Among the many military film and television works, the United States' "Black Hawk Down" is definitely a classic that is difficult to surpass. The film uses superb shooting skills and plot arrangement to tell the story of the early 1990s when the United States tried to intervene in the Somali civil war and suffered setbacks. However, for more than 20 years after that defeat, the US military still retained its troops on the ground for a long time, until former US President Trump, who intended to shrink in non-key areas of the world, personally ordered the withdrawal of US troops stationed in Somalia after taking office.
However, the U.S. military, which had just completed its withdrawal at the end of 2020, immediately caught up with the presidential transition, and the current Biden administration seems to be interested in re-establishing troops in Somalia.
A few days ago, Stephen Townsend, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, revealed that the United States is in the final stages of changing the power posture in the region, and he has been communicating with the secretary of defense. At present, the United States does not have a nominal presence in Somalia, so when the United States military needs to carry out a mission in the country, it must enter the country through Somalia's neighbors and leave immediately after the mission is completed, which is extremely complicated. It seems that in the eyes of the local US military, the significance of withdrawing from Somalia is not great, but it is not as practical as the long-term stationing of troops.
Although the "Black Hawk Down" incident was indeed a very disgraceful failure for the US military, from the perspective of geopolitical and global intervention, Somalia is a place that is difficult to completely abandon. It is close to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an important passage between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and a large number of ships pass through it every day. Therefore, in a state where local order in Somalia no longer exists, illegal phenomena such as piracy will occur.
However, from an objective point of view, the United States does not seem to have much reason to "have to station troops in Somalia." Usually, the U.S. permanent presence in a small country is only about a thousand people, but the size of a reinforcement battalion is enough to deal with the local tribal armed forces and maintain law and order. Although piracy in Somalia is a scourge, it does not pose any challenge to U.S. interests, and relying on troops and ships based in Djibouti is enough to escort American ships passing by.
Extrapolating from this, the idea of "returning to Somalia" proposed by the African Command is probably also a certain manifestation of the "feudalization" of the US military stationed overseas. The African Command regards the local area as its sphere of influence and may also privately operate certain "businesses" in the area that are "not suitable for publication". In order to protect these financial resources, it is necessary to try to find excuses to prolong the time and size of the garrison. If there is a condition, then pull some big people from the country to "do business" together, it seems to be a special chain of interests. Somalia, a place of great disorder and lack of management, is the ideal place to do something like "business".
Compared with the Afghan Taliban, which is highly hostile to the Americans, the armed factions in Somalia will not be able to find trouble, but it is unlikely that people will welcome the US military to interfere in their own country's affairs. Once the US military returns to Somalia, whether there will be another "Black Hawk Fall" is a fun thing to play.