Operation Gothic Serpent: The Battle Of Mogadishu Somalia

Mission Command is the framework used by the U.S. Army to ensure key leaders receive clear direction from commanders. Clear commander’s guidance allows subordinates to make disciplined and informed decisions to best accomplish assigned tasks. Ideally, application of mission command principles ensures all elements integrate and sync actions, thus creating a shared understanding and purpose. Analysis of Major General (MG) William Garrison’s decision making during the Battle of Mogadishu demonstrates how mission command principles must be applied to gain and maintain a position of advantage during military ground operations. As commander of Task Force Ranger (TFR), MG Garrison demonstrated both successful and failed application of mission command principles. Four principles will be discussed in the

In early 1990 Somalia was going through a civil war. Their dictator Mohammed Farrah had order the closer of all food transportation that entered the country. He`s goal was to kill his own people by starving them to death. About 300,000 civilians had died of hunger. In response, the united States send troops to Somalia to capture Mohammed Farrah., the self-proclaimed president of Somalia. They soon found out that the best strategic was to capture Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Queybdiid, two of Mohammed top advisers. The special mission was to be done by experienced man as well as new recruits. The operation was supposed to have taken about 30 minutes on Octuber 3, 1993. There objective were the two top advisers of Mohammed that

In 1994, a conflict the US couldn't understand, between clans and tribes it didn't know, in a country where there were no national interests, occurred. The Rwandan War of 1994 did not deserve US intervention. There are four contentions on why the US should not have gotten involved in this Rwandan war. The Black Hawk Down incident, how the UN was there previously there, there being no Possible Gain, and having nothing to do with us. Through the examination of the novel, An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina, it is Obvious that these key points are valid.

The United States from the Cold War and into the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) continues to face challenges in translating military might into political desires due to its obsession with raising an army, electing politicians and assembling a diplomatic corp that continue to gravitate towards State-to-State engagements that if not rectified could lead to substantial delays in fighting terrorism and non-terrorist adversaries or worse total failure of the United States Military’s ability to properly carry out it’s politicians objectives due to being blindsided.

As acknowledge in the paragraph above the authors of this third edition book are Allan R. Millett, Peter Maslowski, and William B. Feis and they completely revised and expanded the book by adding more events and details of the American military experience in the Balkans and Somalia,by analyzing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2012, and by providing two new chapters on the Vietnam War.All of the authors of this history book are well educated and obviously know a lot about the history of the United States. Millet is a “University Research Professor,Ambrose Professor of History, and Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University

Operation Anaconda was the first major joint combat operation against the war on terror that the US was committed to winning. This operation would test our military’s readiness for joint operations against a hardened and willing adversary. The primary mission was to kill/capture Taliban/Al Qaeda forces occupying towns and villages in the vicinity of Shahi Khot in order to gain control of the valley.1 The US needed the towns, villages, mountains, and more importantly, the intricate and hard to access caves cleared of enemy fighters. Units participating in the operation included elements of the 101st Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division, Special Operations Forces (SOF), and Coalition forces from seven nations

The use of Irregular Warfare has been ongoing for years around the world. Irregular warfare is described as a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations. I will discuss where the U.S. may apply military force in conjunction with other means of national power to stabilize the nation of Somalia. I will also discuss why it would be considered as an Irregular Warfare environment.

With little to no worth in natural resources, Somalia was of no strategic value. In 1960 Somali was born and almost immediately they had started to have conflicts with the neighbouring country. With the assassination of their president in 1969, General Siad Barre started to take power and initiated a coup. Later on is when he started to have dictator like tendencies and only appointing his clan and family to power. Only after this is when Operation Deliverance was initiated – an operation set out to retrieve a Canadian journalist and to control and disband Siad Barre. Later on this mission turned into a political nightmare with protests in Ohio, Kenya, and Somalia. This goes to show that Canada does not have the ability to extract a target with tactical precision without raising alarm and protest without the help of an ally.

The battle I will be discussing is the battle of Tora Bora. The engagement took place in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan from December 12, 2001 to December 17, 2001. The units involved were from the CIA, numerous Special Forces groups, Pakistani soldiers and local anti-Taliban fighters. The mission given to the forces was to kill Osama bin Laden from the caves, leave the body with the Taliban and disrupt the Al Qaeda organization by removing their leader. The intent was to infiltrate the cave system, remove bin Laden and return home.

