DISARMING SOMALIA: THE CONTRASTING FORTUNES OF UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIAN PEACEKEEPERS DURING UNITED NATIONS INTERVENTION, 1992-1993

This article examines the impact of ‘micro disarmament’during the United States/United Nations humanitarian interventionin Somalia, 1992–93. To this end, it considers the controversialnature of the UNITAF mandate, the disarmament experiences ofAmerican and Australian peacekeepers in Mogadishu and Baidoaand the lessons yielded from a comparative analysis. The argumentthat emerges is that the absence of a consistent strategy linkingdisarmament and political reconciliation, not peace enforcementper se, largely condemned the UN operation to failure. If theUS had positioned itself, like the Australians in Baidoa, abovethe warlords instead of between them, the picture for UN interventionin Somalia may have looked quite different. The integrated Australianapproach revealed that the international community, confrontedwith other Somalias, may yet have a wider choice than impotenceor muscular peace-enforcement.