1 of the major reasons that IFOR/SFOR was so timid when 1st deployed into Bosnia 1995-96 as peace-enforcers to arrest PIFWCs was of course based on the US experience with Blackhawk Down back in Somalia 1993. Thus, US troops were initially not given assertive orders to arrest indicted war criminals wanted at the Hague, due to the desire to avoid another Mogadishu. It was only by 1998 that US SOF operators earnestly got invovled in the hunt against PIFWCs- following from the lead of the British SAS' successful operations against Milan Kovacevic/Simo Drljaca (the latter of whom was killed in a hail of bullets when he attempted to resist arrest) in Prijedor 1997. OK, WI say Delta or DEVGRU operators ended up in a firefight as bad as BHD during SFOR (say, if SOCOM attempted to move against Karadzic or Mladic) ? How would US foreign policy, NATO, the ICTY, Milosevic have been affected respectively ?
Another alternative- let's wind the clock back to the mid-80s- WI SOF operators got invovled in just as bad a firefight as Mog, say back in Beirut 1985 had Delta been sent in after the TWA847 hijacking to track down & rescue the hostages who'd been taken ? How badly would the reagan admin have been affected had there been news of such a bloodbath among American specops & civilians due to such a rescue attempt ?
Another alternative- let's wind the clock back to the mid-80s- WI SOF operators got invovled in just as bad a firefight as Mog, say back in Beirut 1985 had Delta been sent in after the TWA847 hijacking to track down & rescue the hostages who'd been taken ? How badly would the reagan admin have been affected had there been news of such a bloodbath among American specops & civilians due to such a rescue attempt ?