Does the United States owe reparations to Somalia?

Abstract

For over twenty years the United States government has engaged in what it calls a global ‘war on terror’ (GWOT). This war spans continents and while US interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq receive modest attention, the secretive US war in Somalia remains under-discussed. This article offers an empirical and theoretical examination of what the US has done in Somalia since 2001, considering the political, economic and ideological elements of these acts. Data on the US’s war on the Somali people is placed in dialogue with ongoing theorising on the merits of reparations in the world system.