Foreign policy perils: Somalia set a dangerous precedent

WASHINGTON'S decision to send more than 25,000 U.S. troops to Somalia is likely to have far-reaching and potentially dangerous implications for the U.S. and the international community. Not only does the intervention itself entail significant risks, but it sets a precedent for similar humanitarian military crusades--either unilateral or under the banner of the United Nations--elsewhere in an increasingly turbulent world. The American people would be wise to reject the embryonic doctrine of humanitarian intervention as the new U.S. mission in the post-Cold War era. Although such an undertaking undoubtedly appeals to those who have an insatiable desire to correct all the ills of the planet and the hubris to assume that American power can achieve that utopian objective, it inevitably would entangle the US. in an array of bloody conflicts that have no relevance whatsoever to the nation's security interests.

In his Dec. 4, 1992, address to the nation officially announcing Operation Restore Hope, Pres. George Bush stressed both the humanitarian purpose and the limited nature of the U.S. military intervention in Somalia: "Our mission has a limited objective--to open the supply routes, to get the food moving, and to prepare the way for a UN peace-keeping force to keep it moving. This operation is not open-ended. We will not stay longer than is absolutely necessary." He stated further that the US. had no plans to "dictate political outcomes" in the war-torn East African nation.

High-level Administration officials exuded confidence (at least on a "not for attribution" basis) that American forces would be able to complete their mission and return to the U.S. in time for the inauguration of Bill Clinton on Jan. 20, 1993. Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney and military leaders were more circumspect, indicating that it probably would be approximately three months before "the bulk" of U.S. troops could be withdrawn. Nevertheless, they also offered assurances that American forces would not get bogged down in a Somalian quagmire. Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared the U.S. mission to having the cavalry ride to the rescue and then transferring responsibility to the "marshals" (i.e., UN peace-keepers) once the situation stabilized.

Even the estimates made by Powell and other military leaders concerning the departure date were overly optimistic. Discussions between U.S. and UN officials in February, 1993, led to an agreement that most American troops would be withdrawn by late April or early May. A residual force of approximately 5,000 personnel will remain indefinitely, however, either in Somalia itself or on U.S. warships offshore, as part of a UN peace-keeping operation. The American personnel will be under UN command, something the Pentagon long has opposed. It is symbolic of the lack of public or Congressional debate about the entire Somalia operation that such a precedent-setting move apparently will take place without serious scrutiny of the possible long-term consequences.

The Bush Administration's optimistic expectations about the short duration of the U.S. intervention and the ability to avoid heavy casualties were dependent on a number of factors. One of the most important was whether this intervention was something more than a publicity gesture to allow Bush to leave office having "done something" about the suffering in Somalia. (The prime-time landing of the Marines in Mogadishu under the blaze of television camera lights also lent credence to the thesis that the Somalia operation at least partly was designed to be promotional advertising for maintaining the current size and budget of the armed forces.) If U.S. policymakers merely intended to make a grand display of American military prowess in overawing Somalia?s feuding militias just long enough to get relief supplies flowing, there always was a reasonable chance that U.S. forces would be able to leave Somalia with minimal casualties. Of course, Somalia probably would revert to chaos once the American troops departed, and the intervention thus would have accomplished nothing of any lasting importance. If Washington's goal was to have a long-term beneficial impact on the suffering in Somalia, however, the risks were appreciably higher.

Even during the initial phases of the Somalia operation, U.S. military leaders discovered how difficult it is to keep the focus on limited humanitarian objectives and avoid getting caught up in the political struggles. They have found that there is at best a vague zone of transition from one mission to the other. Almost immediately, many proponents of intervention argued that creating the conditions necessary for the distribution of relief supplies required disarming, rather than intimidating, the militias--an inherently dangerous undertaking.

The U.S. military command's response to such calls has been one of caution. There has been an attempt to walk a tightrope, confiscating heavy weapons from militia units whenever possible. while generally ignoring smaller weapons unless they posed a direct threat to American forces. Even that cautious approach has been fraught with problems. Some Somali political leaders complain that U.S. military units make a greater effort to disarm the militias of certain factions than others. It is precisely such suspicions about alleged favoritism that have the potential to entangle the Marines in the political feuds.

