Quietly and with baby steps, the Pentagon's newest combatant command the U.S. is intervening in one of the world's most tenacious conflicts.

Two-year-old Africa Command The Bush Administration has pledged $5 million to help build a new police force in Somalia that combines troops from the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government and – get this – former insurgents from an alliance of moderate Islamic groups.

Somalia hasn't had a functional central government in 18 years. Clan conflict, starvation and anarchy have contributed to what the U.S. Army's top intel agent for Africa called a "vortex of violence" where the fighting at times escapes any rational motivation. That vortex of violence is a hallmark of so-called "Fifth-Generation

Warfare."

The Pentagon's new Africa Command, more than any other U.S. command, is designed to wage 5GW, according to the command boss, Army General Kip Ward. Since military force often makes the vortex worse, Ward said Africom would "foster continued dialogue and development ... enabling the growth of strong and just governments and legitimate institutions to support the development of civil societies."

To that end, the hybrid Somali police force is, in theory, a great idea. It cements a political compromise between U.S. allies in Somalia and their former enemies, and it puts a Somali face on international efforts to create street-level security.

But there are huge obstacles.

Without strict controls, which are hard to install in a place like

Somalia, corruption will siphon off most of the police funds. Even with all the money, there's no guarantee the peace deal between the

Transitional Government and the moderate Islamists will hold. And there are spoilers: the hardline Islamic Courts group, which isn't part of the peace deal, has entered the capital of Mogadishu and has begun occupying deserted police stations, aiming to set up its own law-enforcement infrastructure that could compete with the U.S.-funded hybrid force.

UPDATE 1/6/09: An Africom spokesman just pointed out that the money for the Somali police force actually is coming from the State Department, not the Pentagon. Regardless, it's an initiate that's totally in line with

Africa Command's "soft," multi-agency strategy.

[PHOTO: me]

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