Thank you, Ken and Jay, for being here this afternoon.
I'm going to start with you, Ken. I have two specific questions for you. One is a military question and one is a political question.
As you know, in 2013 the Obama administration issued a presidential policy guidance with three main criteria: one, that any drone strikes that happen would have to have inter-agency vetting; two, that the threat or the target would pose a threat to Americans; three, that there would be no civilian casualties.
Because President Trump in 2017 declared that Somalia had areas of active hostilities, they changed that to a new policy called “Principles, Standards, and Procedures”, which loosened some of that. Because of that loosening, the drone strikes have gone up.
Now that drone strikes have gone up, there is much more military engagement. Part of the reason was to buy some time and space to advance the governance that was happening in Somalia, but even with all this activity, the political stability or the institution-building has not occurred there, and you have publicly said that drone strikes may have a purpose, but they are no substitute for political strategy. What is the political strategy in Somalia?