Battle of Mogadishu

Major Roger N. Sangvic, U. S. Army Military Intelligence, examines the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, made famous by the Mark Bowden book "Blackhawk Down" which was later made into a popular movie. The author has shown that the failure of the Task Force Ranger (TFR) mission on 3-4 October 1993 was the result of a system failure. Had the risk of all TFR operations been reassessed more thoroughly and/or a better job done coordinating policy shift in light of increased risks, it is likely that the three October raid would not have occurred. TFR's 3 October mission failed as a result of the overall organization, not the decisions of any one person or unit. As other military analysts have observed, military misfortune is not merely the result of an individual mistake, but rather, the result of series of mistakes throughout a system.