Just days before Bush's announcement, Smith Hempstone, the American ambassador to Kenya, cautioned in a confidential cable to his State Department superiors that the US. should think "once, twice, and three times" before Letting involved in Somalia. Referring to the ill-fated U.S. intervention in Lebanon in 1982-83 that cost the lives of more than 260 Marines, Hempstone concluded, "If you liked Beirut, you'll love Mogadishu."

The small number of U.S. casualties during the initial weeks of t he intervention suggests that Hempstone's assessment may have been excessively pessimistic. Nevertheless, his apprehension was not unreasonable. There are disturbing parallels between the situation in Lebanon during the early 1980s and the current environment in Somalia--for instance, politically fractured societies with an assortment of heavily armed militias backing various factions. The U.S.-led multinational peace-keeping force went into Lebanon with the best of intentions, determined to dampen the violence and alleviate civilian suffering without becoming entangled in the underlying political disputes. For a while, they were welcomed by most, if not all, of the long-beleaguered Lebanese people.

Ultimately, though, it became clear that, regardless of U.S. intentions, there was no such thing as a politically neutral intervention. The mere presence of the peacekeeping forces bolstered the positions of some players (primarily Christian leader Amin Gemayel) in Lebanon's complicated power struggle at the expense of others. Disadvantaged factions then began targeting the Marines for retaliation, and sniper fire soon started taking a toll. The intervention reached its disastrous culmination in October, 1983, when a terrorist bomb blew up the Marine barracks in Beirut, claiming 241 American lives.

Perhaps the mission in Somalia will have a happier outcome, but the similarities of the two situations should make U.S. policymakers apprehensive. There has been a pervasive tendency among American commentators to dismiss the contending Somali forces as "warlords," "bandits," and "thugs." Although those terms may reflect some truth, the political landscape in Somalia is more complicated than such facile descriptions imply. Somalia may not be fractured along religious and ideological lines to the extent that Lebanon was, but there is a political dimension to the clan-based fighting and the overriding power struggle between the two principal "war-lords," interim president Ali Mahdi Mohamed and the chairman of the United Somali Congress, Mohamed Farah Aideed.

Given that power struggle, Aideed's surprising receptivity to the deployment of U.S. forces should cause suspicion, rather than rejoicing. Aideed stresses the need for an effective central government, and there is little doubt about whom he has in mind to head it. He well may hope that the U.S. intervention will help him finally to outmaneuver his rivals, and he even may be hoping for tacit American support for his effort to consolidate power. US. special envoy Robert B. Oakley's "mediation" efforts certainly have had the effect of elevating the importance of Aideed and Mahdi (especially the former) compared to the other militia commanders. There also are subtle signs that Washington may regard Aideed as both the probable winning candidate for power and the lesser of the political evils in Somalia. The perception of U.S. favoritism has led some of Aideed's rivals--most notably Gen. Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan, whose forces control most of the region along the border with Kenya--to regard the American military presence with mounting hostility.

To complicate the political landscape further, there is a potent secessionist effort, led by the Somali National Movement, to create an independent republic of Somaliland in northern Somalia. Indeed, clan leaders there have taken advantage of the absence of a strong central government in Mogadishu not only to proclaim, but to make great progress toward establishing, their new state--although it has yet to receive diplomatic recognition from the international community.

The volatile and multifaceted political environment in Somalia creates continuing dangers for American forces. The longer they remain, the greater the likelihood that they will be viewed by one or more factions not as impartial purveyors of humanitarian relief, but outside meddlers with their own agenda. The greatest danger will exist for the residual U.S. force that is supposed to remain behind as part of the long-term UN peace-keeping operation. That is especially true because several Somali factions view the UN with undisguised suspicion. If American troops are seen as participants in the power struggle, it is inevitable that they will become the targets of disgruntled or disillusioned factions. There is little chance of large-scale battles with an opposing army, but there always is the danger of sniper fire, booby traps, and the other hit-and-run tactics that guerrilla forces employ to inflict limited, but debilitating, casualties.

