It is their battles to control territory that have uprooted people like Mr Vega.
Ultimately, though, the solution is on land: the creation of a Somali authority to control its territory and patrol its shores.
While Shell is widely believed to control more territory worldwide, BP holds far more of the estimated future reserves in the Gulf.
The eminent historian Paul Kennedy wrote a book entitled The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in which he argued that powerful countries typically undercut their economic strength by trying to control too much territory, leading to their decline.
Today, the group is "a hodgepodge of smaller organizations that seeks alliances with street gangs to keep control of their territory and businesses, " according to an InSight Crime profile of the group.
Fragile but sophisticated Lebanon may come nearest, despite its lethal rivalries between sect and clan and failure to get a single national army to control all its territory (see article).
And the government needs to establish firm control over territory where this is lacking.
Still Colombian leaders struggled over the years to maintain a democratic regime despite the need to strengthen the ability of the state to exercise control over its territory.
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: The FTA with Colombia: the political dimension
UNITA's name, they promise to complete the Angolan peace process with no delay, including demilitarising the rebel movement and returning all territory to state control.
In effect, Mr Valentim's group is offering to disarm an army over which it has no control, and to hand over territory on which its men cannot set foot.
This was expected to include Bedouin tribal leaders who also want to bring their territory under control.
The diplomacy of Israel's outgoing Labor Party government confirmed a lesson with long roots in Zionist history: Israel is unlikely over time to retain control over pieces of territory unless its people actually live there.
In Mr Yeltsin's time, attempts to bring under control the far-eastern Maritime Territory foundered when the local armed forces turned out to be under the thumb of the fearsomely idiosyncratic provincial governor.
This plan would call for Israel to relinquish to a new Palestinian state control over territory that would encompass many watersheds of the West Bank.
Mexico's governments have come to accept that if they want the United States to reform its immigration laws and to speed cross-border trade, they have to exercise more control over their own territory.
Keen to secure control over the fur trade and expand their territory, the Mohawks, an Iroquois tribe, attacked huron lands.
Colombia's defence minister resigned , in disagreement with a government decision to allow left-wing guerrillas to remain in control of a large chunk of jungle territory.
But their control over this territory is now said to be facing a challenge from their former allies, the Gulf Cartel, in an alliance with the Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man.
In recent weeks, he has been mediating in the dispute triggered by the government's attempt to take greater control of security in oil-rich territory around the city of Kirkuk, which is claimed by both Arabs and Kurds.
Violence has also escalated due to turf battles between the different groups for territory and control of trade routes.
As the 21st century moves into its sixth year, many people have come to accept the geopolitical reality that neither nation can control the entire territory.
But the hosts quickly started to dominate possession and territory and it wasn't long before their control paid dividends.
Because China had a relatively stable government in control of a huge fertile territory, and a literate bureaucracy to transmit innovations from place to place.
The good news, for those who still seek to build a multi-ethnic Bosnia, is that the Serb nationalists are failing to keep their ethnic cousins, who control 49% of Bosnia's territory, hermetically sealed from the Muslims and Croats who run the remainder.
The feudal nobles tried to suppress it, but precisely because there was no stable government in control of a huge territory, they failed.
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