Channels, Fall 2016

Page 18 Dotson • The Successes and Failures of the Battle of Mogadishu adheres to its policy of non-intervention. To this point, the United States has still refused to intervene in both Libya and Syria, offering only token airstrikes and small surgical-strike teams in Syria and next to nothing in Libya. 48 Even the small presence in Syria would adhere to the current policy of non-intervention as the involvement is only occurring because the nation poses a significant security risk for the United States; both Russia and the United States are grasping for power in the country. The true test, however, will be in Iraq as the United States has already begun re-inserting troops to combat the Islamic State’s push to retake the country. This will mark a decision point for United States foreign policy doctrine due to the drastic change the conflict has seen since the initial invasion of Baghdad in 2003. From 2003 until the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011, the War in Iraq had been a direct result of national security interests following the attack on September 11, 2001. With ISIS on the rise in recent years, however, the United States has begun re- inserting troops to quell this uprising. If the U.S. does choose to reinsert mass amounts of troops, it will no longer be under the guise of retaliation for an attack like the war was from 2003-2011. Whether the decision comes because the American people have already invested interest in the rebuilding of Iraq over the past decade or because the U.S. is going through yet another morph of its foreign policy doctrine, ISIS-controlled Iraq will continue to be America’s battleground both militarily and politically. The political disaster in 1993 Somalia so drastically affected the United States government that American involvement in other crises such as Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur was all but nonexistent. No longer did the American people view themselves as invincible on the world stage; Somalia showed them they were vulnerable. The battle also marked the change in an era. 19th Century America was viewed as expansionist. The 20th century saw America take the role of global peacekeeper, and the 1993 incident in Somali marked the beginning of an era of non-intervention for the United States. Whether Iraq will truly be the end of the current foreign policy doctrine or not, the Battle of Mogadishu has left its permanent mark on America both in terms of the American attitude and the nation’s policy making. With almost three million casualties combined in the tragedies in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur alone, the consequences of the Battle of Mogadishu and American non-intervention will not be soon forgotten. 48 U.S. troops in Syria, but is it enough to beat ISIS?, CBS News , December 15, 2015, accessed March 23, 2016, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-troops-special-operations-forces-obama-syria-isis/ .