>Yoshie has argued that all western military interventions have been
>disastrous, and in the interest of the invaders. Certainly I agree with the
>latter point, although that does not necessarily mean an invasion is not in
>someone else's interests too.
>
>About the disastrousness of western military interventions, I am not sure
>if I am quoting Yoshie quite correctly but I do recall her highlighting the
>negative lessons of the US intervention in Somalia.
>
>Recent a British military analyst was arguing that the relevant comparison
>militarily with East Timor was Somalia. In the latter, he said the US went
>in with massive power and very aggressively. By contrast he applauded the
>military wisdom of the Australian led force that has not over-reached
>itself and had established its position step by step.
The point about the Timor approach and the "less offensive" use of Australian and NZ troops in a "humanitarian" exercise is that the West learned lessons from Somalia.
The interesting thing about the US intervention in Somalia was that they could mess it up so badly and get away with it. I think this is a result of Africa's relative marginalisation from the world economy and the lack of any real political opposition to this kind of intervention (even from the "humanitarian" NGO lobby). This allowed America in particular to utilise Somalia as a testing ground for new kinds of intervention. The fact that America's "Operation Restore Hope" (note the humanitarian title) intervention was a total disaster and set off a chain of events which ultimately led to the collapse of the Somali state - but more importantly, that this collapse has had no serious political repercussions for the West - shows just how they used Africa in particular to conduct their experiments in how to manage a new world order.
This led them to develop new forms of 'pro-active' intervention e.g. genocide prevention. Subsequent events saw the flooding of a country like Burundi with an army of Western conflict resolution experts after the Rwanda disaster. The way things look for Africa is that they will in future utilise a Western-trained African army (South Africa is already scheduled to play the leading role in this as the junior partner in a perceived special relationship with the US) as a conflict resolution mechanism. Reduced western rivalry in Africa - there is much greater consensus at present on this kind of intervention - also makes this kind of approach easier.
Russell