BLACK HAWK DOWN: A STORY OF MODERN WARFARE

• Main Author: Abel Esterhuyse
• Format: Article
• Language: Afrikaans
• Published: Stellenbosch University 2012-02-01
• Series: Scientia Militaria
• Subjects: Somali militias in Mogadishu; militia leader Mohammed Farrah Aideed; surgical operation; American forces; military action on 3 October 1993
• Online Access: http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/170

<p>Robert D. Kaplan in his illuminating article "The Coming Anarchy", published in the Atlantic Monthly of February 1994, emphasises the fact that <em>"Africa</em> <em>may be marginal in terms of conventional late-twentieth-century conceptions of</em> <em>strategy, but in an age of cultural and racial clash, when national defense </em>is <em>increasingly local, Africa's distress will exert a destabilizing influence on the United</em> <em>States ". </em>This point was clearly illustrated during 1993 in a battle between American Colin Gray; Modern Strategy; a logical pathway of strategic theory, its history and the future; The Strategist's Toolkit forces and Somali militias in Mogadishu. Bowden's book focuses on this military action on 3 October 1993, when a US task force consisting of US Rangers and Delta force operators embarked on a mission to capture two high-ranking deputies of the militia leader Mohammed Farrah Aideed. Instead of a quick success, a so-called surgical operation, the American forces found themselves surrounded and pinned down in a hostile African city. The result was a drawn-out battle in which the fierce resistance of the Somali militia and civilians and the downing of two helicopters unhinged the American forces</p>