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3 - Wars Other Than War

Wars in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2021

Thomas H. Henriksen
Affiliation:
Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, California
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Summary

This chapter chronicles military incursions on behalf of humanity into Somalia, Haiti, and the Balkans twice to feed the starving, restore democracy, and rescue populations from annihilation. These altruistic missions, known as “military operations other than war,” or MOOTW (pronounced as “moot-wah”) were viewed skeptically by the traditionally minded Pentagon brass. They regarded MOOTW as a diversion from real soldiering. But troops died in them. George H. W. Bush committed US forces, under United Nations auspices, to Somalia so as to distribute food to the starving Somalis in their volatile and violent land. This humanitarian mission led to a bloody skirmish in Mogadishu during William J. Clinton’s presidency that politically humiliated America. Also in 1993, a military junta in Haiti ousted the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When desperate Haitians landed on American beaches, Clinton tried sanctions to restore Aristide. Then he militarily invaded the Caribbean nation to put defrocked Catholic priest back in power. Sobered by the “Mog” firefight, Clinton refused to help halt the bloodbath in Rwanda. He could not avoid the raging war in the Balkans to rescue Bosnian Muslims from Serbia in the worst conflict since World War II. In 1995, Washington corralled Britain, France, and other NATO members into bombing the Serbs and then occupying Bosnia to preserve the peace. Next, the tiny Muslim-dominated province of Kosovo erupted against its Serb overlords. A three-month sustained bombing campaign compelled Serbia to surrender.

Type
Chapter
Information
America's Wars
Interventions, Regime Change, and Insurgencies after the Cold War
, pp. 56 - 103
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Wars Other Than War
  • Thomas H. Henriksen, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, California
  • Book: America's Wars
  • Online publication: 16 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053242.004
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  • Wars Other Than War
  • Thomas H. Henriksen, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, California
  • Book: America's Wars
  • Online publication: 16 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053242.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Wars Other Than War
  • Thomas H. Henriksen, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, California
  • Book: America's Wars
  • Online publication: 16 December 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009053242.004
Available formats
×