In a best-case scenario, that may not happen, but the Somalia intervention is the foreign policy equivalent of bungee jumping--a risky undertaking without a compelling need. While it is impossible not to be distressed by heart-rending scenes of violence and starvation, emotionalism rarely is a wise guide for policy. Washington can and should support the humanitarian relief effort in every prudent way possible, and it has, in fact, already made major contributions of food and other items and provided planes and ships to transport the supplies to East Africa. Putting American soldiers in harm's way is another matter. That risk never should be taken unless the security interests of the republic are imperiled.

Token support

U.S. officials have emphasized from the outset that the intervention in Somalia is a United Nations' operation. As Bush stressed, not only was the introduction of military forces approved by the Security Council, but troops from approximately a dozen countries would be joining the American units. Colin Powell and other spokesmen also offered assurances that US. forces would be withdrawn as soon as UN "peace-keepers" were available to take over their duties.

There is less to this UN intervention, however, than meets the eye. Most of the dozen nations that offered to join the operation made little more than token contributions of troops. Despite confident predictions that as many as 20,000 soldiers from other countries would support American forces, barely half that number arrived. The U.S. deployment of more than 25,000 troops dwarfed the meager contributions of its UN "partners."

The pattern is depressingly familiar. The two largest UN peace-making or peace-enforcement missions--in Korea and the Persian Gulf--exhibited a similar disparity. In the former, the U.S. provided nearly 90% of the outside (non-South Korean) forces for what was supposedly a UN "police" action. The situation in the Gulf War was only slightly better, with America providing nearly 80% of the outside forces.

As was the case in the Gulf War, there have been some notable absentees from the Somalia intervention. Japan once again has declined to send troops, citing Article 9 of its Peace Constitution as an impediment. Germany has done the same, contending that its Basic Law (Constitution) prohibits sending German forces outside NATO's theater of operations.

Perhaps the most conspicuous absentees are member states of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It would seem that the conflict in Somalia is precisely the type of situation that such a regional organization is designed to handle. However, the OAU has failed to take any meaningful action, preferring to pass the responsibility along to the UN, which, in operational terms, means to the U.S. Nor have the individual members displayed much enthusiasm for the Somalian mission. Only Nigeria (1,000 troops), Zimbabwe (1,000), and Egypt (600) have pledged military personnel--and most of them are earmarked for the subsequent UN peace-keeping force that is to take over from the U.S. command once the situation is stabilized fully.

There is reason to question the sincerity of Washington's portrayal of the Somalia intervention as a genuinely collaborative international enterprise. That representation would seem to be designed primarily to, once again, thinly disguise a U.S. operation under a UN patina and defuse potential domestic opposition.

There is also reason to wonder whether an adequate UN peace-keeping force will be available to take over the Somalian mission from the U.S. in May. Gen. Powell's assumption that the American "cavalry" will be able to transfer responsibility to the UN "marshals" ignores the possibility that there may be an insufficient number of marshals; they may have no inclination to become entangled in combat operations; or they may have policy agendas that could actually worsen the situation in Somalia.

The last point deserves far more attention than it has received. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the members of the Security Council were disturbingly vague about the UN's long-term political objectives in Somalia--other than the cliche of restoring order--when they authorized the U.S.-led intervention. Nevertheless, American officials did not seem inclined to ask probing questions about such matters. Among other things, they should have determined explicitly what the UN's position was on Somaliland's bid for independence.

Given the long-standing UN bias for perpetuating the international status quo--even when it means trying to preserve artificial and inherently unstable political entities such as Sudan and Zaire--it was highly probable that UN "peace-keepers" would try to discourage, if not forcibly suppress, the breakaway republic. Boutros-Ghali's emphasis on the goal of reconciliation of all Somali factions would seem to leave little room for the option of secession. Ominously, once it takes over the military mission from the U.S., the UN intends to deploy peace-keeping forces throughout all of Somalia--including Somaliland.

Insisting on maintaining Somalia's territorial integrity would be a grave error since the people of northern Somalia (minority groups as well as the dominant Issak clan) have demonstrated that they want to determine their own political destiny, and they thus far largely have managed to avoid the chaos and starvation that have afflicted southern Somalia. It would be morally odious for the U.S. to be an accomplice in destroying the aspirations for independence of the people of Somaliland, but there is no indication that American policymakers gave the matter the slightest thought when they committed the US. to being the UN's military agent in Somalia.

