Approaching Humanitarian Intervention Strategically: The Case of Somalia

The U.S.-led military intervention in Somalia, which began in 1992, had profound consequences for how the United States would view later humanitarian operations overseas and the use of military force, in general. The ultimate failure of the international community's intervention in Somalia, and especially the death of 18 Army Rangers in Mogadishu in October 1993, not only forced the end of the intervention, it caused the Clinton administration to be more cautious about future such interventions and less likely to risk American casualties in military operations. Moreover, lessons that were either questionable (such as the need to avoid adding ambitious political goals to humanitarian operations the so-called mission creep) or outright bogus (the need to prevent U.S. troops from serving under foreign commanders) came to color official U.S. thinking on military interventions. American reluctance to act during the genocide in Rwanda shortly after the end of the Somalia intervention can be attributed in part to the traumatic experience of Somalia, as can the U.S. refusal to take decisive action in Bosnia until 1995. Given the dramatic and tragic outcome of the Ranger raid in Mogadishu and the influence that the Somalia experience has had on U.S. foreign policy, it is not surprising that a great deal has been written about the humanitarian intervention in Somalia. Much of this analysis has focused on mission creep after the U.S. handed over authority for the operation to the UN, the hunt for Mogadishu warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed and, of course, the Ranger raid itself.