WI: No Battle of Mogadishu

[Mister Abbadon]

What if on October 3 1993 The Militia leaders are captured and taken back to a safe area, the Black Hawk Helicopters are not shot down, and the operation goes off with minimal American Casualties?
How will this affect future UN operations? Will the US become more involved in Somalia?

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

This deserves some attention.

A look at the overall goals of the US/UN in Somalia would be a start. Those are likely to continue in some fashion. One goal was the destruction of Adids power. That effort will continue.

 

[General Mosh]

Rwanda, in my opinion we'll be less cautious to call it a genocide.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

It'll definitely mean a more interventionist approach towards Africa. Wonder what the repercussions will be with the French, given they're the primary Atlantic player in Africa.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

For one thing, the rotation of Marines out for the Army units- 10th Mountain, Airborne and Delta was disastrous between the insane ROE, (no heavy air support, use of tanks,etc), bad doctine and dismissal of the allies in UNOSOM II, - (Pakistanis, Malaysians, etc) in UNOSOM II who all suffered worse casualties than the US and had every reason to want Aidid's bunch wrapped up ASAP...

A unified allied command with sufficient coordination would've crushed Aidid and every militia unit w/in 50 mi of Mog in a couple of weeks, but Delta wanted to get cute and keep seeing what they could accomplish with bold assaults cutting everyone else out of the loop. To the sorrow of many their bluff got called in Bokhara Market.

Now, let's say the militia leaders get swept up. IMO that just would've fragmented the factions in ensuing power struggles even further to the point nobody local or foreign could restore order w/o resorting to brutal suppression of any and every armed faction.
See the US drug war and other applications of decapitation theory done awry...

So finding a way out of the aid distribution trap and getting Somalis
back on the farm or in jobs that didn't involve an AK-47 as a necessary tool is a lot stickier proposition that more firepower wouldn't have solved.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
Now, let's say the militia leaders get swept up. IMO that just would've fragmented the factions in ensuing power struggles even further to the point nobody local or foreign could restore order w/o resorting to brutal suppression of any and every armed faction.
See the US drug war and other applications of decapitation theory done awry...

So finding a way out of the aid distribution trap and getting Somalis
back on the farm or in jobs that didn't involve an AK-47 as a necessary tool is a lot stickier proposition that more firepower wouldn't have solved.

Back in the 1990s there were a series of densely written analysis of Somalia and similar situations, like the Russians in Cechnia, that were published in the Marine Crops Gazette. The author looked closely at the disconnects between the political policy from the top and the realitiy on the ground, and studied how that created unrealistic orders/guidance, your ROE, to the forces on the ground.

In the case of Somalia the overfocus on removing Adid hampered the comanders on the ground, both military, and diplomatic, and the aid organizations as well. Just maybe had Adids organization disolved then the policys would have reverted to something more realistic, or at least to what was going on before the 'Get Adid' crowd took over.

 

[Whanztastic]

The focus on Adid and mission creep came from Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN Secretary-General. If different guy wins, probably avoid the whole fiasco.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

The focus on Adid and mission creep came from Boutros Boutros-Ghali as UN Secretary-General. If different guy wins, probably avoid the whole fiasco.

True that was the origin at the top. There were some other leaders who wanted a 'military' solution to the problem of local Somali leaders they did not like. President Clinton bears a bit of the final responsibility in this. For some reason or other he bought off of Boutros-Ghalis policy proposal, ignoring contradictory advice from within the military and State Dept and abandoning the earlier policy of dealing with all the local Somali leaders or warlords.

Boutros-Ghali & Adid had crossed each other up some years earlier when there was still a central Somali government and Adid was part of it. One version is Adid got his way that round and B-G was still pissed about it.

Another take on the Adid thing is the US government was sold on the idea of making a example of the 'worst' of the Somali warlords, so the others might play nicer.

War Story Interjection: One of my USMC peers was commanding a 'platoon' from his artillery battery standing watch on the USMC perimeter. Some Somalis got between them and the Pakistanis & got the Pakis to open fire, towards the Marines. The young Lt had several bad minutes trying (sucessfully) to prevent the Marines from returning fire & killing assorted Paki soldiers.