Inherent dangers of global intervention

In addition to the risks inherent in the Somalia intervention itself, the action creates a dangerous precedent for the U.S. The various military interventions Washington launched during the Cold War at least arguably were related to the defense of American security interests--although that justification sometimes was stretched to the breaking point. Even the Gulf War had a plausible (albeit weak) security rationale. No one contends that Somalia has the slightest relevance to the security of the U.S. The justification for this intervention is based entirely on appeals to America's "moral obligations."

That is what makes the Somalian precedent so worrisome. If the U.S. abandons its own security interests as the standard by which to decide whether to use military force, there is virtually no limit to the possible arenas in which American lives may be sacrificed. Washington will have a rudderless foreign policy buffeted by the unpredictable winds of emotionalism. Where and when we intervene will be determined by television images of suffering or the lobbying skills of foreign political factions, not the relevance of the stakes to the security of the American republic.

If moral outrage is the new guiding principle for U.S. military action, there will be a surplus of opportunities to risk American lives. How does one justify intervention in Somalia, but not a few hundred miles away in Sudan, where a seemingly interminable civil war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians? Indeed, according to Margaret Calhoun, an African expert at the International Freedom Foundation, some 2,000,000 Sudanese face starvation in the coming year--twice the number that were considered at risk in Somalia. Predictably, a Congressional delegation returned from a visit to southern Sudan with demands that the U.S. "do something" about the suffering. The effects of internecine conflicts in Liberia, Angola, and Mozambique are similarly appalling. Virtually every argument used to justify taking action in Somalia could be used for intervention in any of those places.

Moreover, Africa is not the only arena of political turmoil and massive suffering. Bloody strife persists in Afghanistan, Moldova, East Timor, the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Turkey, the republic of Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Sri Lanka, and, of course, the former Yugoslavia. One must ask whether supporters of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention will advocate U.S.-led interventions in those tragic conflicts as well. It is of no comfort that some of the strongest proponents of intervention in Somalia (including New York Times columnists Anthony Lewis and Leslie Gelb) also have been beating the war drums for action in Yugoslavia.

Former President Ronald Reagan has gone further, suggesting that, just as the democracies banded together to defeat Soviet totalitarianism, they now should unite to "impose civilized standards of behavior on those who flout every measure of human decency." He calls for the creation of a permanent UN army (presumably with extensive U.S. participation) to establish global order and carry out a policy he describes as a "human velvet glove backed by a steel fist of military force." A permanent UN army also is popular with other advocates of humanitarian intervention and is being pushed vigorously by Boutros-Ghali.

It is increasingly apparent that aggressive interventionists regard the Somalian mission not as an exceptional measure, but as the prototype for American policy in the post-Cold War world. Some even spin elaborate schemes for UN trusteeships or a revival of Western colonialism--backed, of course, by the military power of the U.S.--to manage such chaotic situations as those in Somalia, Yugoslavia, Liberia, and Haiti.

The American people should oppose the policy symbolized by the Somalia intervention. Accepting the costs and risks of intervening in internal or regional conflicts during the Cold War to thwart allies and clients of the Soviet Union was bad enough--especially since that strategy led the U.S. into such quagmires as Vietnam. Doing so in the post-Cold War period when there is no need to counter the threat posed by a rival superpower is far worse. In the absence of a compelling strategic rationale, meddling in an assortment of parochial struggles would be masochism.

The primary responsibility of the U.S. government is to guard the security and liberty of the American people. Washington has neither a constitutional nor moral writ to play Don Quixote and attempt to rectify all the ills of the world. American lives and resources must not be sacrificed in international military crusades waged in the name of humanitarian intervention. Defending the security of the republic is a demanding enough task for the armed forces of the U.S. The nation's leaders never again should let American troops become the Hessians of the 1990s--the hired guns of the UN Security Council--as they have in Somalia.

Mr. Carpenter, director of foreign policy studies, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., is author of A Search for Enemies: America's Alliances After the Cold War.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Society for the Advancement of Education
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