The Shot Seen 'Round the World: The Impact of the Images of Mogadishu on American Military Operations

This essay argues that visual images of American casualties and POWs have had a profound effect on senior leadership's perceptions of what level of casualties the American public will and will not support during humanitarian interventions. The result is the current policy of "zero casualties," a policy that makes it virtually impossible to justify military operations in humanitarian crises because the policy is based on a profound misreading of the way the American public will interpret photojournalistic images. An argument- and rhetoric-based analytic provides a more viable and pragmatic basis for interpretation and hence for foreign policy decision making.