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Fighting for Peace in Somalia provides the first comprehensive analysis of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a peace operation deployed in 2007 to stabilize the country and defend its fledgling government from one of the world´s deadliest militant organizations, Harakat al-Shabaab.

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Fighting for Peace in Somalia provides the first comprehensive analysis of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), an operation deployed in 2007 to stabilize the country and defend its fledgling government from one of the world´s deadliest militant organizations, Harakat al-Shabaab.

The book´s two parts provide a history of the mission from its genesis in an earlier, failed regional initiative in 2005 up to mid-2017, as well as an analysis of the mission´s six most important challenges, namely, logistics, security sector reform, civilian protection, strategic communications, stabilization, and developing a successful exit strategy. These issues are all central to the broader debates about how to design effective peace operations in Africa and beyond.

AMISOM was remarkable in several respects: it would become the African Union´s (AU) largest peace operation by a considerable margin deploying over 22,000 soldiers; it became the longest running mission under AU command and control, outlasting the nearest contender by over seven years; it also became the AU´s most expensive operation, at its peak costing approximately US$1 billion per year; and, sadly, AMISOM became the AU´s deadliest mission. Although often referred to as a peacekeeping
operation, AMISOM´s troops were given a range of daunting tasks that went well beyond the realm of peacekeeping, including VIP protection, war-fighting, counterinsurgency, stabilization, and state-building as well as supporting electoral processes and facilitating humanitarian assistance.

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Given his field research experience, extensive network of and unique access to practitioner experts, a decade-plus of monitoring peace operations across Africa, and record of academic publishing, Williams remains an authority on the sociopolitical dynamics of peace and stability operations in the Horn of Africa, and Fighting for Peace in Somalia is an achievement that will only serve to solidify this reputation. Whitney Grespin, The Strategy Bridge, June 2019 Given his field research experience, extensive network of and unique access to practitioner experts, a decade-plus of monitoring peace operations across Africa, and record of academic publishing, Williams remains an authority on the sociopolitical dynamics of peace and stability operations in the Horn of Africa, and Fighting for Peace in Somalia is an achievement that will only serve to solidify this reputation. Whitney Grespin, The Strategy Bridge, June 2019 Given his field research experience, extensive network of and unique access to practitioner experts, a decade-plus of monitoring peace operations across Africa, and record of academic publishing, Williams remains an authority on the sociopolitical dynamics of peace and stability operations in the Horn of Africa, and Fighting for Peace in Somalia is an achievement that will only serve to solidify this reputation. Whitney Grespin, The Strategy Bridge, June 2019 Given his field research experience, extensive network of and unique access to practitioner experts, a decade-plus of monitoring peace operations across Africa, and record of academic publishing, Williams remains an authority on the sociopolitical dynamics of peace and stability operations in the Horn of Africa, and Fighting for Peace in Somalia is an achievement that will only serve to solidify this reputation. Whitney Grespin, The Strategy Bridge, June 2019

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