The Lessons of Somalia: Who Learned What, from Whom, and for What Purpose?

Book Reviews Review Essay The Lessons ofSomalia: Who Learned What, from Whom, andfor What Purpose? Karl C. Holmes University of Southern California Somalia Operations: Lessons Learned. By Colonel C. Kenneth Allard. Washington, D.C: National Defense University Press, 1995. Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping. By John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley. Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace, 1995. Somalia: The Missed Opportunities. By Mohamed Sahnoun. Washington, D.C: United States Institute of Peace, 1994. Losing Mogadishu: Testing U.S. Policy in Somalia. By Jonathan Stevenson. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995. Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Somalia. United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research. New York: United Nations Publications, 1996. The United Nations/United States intervention in Somalia was in many ways destined to be a watershed event. President Bush's dramatic large scale provision of humanitarian assistance via military means was to many an attempt to bring life to his idea of a New World Order.1 Somalia also served as a testing ground for Boutros Boutros-Ghali's theory of Peacemaking and his vision of a strong and forceful United Nations.2 The incoming Clinton administration, for its part, saw Somalia as an opportunity to establish its own policy of "assertive multilateralism."3 Complicating matters further was the unusually high impact ^Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Vol. 5, No. 1 (New Series) 1998, pp.115-132 215 116 Book Reviews of public opinion in the decision making process. Whereas Bush was strongly pressured to "do something," Clinton was virtually forced to "get out."4 Given the dramatic and public nature of UN/U.S. policy in Somalia, it is not surprising to discover that a host of academics, politicians, journalists and participants have attempted to spell out their own versions ofevents and to explain why policy seemed to go so terribly wrong.5 Somalia: The Missed Opportunities (1994) by Mohamed Sahnoun, and Somalia and Operation Restore Hope (1995) by John L. Hirsch and Robert Oakley were two of the first works to appear on the Somalia mission, and remain two of the most useful. Both are semi-autobiographical reconstructions and rely heavily on interviews and other first hand accounts. Sahnoun was the first UN special envoy to Somalia and, as such, the political head and chief negotiator of the UNOSOM I mission. Hirsch was a political advisor to the multinational coalition, whereas Oakley was U.S. special envoy under presidents Bush and Clinton. Each has a story to tell. In a nutshell, Sahnoun's story revolves around UN incompetence-from an ill fated UN fact-finding mission, where lack of preparation led to the unintentional strengthening of Aideed and Ali Mahdi's positions; to the leasing of an old UN cargo plane to an arms dealer, which, when it landed in Mogadishu loaded with weapons and currency for AH Mahdi's "interim government," convinced Aideed that the UN was supporting his rival; to the UN's failure to inform negotiators ofkey decisions taken in New York until after they had been broadcast on public radio. The persuasiveness of Sahnoun's critique more than makes up for the book's sometimes self-serving tone. Critics of the UN are sure to rejoice. Fortunately, Sahnoun is not solely concerned with defending his performance at the head of UNOSOM, but also makes a case for preventive diplomacy. And once again, the case he makes is a strong one. He identifies three key periods between the years 1988 and 1991 where active international mediation could have lessened the likelihood of the anarchy that was to come. The drawing of lessons from this period distinguishes The Missed Opportunities from other works, which tend to focus on the various phases of intervention. The story told by Hirsch and Oakley nicely fills in gaps left by Sahnoun. Whereas Sahnoun's strength lies in the pre-UN period and UNOSOM I, Hirsch and Oakley provide the most detailed first hand coverage of the UNITAF and Book Reviews 117 UNOSOM II missions available. Additionally, the book addresses questions conspicuously left unanswered by Sahnoun, such as the politics behind why the UN failed to involve itself earlier in the Somalia crisis...