Recommendations Include More Leeway to Launch Airstrikes President Trump’s recommendations from the Pentagon are starting to trickle in, and they seem to everywhere involve more escalations of US involvement and increased flexibility for the Pentagon to order airstrikes in various countries to target “apparent threats.”
And while it’s not as high profile as recommendations expected later this week in places like Syria, that’s the case for Somalia as well, where the Pentagon is seeking increased aid for the Somali Army, moving US special forces closer to the front lines, and loosening up restrictions on airstrikes.
AFRICOM chief Gen. Thomas Waldhauser described Somalia as “our most perplexing challenge,” saying that the US needs to shift its focus toward weakening al-Shabaab enough that the African Union forces that have been in Somalia for a decade can finally defeat them.
Despite being presented as a “fresh perspective” on the long fight in Somalia, the Pentagon recommendation is their go-tell plan in wars everywhere: more direct US involvement, more embedding of forces, and more airstrikes with less restrictions, a plan which hasn’t worked well anywhere else.