Another Cambodia thread- US ground contingent in UNTAC

[Melvin Loh]

During the early 1990s discussions re the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), there was debate in the US as to whether the US army should deploy an inf contingent to the UN peacekeeping force to join the 12 other bns from mainly 3rd World countries. However, in the end, it was argued that sending a US combat unit as part of UNTAC would've been too risky, given the likelihood of Khmer Rouge elements targeting such high-profile American soldiers and thereby frustrating the peace process, and also due to the US' previous role as a combatant during the Cambodian civil war. As such, the US military only contributed strategic airlift assets and noncombat support personnel. But WI the decision actually had been made in the JCS, despite the undoubtedly strong opposition of Colin Powell as Chairman, to send a bn group from PACOM, either in Hawaii or Fort Lewis, Washington, to UNTAC ? Would these nightmares of Khmer Rouge violent opposition have been realised ? How would the Cambodian peace process have proceeded then ? Would the US have been faced with an earlier version of the Mogadishu fiasco in the jungles of Cambodia instead ?