Will these troopers be as effective as American or European soldiers at establishing a peace? Will the rebels or Liberian gov forces respect them? The next 30-60 days should be interesting.
Associated Press
Monday, August 04, 2003
MONROVIA, Liberia — West Africa’s first troops landed Monday on an international rescue mission for Liberia.
Nigerian soldiers in green camouflage and flak vests leapt from of white U.N. helicopters onto the tarmac at Liberia’s main airport, outside the country’s besieged capital.
Machine guns at the ready, they crouched, taking up defensive positions on the landing strip.
West African leaders promise an eventual 3,250-strong deployment charged with helping end 14 years of conflict in the war-ruined country — and overseeing the departure of warlord turned-president Charles Taylor.
Authorities said 192 men and 33,000 pounds of equipment would deploy Monday. The West African deployment is to be followed within months by a U.N. peacekeeping force.
By: Geforce - 8th August 2003 at 07:25
Well, they can base them on a US Carrier! Ofcourse, to make space, they should drop some Hornets into the sea, but who cares :D.
By: US Agent - 7th August 2003 at 22:45
Originally posted by Geforce
don’t they have jaguars?
I think they do…but how would they get them to Liberia?…and where would they base them?
:confused:
By: Geforce - 5th August 2003 at 14:35
don’t they have jaguars?
By: ink - 5th August 2003 at 11:32
In the event of a serious fire-fight will the Nigerian AF be able to offer its troops any kind of air-support? If yes, what assets do they have within reaching distance of their troops? Will they be deploying any helicopters capable of providing CAS?
Sorry guys, I’m a little ignorant about the Nigerian AF.
By: Geforce - 5th August 2003 at 07:33
Srebrenica was a UN-mission under NATO-controll, so these soldiers were not operatings as blue berets. In normal fighting conditions, like here, they should have got the air support they requested, but something went wrong at NATO HQ.
By: skythe - 5th August 2003 at 05:44
US Agent is quite right in stating that in order for peacekeepers to work there has to be peace first.
The last decades have actually seen very few instances in which Peacekeeping operations have been successful. The simple fact of the matter is that Peacekeeprs only work when the opposing sides facing each other want the peace maintained. UN or international forces usually have nor the mandate, nor the will nor the capability to actively keep the peace, they are totally dependant on the will of the people for whom there are supposed to keep it. As long as fighting continues, there’s very little to be done.
Srebrenica is a tragic example – Dutch peacekeeping efforts were worth nothing more than Serb promises. The same goes for UN forces in southern Lebanon who for over 20 years have had no effect whatsoever on fighting in the region. Operations in Somalia didn’t fail because Somalis were “overwhelmed” or because they “didn’t know what peacekeepers were”. They failed because Somali warlords had no interest in any peace that would take away their power, food distribution that would lessen their control of the people.
What good are they then? UN forces are effective as a way to ensure a fragile peace, to allow trust to evolve between opposing forces or to put in place a process that both sides want. An example of this would be UN efforts in Cambodia in the early 90s, leading to elections. Another would be the UN separation forces on the Golan Heights, observing the ceasefire between Israel and Syria. These work because both sides want them to work, yet may be too distrustful of each other.
As long as governments lack the political will to conduct military operations towards bringing an end the fighting, peacekeeping efforts may be quite useless.
By: frankvw - 4th August 2003 at 22:58
Not sure… If you start to plinker around, you have a whole population against you (like Chechenia, or other places). If you keep the masses out of another, you can achieve that “peace”. The whole problem is to keep it… after the “peacekeepers” left. And that is where the hardest job is.
By: US Agent - 4th August 2003 at 22:51
Shouldn’t there be a “peace” to keep first?
The fighting is still ongoing from what I understand.
Without heavy armor and air power, the Nigerians will be sitting ducks.
By: Geforce - 4th August 2003 at 22:29
I do think these peacekeepers will be quite effective. Actually, for peacekeeping mission operations, it doesn’t matter wheter you have a modern or good equipped army. Using too much force will cause reactions much like Somalia. These people didn’t attack because they were against Americans (they were so drogued they probably didn’t even know what America was), but because they were getting overwhelmed and didn’t know what peacekeepers were.
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August 4, 2003 at 10:05 pm