American assistance could be crucial to the effort by Somalia’s government to finally reassert its control over the capital and bring a semblance of order to a country that has been steeped in anarchy for two decades. America has also been the largest supplier of humanitarian aid to Somalia. For the Americans, it is part of a counterterrorism strategy to deny a haven to Al Qaeda, which has found sanctuary for years in Somalia’s chaos and has helped turn this country into a magnet for jihadists from around the world. The Somali government has tried limited offensives before and has failed, leaving much of the country in the hands of Al Shabab, who has chopped off heads, banned music and brought a harsh and alien version of Islam to Somalia. Officials say that this offensive, feels different. The government has the advantage of numbers, about 6,000 to 10,000 freshly trained troops, compared with about 5,000 on the side of Al Shabab and its allies.
In this situation we see both realist and liberal theories at work. For instance, it's obvious that the United States is intervening in Somalia because if its ties to Al Qaeda. The United States wants to be involved to stop this threat by taking preemptive measures against it. Besides the military training and assistance going on, the US is also the number one provider of humanitarian aid to Somalia, which looks really good on an international scale. So while the US can claim it's intervening under the cause of humanitarian aid, it's also there for realist reasons.
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