Losing Mogadishu

Somalia seemed the world's leading candidate for humanitarian intervention when President George Bush sent American troops there in December 1992. Millions were in danger of starving; armed security crews were extorting protection money from aid organizations; the United Nations had fired its special envoy, Mohamed Sahnoun, perhaps the only foreign diplomat Somali warlords would heed. With an extravagant show of force, U.S. soldiers managed to alleviate the famine by opening up food channels but were unable to turn that success into civil and political rehabilitation. To determine the causes of Operation Restore Hope's ultimate failure, a journalist who reported on Somalia in 1992 and 1993 examines U.S. involvement there from the Cold War, through the country's civil war and famine, to the present. Part reportage, part analysis, Jonathan Stevenson's book aims both to inform and to provoke opinion. His dissection of the operation's disappointing results, and his suggestions about how American efforts might have been more effective, should stimulate pointed discussion at a time when the Congress is shying away from humanitarian and military commitments overseas. From a postmortem of the operations, the book takes on broader issues as well. It discusses the allocation of responsibility between the United States and the United Nations in aiding countries in turmoil and the limits on the feasibility of international charity. It similarly formulates a coherent intervention policy to guide future action. A lawyer-turned-journalist, Stevenson took an impartial eye to Somalia and emerged with an informed position that will help influence future U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War world.