May 14, 2012
Dick Betts is a Genius
I am going to write a blog post.
Some attempts to use force in this multilateral and limited
manner – such as in the second phase of the Somalia intervention in 1993, “pinprick”
punishments in Bosnia before 1995, or the initial assault on Serbia in 1999 –
proved ineffectual and surprisingly costly. This was because the U.S. and NATO
forces found themselves acting not as police suppressing individuals or small
groups, but in acts of war, confronting organized mass resistance by force of
arms. This was discomfiting to those who unleash force for humanitarian reasons
because they do not like the idea of killing people and breaking things even
for good purposes. They hope for clean application of force without casualties,
or at least combat in which only the guilty are destroyed and large numbers of
civilian deaths are an aberration.
Said Dick Betts from this book.