WI Somalia Mission a Success?

Anaxagoras

Banned
What if the disastrous United Nations operation in Somalia in 1992-93 had been successful? By that I mean, what if Mohamed Aidid had been captured, the militias curtailed, some semblance of civil order restored, and a working government put back in place?

In 1991, the UN was flying high. With the end of the Cold War, the superpower rivalry that had hindered much of the UN's work came to an end, and the UN functioned exactly as it was envisioned during the Gulf War. But the public relations disaster in Somalia (especially the television image of the body of an American helicopter pilot being dragged through the street) largely wrecked all this.

It seems to me that the disaster in Somalia left the UN is such terrible straits that it significantly contributed to the much greater disaster in Rwanda in 1994, especially in terms of the Americans being unwilling to risk casualties. It also contributed to the UN being so gutless during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

What might have been the effects of a successful Somalia operation?
 
Its not too difficult to have the mission be a success as you said just have military objectives achieved through better communication between different nationalities and a little more luck. However how long-term the success would be is relatively minor given your intention to simply give the UN its confidence back.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Wasn't it the failure in Somalia what convinced Bin Laden that America could be fought? If so, there's another consequence there.

Myself, I've always been of the opinion that it was our reaction to the suicide bombing in Lebanon in 1983. When we cut and ran (under a famously militant President, no less) without any meaningful military response except for the French airstrikes in the Bekaa Valley that the US bowed out of, I think Bin Laden more or less thought he had our number.

Have Boutros Boutros-Ghali be less of a total asshole for one thing.

If you're going to say something like that, then you'd better have some points to back it up. Otherwise, do the thread a favour and keep your thoughts to yourself.
 
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