Military Legitimacy and Anarchy

If Desert Storm demonstrated the effective use of combat power, Restore Hope in Somalia reminded US strategists of Vietnam and the limitations of combat power. Operation Restore Hope was initiated in December 1991 to provide security for humanitarian assistance in Somalia.

Restore Hope was only the first phase of humanitarian assistance to Somalia; largely because political and military objectives were reasonably clear and understood by all concerned the first phase ended on a successful note in May 1993 when the US relinquished operational control of all remaining forces to the UN, In the second phase, UNISOM II, it was no longer clear whether the mission was humanitarian assistance or political warfare with uncooperative clans; there was no end state, no government to support, and no peace to keep. In the midst of uncertainty and ambiguity US forces remained until mission creep eroded restraint.

In the primal violence that characterized Somalia, UN forces were constantly under siege from competing warlords. General Aideed, the strongest of the warlords, was thought to be responsible for an ambush that killed a number of UN forces in the summer of 1993. In an effort to capture General Aideed, in October 1993 the US mounted a search and destroy mission against Aideed in Mogadishu. The raid met unexpected resistance and reinforcements were too late to prevent disaster.

The legitimacy of the US presence in Somalia was lost when the American public witnessed televised images of an angry mob of Somalis dragging a dead US soldier through the streets following the abortive Mogadishu raid. The resulting public outcry caused President Clinton to pledge the early withdrawal of US troops and gave General Aideed undeserved legitimacy among Somalis at the expense of UN nation-building efforts. The strategic error of the US was to allow mission creep to convert a defensive humanitarian assistance mission into an offensive peace enforcement mission without fully understanding the implications.

Somalia also provided examples of how too little force can be as fatal to legitimacy as too much force. Feuding warlords forced US and UN forces to remain barricaded and of little use in disarming the roving bandits that terrorized the country. Law and order remained elusive in Somalia in spite of the US and UN military presence. Any such environment requires the use of force to establish law and order, but not offensive combat operations such as the abortive raid in Mogadishu.