Somalia: Failure of Nation-Building

Abstract

Almost two decades after an estimated 300,000 people died in Somalia as a result of famine caused by the civil war, the UN declared parts of the country to be famine-stricken again on 20 July 2011. As is customary, the international community’s alarm bells have served to draw the world’s attention and call for humanitarian intervention, but most states, while acknowledging the scale of the looming disaster, have so far been reluctant to take on a role in Somalia, a classic failed state. In 1993, the UN attempted the most ambitious nation-building mission in its history in the Horn of Africa country, but the undertaking failed. The international situation was different, but the current state of Somalia and the situation at that time are eerily similar, which is why the complexity of the current situation can best be demonstrated through the story of the failed UN mission carried out under the auspices of the United States in the early 1990s.