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The United States’ reported decision to end its financial support for the United Nations Support Office in Somalia, or UNSOS, after 2026 has been met with predictable criticism. Opponents warn that reducing support will weaken the fight against Al-Shabaab and undermine the African Union mission. Yet the stronger argument is the opposite. The decision is more likely to accelerate Somalia’s long overdue security transition than another round of funding for a model that has endured for nearly two decades with diminishing returns.
For almost 19 years, the African Union’s successive missions, from AMISOM to ATMIS and now AUSSOM, have been sustained by an international support system. For about 17 years, UNSOA and later UNSOS have provided the logistics that kept those missions operating. Together they became one of Africa’s longest running international security arrangements. Their longevity is undeniable. Their success is far less so.
The missions were to achieve two strategic objectives. The first was to defeat Al-Shabaab. The second was to help build a Somali state capable of securing its own territory through national institutions. Neither objective has been realized. Al-Shabaab remains a resilient insurgency, while the Somali government still depends heavily on external military, financial, and logistical support to maintain security.
The African Union deserves some credit for preventing state collapse and helping recover major urban centers. Those achievements should not be dismissed. But emergency interventions were never intended to become permanent fixtures. Nearly two decades later, temporary solutions have become standing institutions.
International funding has made it easier to renew mandates than to confront uncomfortable realities. Every extension delayed the difficult political and military decisions required for a genuine transition. The result has been a cycle of new mandates, new acronyms, and familiar promises.
UNSOS has performed its logistical mission somewhat efficiently. It has supplied food, fuel, transport, engineering, communications, and medical support to African Union forces. Yet efficient logistics cannot compensate for the absence of strategic progress. Supporting a mission indefinitely is not the same as bringing it to a successful conclusion.
Now the advocates of the mission may argue that more funding is needed to preserve stability. The past 17 years suggest otherwise. More money has not produced a self-sufficient Somali National Army, nor has it eliminated Al-Shabaab. Instead, the international support system has increasingly become an ecosystem that sustains itself. Thousands of personnel, contractors, and foreign troops have depended on its continuation, while the transition it was meant to enable has remained perpetually incomplete.
That is why the reported American decision should be viewed as a corrective rather than a retreat. Reducing external support will inevitably create pressure, but pressure is precisely what has been missing. The Somali government will have stronger incentives to assume greater responsibility for force generation, logistics, planning, and command. The African Union will be compelled to rethink a model that has become increasingly expensive without delivering decisive outcomes.
There are genuine risks. Any transition must be carefully managed to avoid creating security gaps that can be exploited. But avoiding reform because change carries risk is precisely how Somalia arrived at nearly two decades of dependency. Continuing the same approach while expecting different results would be the greater gamble.
The mandate that expires after 2026 should therefore mark a genuine turning point. If an African Union mission continues beyond that date, it should be leaner, more focused, and designed around enabling Somali institutions rather than substituting for them. Success should be measured by the transfer of responsibility, not by the extension of mandates. And, instead of insisting on filling the funding gap, alternatives such as direct support to Somali institutions may achieve a better result.
The United States has often argued that lasting security requires changing incentives rather than preserving ineffective systems. Whether one agrees with every aspect of Washington’s policy, its willingness to challenge a model that has produced limited strategic progress is difficult to dismiss. Breaking entrenched patterns is often more valuable than financing their continuation.
Somalia cannot build lasting security on permanent foreign logistics, permanent foreign funding, or permanent foreign deployments. At some point, responsibility must shift decisively to Somali institutions. The reported U.S. decision does not guarantee that outcome, but it makes it more likely than another extension of a system that has already had nearly 20 years to prove itself.