Throughout history, the United States Government and Armed Forces have learned from devastating mistakes and decisive victories making the US Armed Forces superior to most, if not all, other militaries; however, the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia throughout Operation Restore Hope, Operation Provide Relief, and the Joint Special Operations Task Force missed the mark on such “lessons learned”. The inadequate intelligence; the ignorance of tactics, techniques, and procedures; and absence of reinforcements cost needless loss of US troops, and crippling a sophisticated, well-equipped military at the hands of an under-equipped militia using irregular warfare tactics. Even 24 years later, the impact resonating still weighs heavily on minds of key leaders in the government along with all echelons of military commanders.

The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and the Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe then went from house to house killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians. U.N peacekeeping forces known as the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda) stood by as the slaughter went on as they were forbidden to intervene, because it would breach their "monitoring" mandate. The next day on April 7th , 1994 ten Belgian soldiers with UNAMIR, who were assigned to guard the moderate Hutu prime minister Uwilingiymana, were tricked into giving up their weapons and were brutally tortured and murdered along with Uwilingiymana. On April 9th, 1994, France and Belgium sent troops to rescue their citizens; American Citizens were also airlifted out. However no Rwandans were rescued, not even those who were employed by western governments.

The day started as another usual on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Zangabad. I had woken up to ensure that my men had all of their sensitive items on them and report to my Squad Leader that they did. On that day we were heading out to T.I. 2, a desolate array of Hesco barriers set up as an Afghan Uniformed Police (AUP) Checkpoint. It was our Company’s responsibility to partner with the AUP down there to help protect T.I. 2 so that they can conduct their own patrols. It was located roughly a thousand meters south of Fob Zangabad, and about five hundred meters east of the town of Gerandi. Gerandi was the stronghold of the Taliban in that area, so T.I. 2 was key to disrupting their operations in the surrounding area. So it was vital that we helped secure it for the AUP and watch the any activity coming out of the town from our guard towers and RAID camera.

In the book, The Serpent's Shadow, by Rick Riordan is an interesting book. The book is about how in the book, Kane siblings, Sadie and Carter, have been involved in the releasing of the ancient Egyptian god, Apophis, an embodiment of Chaos, and now are struggling to find a way to stop him destroying the world. Apophis, the god of chaos, wants to swallow the sun which is his arch nemesis, The sun god Ra, and destroy the world. No one knows of anyway to stop Apophis, but Sadie and Carter think they have stumbled upon a guarded secret that will do kill Apophis. They have to find Apophis shadow and use a spell to remove him from existence to save the world. The character that I interpret to be bad is Apophis. Apophis killed many magicians in the

By November of 1992, conditions were getting worse instead of better. Food was still being stolen and sold off to clan leaders while aid workers were threatened and attacked. Americans were stunned at the lawlessness and starvation. Thousands of troops were ordered into Somalia to assist in the aid by President George H. Bush. Now food was getting to the people that it was intended for but distrust for the American soldiers was growing after they often violated Somalis privacy by bursting into their homes and confiscating the weapons that was the Somalis only defense against the opposing clans.6 In March of 1993 the U.S. withdrew most of its troops leaving the security of the people to the UN. By this time anger was growing towards the outsiders and the UN took most of the fallout for that by being attacked regularly. Hostility grew even more when the UN announced that the clan led by Aidid was the one responsible for the lawlessness in Somalia.7 When the UN took sides against the most powerful warlord in Somalia, the attacks against the aid workers was stepped up. 24 Pakistani peace keepers were killed

In August of 1992, President George Bush Sr. sent US soldiers into Somalia to provide humanitarian relief to those Somalis suffering from starvation. The major problems in Somalia started when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of opposing clans. Although there were several opposing groups, the prominent one was led by Mohammed Farah Aidid. Following the overthrow of Barre, a massive power struggle ensued. These small scale civil wars led to the destruction of the agriculture in Somalia, which in turn led to the deprivation of food in large parts of the country. When the international community heard of this, large quantities of food were sent to ease Somali suffering. However, clan leaders like Aidid routinely