Imagine if we won the Ogaden war (Reddit topic)

[Midas]

I used to think that way too. But the more I've read about medieval and early modern history. I've come to realize this would have been impossible. The distances between somalis are incredibly huge and you would have needed a large sedentary pouplation to wage war and centralized power. That needs a huge agriculture base to accomplish.

Also, the Ottoman empire and the safavids spent a huge amount of effort fighting nomadic pastoralists. Which shows you how difficult it is to control pastoralists, and I don't think in the premodern world it would have been possible to bring a territory that large under control. Even southern somalia with the climatic changes of the 1600s and 1700s combined with the oromo invasions and decline of trade networks compelelty collapsed.

Somalia's problem is that the environment meant that internal trade wasn't enough to be self sustaining and our agricultural output was extremely susceptible to climatic shifts. This leads us to a situation where a sedentary urban civilization in somalia can't maintain continuity and instead collapses. It's why even though we haven't had any foreign invasions and don't speak multiple languages . We don't have a long continous urbanized culture.

 

[Midas]

Somalia's problem is that the environment meant that internal trade wasn't enough to be self sustaining and our agricultural output was extremely susceptible to climatic shifts. This leads us to a situation where a sedentary urban civilization in somalia can't maintain continuity and instead collapses. It's why even though we haven't had any foreign invasions and don't speak multiple languages . We don't have a long continous urbanized culture.

Don't get me wrong though the seed were there and that's we had a boom in the siad era and then again in the last decade with all the books being published. Even in the medieval period there were high points.

 

[Zak12]

I used to think that way too. But the more I've read about medieval and early modern history. I've come to realize this would have been impossible. The distances between somalis are incredibly huge and you would have needed a large sedentary pouplation to wage war and centralized power. That needs a huge agriculture base to accomplish.

Also, the Ottoman empire and the safavids spent a huge amount of effort fighting nomadic pastoralists. Which shows you how difficult it is to control pastoralists, and I don't think in the premodern world it would have been possible to bring a territory that large under control. Even southern somalia with the climatic changes of the 1600s and 1700s combined with the oromo invasions and decline of trade networks compelelty collapsed.

Instead of invading other lands I rather we have united all of Somaliweyn instead centuries ago. It wouldn't have been very difficult given the largely flat terrain and how strongly connected Somalis were economically. That would have prevented a lot of problems later and at worst, this hypothetical Somaliweyn polity would be a client state of the British like the Omani Empire was.

 

[Riftvalley]

I used to think that way too. But the more I've read about medieval and early modern history. I've come to realize this would have been impossible. The distances between somalis are incredibly huge and you would have needed a large sedentary pouplation to wage war and centralized power. That needs a huge agriculture base to accomplish.

Also, the Ottoman empire and the safavids spent a huge amount of effort fighting nomadic pastoralists. Which shows you how difficult it is to control pastoralists, and I don't think in the premodern world it would have been possible to bring a territory that large under control. Even southern somalia with the climatic changes of the 1600s and 1700s combined with the oromo invasions and decline of trade networks compelelty collapsed.

If the Masai went from South Sudan to take swathes of Kenya and Tanzania, surely it was possible for some Somalis to the same? Easier for cattle herders in those environments I assume?

 

[Midas]

Instead of invading other lands I rather we have united all of Somaliweyn instead centuries ago. It wouldn't have been very difficult given the largely flat terrain and how strongly connected Somalis were economically. That would have prevented a lot of problems later and at worst, this hypothetical Somaliweyn polity would be a client state of the British like the Omani Empire was.

Somaliweyn is like a million and something kilometers long. To united a territory that large where everybody is a pasotralist and almost all the land is survivable is basically impossible.

The closest parallel to somalia I could find is central asia but 1) they're not as dry and have some decently large rivers.
2) they have wealth from the silk roads trade they participate in. Which allowed them to acquire a huge amount of wealth and to finance the building of their nomadic empires.

 

[Midas]

If the Masai went from South Sudan to take swathes of Kenya and Tanzania, surely it was possible for some Somalis to the same? Easier for cattle herders in those environments I assume?

I thought you meant a centralized stated ?
But it your just talking about somali herders migrating then we already basically own most of the grazing land in kenya .

 

[Zak12]

Somaliweyn is like a million and something kilometers long. To united a territory that large where everybody is a pasotralist and almost all the land is survivable is basically impossible.

The closest parallel to somalia I could find is central asia but 1) they're not as dry and have some decently large rivers.
2) they have wealth from the silk roads trade they participate in. Which allowed them to acquire a huge amount of wealth and to finance the building of their nomadic empires.

The Saudis united a larger territory. Its about having the right leadership.

 

[Midas]

The Saudis united a larger territory. Its about having the right leadership.

Saudi arabia is mainly desert (I'm talking pure desert not the semi arid stuff we have in somalia) that nobody can live in with only a couple of valleys and oasis towns. If you control the valleys and oasis towns you control everything . That's why the Saudis when they came on the scenes where mainly conquering the other small kingdom based around the other valleys and oasis towns.

 

[Midas]

I think a huge part of the problem is how confusing Somali history is and nobody has written a decent overview on it. I mean you have a situation where the geledis had a capital in afgooye which was 20 miles away from Mogadishu which was under the control of hiraab but somehow even though the hiraab couldn't control a territory 20 miles from their capital in Mogadishu they somehow also ruled hoboyo until kenadid decided to establish his own sultnate away from his cousin .