This is the fourth year since Kenyan troops were dispatched to Somalia. Even though the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) were put under the command of the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) after seven months, Kenya continues to suffer terrorist attacks by Al Shabaab.

Al Shabaab has vowed to attack Kenya until it withdraws its forces from Somalia.

The supposed objectives of the KDF operation in Somalia, which quickly morphed into a peacekeeping mission, were to deprive Al Shabaab of a safe haven near the Kenyan border and to capture the strategic port of Kismayu, which was a source of funding for the extremist group.

More than 40 months on, the success or failure of the operation is still the subject of debate. The government of President Uhuru Kenyatta stresses the need for KDF to stay in Somalia to weaken Al Shabaab and support the federal government in Mogadishu.

Little is also being said about on whether the fight against Al Shabaab can be won from a military approach only and or if there are alternatives.

READ: Why Kenya continues to bear the brunt of terrorism in East Africa

Philip Gordon, a US diplomat and foreign policy expert, has long argued that victory over terrorism will come only when the international community succeeds in “discrediting the terrorists’ ideology and undermining their support.”

He adds that this will require “accepting that the terrorist threat can never be eradicated completely and that acting as though it can, will only make it worse.”

Lessons from the United States show that the war on terror is likely to be nasty, brutish and long. In the 13 years since 9/11, the US has spent an estimated $2 trillion plus in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — $14 million an hour — yet the general consensus is that the interventions have failed.

There is no vision of how and when the international war on terror will end.

READ: Dialogue with Al Shabaab and walls across borders are ridiculous ideas

In conventional warfare, the objectives of war are clear and the war ends either when the enemy relents or loses territory. Recent military success in Somalia have not necessarily resulted in victory. For example, the capture of Kismayu by the KDF was heralded as a big win in the war on terror but it hardly seems to have stopped Al Shabaab.

Speaking to The EastAfrican, Andrew Franklin, a national security expert based in Nairobi, said that the first step in winning the war on terror is to localise the context in which the war is taking place.

“There is no universal ideology of terror as this tactic is employed by disparate groups in diverse territories often to achieve completely unrelated objectives,” he said.

“There is no such thing as a global war on terror; victories over localised terrorism usually involve power sharing, grants of autonomy or outright declarations of Independence,” he said.

Mr Franklin’s suggestions may be controversial as this would involve some sort of negotiations with Al Shabaab, which is likely to demand the withdrawal of Kenyan forces from Somalia or even the ceding of part of northern Kenya territory to form the “greater Somalia.”

But in the style of America’s long held mantra often repeated by presidents, politicians and American citizens themselves, President Kenyatta has made it clear that Kenya does not negotiate with terrorists. This may, however not be entirely true which the US which has on several occasions cut deals with terrorists.

The most recent one was when the US secured the release of Peter Moore, a British civilian held hostage and released by Iraqi militants in exchange for Qais al-Khazali, an influential young cleric.

However, Mr Franklin says several groups across the world have used terrorism tactics to achieve their objectives, forcing government to come to some sort of political arrangement with them to end violence.

He gives the examples of Northern Ireland where the Irish Republican Army (IRA) achieved some level of autonomy from the United Kingdom and Chechnya and the Basque region, which got major concessions from Russia and Spain respectively.

“In some cases ‘victories’ in the war on terror may look very much like defeats although the fighting stops,” he adds.

While the Kenyan campaign in Somalia has neutralised some Al Shabaab militants and disrupted their networks, analysts argue that KDF needs to withdraw from Somalia and take positions across the porous borders where the militants have on several occasions crossed over to launch attacks.

“Kenya needs to accept that Amisom’s KDF contingent is there to prop up the federal government in Mogadishu and not defend Kenya’s borders,” Mr Franklin told The East African.

“The Kenyatta administration needs to evaluate the existing state of affairs in order to decide whether it is still within Kenya’s national interests to remain in Amisom.

“African governments fighting under Amisom are merely carrying water for Western governments fighting jihadist elements in Somalia,” says Ken Opalo, a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University.

“The West pays and provides material and tactical support; and the West calls the shots,” he adds.