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What happened in Somalia wasn’t structurally all that different from what happened to the United States in the 1860s: sub-state actors challenged each other for supremacy over the state and over territory.

Somalia stands out, however, in the multiplicity of actors involved. Rather than coalescing around two big-tent factions, Somali sub-state actors splintered, more along the lines of what we’ve seen in the Syrian civil war. And Somalia stands out in terms of how weak each faction was compared to the unified state: while the Union and Confederacy both maintained order and services in their respective territories, Somali factions weren’t able to maintain the same degree of pre-conflict functionality.

It probably doesn’t help that Somalis are Black Africans, which helps to Other them to many Westerners who like to use them as a cautionary tale against anarchism.

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