"In December 1992, US President George H.W. Bush informed the American public that the United States could no longer stand by and watch the worsening humanitarian disaster unfold in Somalia. The country had been under the brutal socialist dictatorship of Mohammed Siad Barre. After Barres exile, various Somali factions, once united against the government, then turned on each other for control of the country. Shattered by civil war, a drought, and, increasingly, famine, Somalia inspired the coining and first use of a new term: "failed state." The First Failed State is the first multinational, multi-archival history of the military intervention in Somalia, which saw the largest-ever deployment of American troops to the continent of Africa, the first UN-led peace enforcement mission in history, and the most ambitious experiment in nation-building. Based on previously unstudied sources from American, United Nations, and coalition archives, The First Failed State is the first scholarly work to examine the entire intervention from its early and largely successful humanitarian phase through to the tragic Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993-made famous by the movie Black Hawk Down-and the ultimate withdrawal of UN forces in 1995.

Author Jonathan Carroll dispels several myths and misunderstandings about the intervention, and presents a new interpretation of events, most notably by including the Somali perspective"-- Provided by publisher."The first historical look at what happened during the Somalia intervention; what went wrong and what lessons we should learn from it.The story of Black Hawk Down is a familiar one. On 3 October 1993 two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and in the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu eighteen Americans and hundreds of Somalis were killed. But very few appreciate that this was just one day in a two-and-a-half-year operation; the most ambitious attempt in history to rebuild a nation. The United States sought to show the world that the UN could rebuild a country, but in a dire foreshadowing of the failed efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade later, the intervention in Somalia was plagued with political infighting, policy mismatch, confusion, and fatal assumptions.In 1992 Somalia saw the largest ever deployment of American troops to the continent of Africa, and 1993 brought the first UN-led peace enforcement mission and the most ambitious experiment in nation-building. In Beyond Black Hawk Down, Jonathan Carroll provides the first scholarly military history of the entire intervention, from its early and largely successful humanitarian phase in 1992 through to the ultimate withdrawal of UN forces in 1995.

Carroll dispels the myths and misunderstandings surrounding one of the most infamous episodes of the 1990s to present a new interpretation of events, most notably by including the Somali perspective, to argue what went so wrong in Somalia, and more importantly, why. Understanding the intervention in Somalia, its successes and the roots of its failures, is invaluable to contemporary debates on concepts of nation-building and counterinsurgency. Moreover, the increasing regularity of inter-state and intra-state conflicts across the world means the international community will continue to be called upon to intervene in other failed or failing states in the future. Beyond Black Hawk Down is an important new history that will inform the shape and nature of future military interventions"-- Provided by publisher.