West Africa’s Decisive Intervention: A Lesson in Strategy

interesting Turn of Events... Looks Just Like another Dictator refusing to yield to the Will of the People...

..."... The odds were heavily against Jammeh from the start. The Gambia is a tiny country, and its neighbor Senegal is not. Even if the Gambian military and populace sided with Jammeh, the ECOWAS coalition could have easily generated enough military force to overcome whatever forces stayed loyal to Jammeh. Lastly, that Jammeh himself was the strategic center of gravity that drove the political clash was fairly obvious. However, war is a phenomenon of probability and chance. Mistakes, missteps, and miscommunications are always possible. Senegal could have launched a larger, full invasion of the Gambia. More foreign forces would have raised the probability of misdirected violence against the populace, potentially leading to a nationalist insurgency that would turn the political legitimacy of the intervention on its head. The fact thatthis did not happen is a testament to the accurate diagnosis of the strategic context that drove decisions based on existing military means and objectives. The intervention called for a sufficient but smaller force, and ECOWAS was wise to recognize this. ..."...