in Somalia, including territorial waters. This is the latest in a series of increases in Turkiye’s engagement in the restive Horn of Africa nation.

So why does Turkiye think it can succeed in Somalia?

Soft Power…

Turkiye’s approach initially emphasised ‘soft power’, the use of persuasive elements of national power such as development, investment, diplomacy, education and information.

Turkiye has been a pro-active partner to successive administrations in Somalia since the transition to a Federal Government in 2012 and before. President, then Prime Minister, Tayip Recip Erdogan visited the country during the 2011 famine, the first western leader to visit in two decades. This has progressed from initial humanitarian engagements such as disaster relief into the development of infrastructure, especially in and around Mogadishu.

The flag of Turkiye is omnipresent in Mogadishu, on lampposts to garbage vehicles: little wonder the Somali population wrongly state that Turkiye is the country’s most significant donor. Turkish workers often live in the capitol and pray in local mosques.

+ Hard Power…

Then, on the other hand, there is ‘hard power’: coercive measures such as military might, economic exploitation, intelligence, diplomatic and economic sanctions and so on.

More recently Turkiye has shown its ‘hard’ power in the security realm. It established its first military training facility in the country in 2017 and it has trained and equipped highly effective components of the Somali National Army (Gorgor, or Eagles) and Police Force (Haramcad, or Cheetahs), which have supplemented US-trained Somali Special Forces, (Danab or Lightning) in the war against al-Shabaab. The Turkish TB-2 Bayraktar armed drone also supports Somali forces, although Turkish forces themselves seldom engage directly in combat operations (unlike the US, who occasionally even lose troops while ‘advising’ their Somali counterparts).

It is no coincidence that al-Shabaab has started to actively target Turkiye and its interests in Somalia. The terrorist group is also allegedly engaging with Yemen’s Houthis to secure more technologically advanced drones and missile systems.

= Smart Power – or does it?

The latest development is somewhere in between soft and hard power: a pair of mutual cooperation agreements to build the capacity of Somali maritime security (currently nigh-on non-existent) and to allow Turkiye to support the exploitation of the untapped extractives of Somalia’s long coastline, signed in February and March of this year respectively. Turkiye will receive 30% of the yield – it if works.

The originator of the terms hard and soft power, Joseph Nye, updated his 1990s ideas in the early 2000s with the addition of ‘smart power’, a country using both its soft and hard power capabilities for a greater, combined effect.

But it is unclear if Turkiye is being ‘smart’ in Somalia.

None of this is Turkiye, for example, acting entirely magnanimously. The Mogadishu government’s main sources of revenue outside of foreign aid donations are the Mogadishu Airport and Seaport: both are implemented by Turkish companies, who take a 10% share. That has the potential to build resentment. (Somalis have well known ways of expressing resentment.)

Nor is Turkiye the only actor engaging in Somalia: the UAE and Qatar, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the background, all tussle for influence. So too do neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia, and western nations, especially the US and UK. This often involves playing Federal Member States, especially northerly Somaliland and Puntland, off against the central government.

Even without these complications, the challenges of operating in Somalia and the sheer length of time required to build Somali maritime security capacity and exploit the country’s extractives may be beyond even Ankara’s patience. At some point Ankara may not think of itself as quite so smart after all.