Exploring the Repercussions of Bilateral Military Intrusions in the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia and Kenya’s Invasion of Somalia

Abstract

From antiquity to the present, states considered military intervention to be one of their tools for pursuing foreign policy objectives. The primary objective of this study is to investigate why Ethiopia’s and Kenya’s military interventions that used military intervention as their foreign policy largely failed to achieve their intervention objectives. The article used a single case study (the invasion of neighbors into Somalia territory) based on process tracing methodology, which seeks to explain why Ethiopia’s and Kenya’s interventions have largely failed (or been partially successful) in achieving the proclaimed goals. The article uses the “good enough” approach to analyze the operational outcomes of military incursions into Somalia by Kenya and Ethiopia. The study concludes that the intended goals were only partially achieved based on the findings. Due to inadequate pre-intervention planning, the presence of an intervening coalition, and strained historical ties between Ethiopia and Somalia, Ethiopia’s intervention was mainly ineffective. In contrast, Kenya’s weak pre-intervention planning, domestic circumstances, diplomatic crisis, and rivalry among regional powers have all contributed to the country’s interventions’ major failure. Thus, the results of the operations in Ethiopia and Kenya show that using military force alone as an instrument of foreign policy was ineffective; it needed to be combined with diplomacy and other means.