Ask the Expert: John Norris on the true costs of the international community's misguided approach to Somalia.

What is the current state of the crisis in Somalia?

Somalia has become the perfect storm of failed states. It hasn't had a central government in two decades. It's got an extremely nasty extremist movement in al-Shabab, that's linked to al Qaeda. It's got an international peace keeping force. Piracy is a serious problem on the coast. And to top it all off, in addition to the severe profound instability and lack of governance that has wracked the country, Somalia is now facing the worst famine the world has seen in two decades.

How has the international community failed Somalia?

The international community has never got it right in terms of intervening in Somalia. It's never been willing to leave Somalia sufficiently alone to let it solve its own problems, nor has it been sufficiently committed to actually intervene in a substantial, meaningful way that would allow for lasting peace. So we've had these episodic, not very well designed short-term interventions that have often ended up making the situation worse on the ground, not better.

That's inflicted a terrible cost not only on the people of Somalia but on Western taxpayers. We've spent close to $55 billion dollars as a world in dealing with Somalia over the last two decades. Yet, when you look at Somalia, it's very hard to say that that money has been well spent.

What lessons can be learned to prevent future failed states?

I think the lesson is—and there are several—that you have to intervene early and try to get it right before these things get out of the box. A place like Somalia, no one would have had any idea that we would have spent so much in blood and treasure over the years from what was happening in the late 1980s. Once it starts it's very hard to stop.

I think the other lesson is that it takes a concerted, clear effort to reach a political, diplomatic solution. Peacekeepers, armed interventions, weapons transfers are not the solution. Those are quick fixes. They are tactical approaches, not strategic ones.

We need to do the hard, laborious work of building peace and nurturing peace at the ground level and make that work. Or else we risk, not only Somalia continuing to devolve, but new Somalias appearing next year and beyond.