Hard Day's Night: A Retrospective on the American Intervention in Somalia

Abstract

Almost a generation has passed since the tragic events of October 3, 1993, when 18 American Soldiers died in the streets of Mogadishu. The fallout from Somalia was both severe and long lasting. It brought a halt to the aggressive multilateralism that initially gripped the Clinton administration, preventing any response to the Rwandan genocide that followed just months later. It limited the range of possible responses to crises in Bosnia and later Kosovo. It severely jolted the Nation's confidence in its national security leadership. It shook the Clinton administration to its roots and destroyed its Secretary of Defense. And it induced an excessive caution and hesitancy in U.S. foreign and security policy that powerfully inhibited the administration?s response to repeated acts of terrorism. In ways large and small, Somalia held American foreign policy in its grip for the rest of the decade.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA515955

Entities

People

  • R. D. Hooker Jr.

Organizations

  • National Defense University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Combat Forces
  • Combat Operations
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • Humanitarian Assistance
  • Intervention
  • Military Force Levels
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • Security
  • Task Forces
  • Three Dimensional
  • United States
  • United States Central Command
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • International Relations and Conflict Resolution
  • Strategic Security Studies