Losing Mogadishu

Book excerpt: To determine the causes of Operation Restore Hope's ultimate failure, a journalist who reported on Somalia in 1992 and 1993 examines U.S. involvement there from the Cold War, through the country's civil war and famine, to the present. Part reportage, part analysis, Jonathan Stevenson's book aims both to inform and to provoke opinion. His dissection of the operation's disappointing results, and his suggestions about how American efforts might have been more effective, should stimulate pointed discussion at a time when the Congress is shying away from humanitarian and military commitments overseas.