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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?
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