Beyond Black Hawk Down: Intervention, Nation-Building, and Insurgency in Somalia, 1992-1995

The story of Black Hawk Down is a familiar one. On 3 October 1993 two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and in the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu eighteen Americans and hundreds of Somalis were killed. But very few appreciate that this was one day in a two-and-a-half-year operation; the most ambitious attempt in history to rebuild a nation. The United States sought to show the world that the UN could rebuild a country, but in a dire foreshadowing of the failed efforts in Iraq and Afghanis...