running the JTF. But he spent most of his time crisscrossing Europe with Armitage. They flew to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Ankara, to Brussels. They dealt with NATO and the EU. They coordinated support, participation, receipt, and distribution of the aid and the future larger-scale reconstruction effort. They worked with U.S. government assessment teams on the ground in the FSU and with local officials. They were all over the place.
The airlift operation ran until the end of February and delivered 2,100 tons of food and medical supplies to twenty-two locations.
Zinni spent three months on Provide Hope after the end of the airlift. During that time, Armitage worked tirelessly to transform into reality the vision he and the Secretary of State had put together.
As time passed and the military requirements ended, Zinni’s work for Armitage took him increasingly into the economic[54] and political realm. Though Armitage wanted to keep Zinni around, it had grown obvious that the military aspects of Provide Hope had faded away.
“There’s no point in your hanging around here anymore,” Armitage told Zinni finally. “Why don’t you go back to EUCOM? As things move on, we might get you back in, but there’s no sense in your hanging out here.”
The need for Zinni to come back never materialized. By the end of spring, the mission was folding. The silence from the international community had been deafening. Other countries did not have the will or share the vision; they were simply not interested in participating in a new Marshall Plan.
What kept them away?
The world of the early ’90s was not the world of the late ’40s. This wasn’t a devastated Europe threatening to collapse into communism. It was a Europe of individual nations who were not only beginning to feel their own oats but had serious problems of their own to solve. The Germans, for instance, had to pay for German reunification.
No one was interested in working under a U.S.-led program… or in laying down the necessary resources.
It was nevertheless a badly missed opportunity; and much of the turmoil and instability that came afterward in Russia, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere could have been avoided if the nations of the free world and their organizations (like the UN and the EU) had been more farsighted.
Zinni’s involvement in “Operations Other Than War”—like Provide Comfort, Provide Hope, Provide Promise, and others while at EUCOM — provided a wealth of experience that he later drew on constantly. These were fascinating, exciting missions… like military operations, even combat operations. On these missions, he got to do what he loved best — get out into action in the field, but with the added thrill that he was saving people’s lives.
Later he participated in several other Operations Other Than War — such as the one in Somalia — that have been seen as the most advanced models for military-civil operations, peacekeeping, and humanitarian missions. No one has had more experience in these kinds of operations than Zinni.
CHAPTER FIVE
SOMALIA
After EUCOM, Tony Zinni returned to Quantico as the deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC).[55]
The MCCDC watches over the Marine Corps requirements and structure in doctrine, organization, material, training, education, and leadership development; and it manages the Corps’ career schools for its officers and enlisted (all of which together make up the Marine Corps University).
It was an obvious assignment for Zinni, yet he was not overjoyed to have it. As he saw it, his recent experience could have been better used in an operational assignment. (“Every officer worth his salt always feels he is the best qualified operator in the Corps,” he comments.)
On the other hand, returning to Quantico brought him back into the doctrine, training, and education base with which he was familiar. There he’d be at the red-hot center of all the exciting, revolutionary changes that General Gray was creating, and there he himself would be provided with a forum for his own ideas for change. He knew he had a lot to contribute to Quantico. His tour at EUCOM had convinced him that U.S. military services would soon be forced to improve their performance significantly in joint operations and to develop programs for handling the messy new third world missions that were clearly on the horizon.
The Marine Corps, specifically, had to examine its organization, its doctrine, and the way it fought, taking a hard look at the tactics, techniques, and procedures needed for nontraditional missions such as peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. The new missions that he had tackled at EUCOM were not aberrations — the Kurdish relief effort, the NEOs, the engagement with former Warsaw Pact militaries. They were the face of the future. And Zinni was convinced that the Marine Corps, with its tradition of flexibility and resourcefulness, could more easily adapt to these missions than could other services, and pioneer the kind of post-Cold War force that was ideally suited to it.
Zinni was granted his wish to explore these new ideas… but not, as it happened, in the classrooms and on the fields of Quantico. Instead, he became a major player in the most trying and tangled U.S. military peacekeeping operation until the occupation of Iraq in 2003. It made the Kurdish relief in ’91 seem like a walk in the park.
By November 1992, Zinni had been at Quantico for six months. Shortly, he would be in the zone for promotion to major general. The next summer would change his fate one way or another; he’d either be moving up to a new command or out into civilian life.
That month, while working to develop a new war game with the Navy, he learned that President Bush had decided to launch a joint task force to conduct a humanitarian operation in Somalia. Zinni was vaguely aware of the desperate and worsening situation in that country — civil war, famine, disease, anarchy, thousands of innocents dying. The news of the humanitarian operation, however, came out of the blue.
In a few days, it would be decided whether the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) or the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps would lead the operation. Even though he was in the dark about the operation’s actual nature, Zinni knew his EUCOM experiences in joint and humanitarian operations would come in very handy in the planning if I MEF got the call. He immediately went to his boss, Lieutenant General Chuck Krulak,[56] to offer his services.
Somewhat to Zinni’s surprise, Krulak was enthusiastic. “Hey, listen,” he said, “I don’t want the operational force to look at Quantico as a drain. I want them to see us as an organization that’s there for them. We look out for them; we support them. So if we’ve got expertise, I want to offer it up.”
Krulak called General Carl Mundy, who had replaced General Gray as commandant, and made the offer. General Mundy, in turn, called the commanding general of I MEF, Lieutenant General Bob Johnston. (Zinni had known Johnston for years, had served under him in Okinawa, and had great respect for him.)
While these discussions were taking place, Zinni was on his way to Fort Leavenworth for a conference. When he arrived, he had a call from Krulak. “I MEF has been chosen for the mission,” Krulak told him, “and General Johnston wants you to take part in it. Get back to Quantico as soon as you can, then call Bob Johnston for further instructions.”
“The best possible news!” Zinni thought. The news soon got better.
Back at Quantico, he called Lieutenant General Johnston, still thinking that Johnston would want him primarily for the initial planning. What he heard then just about knocked him over: The commandant had recommended him for chief of staff of the Joint Task Force (JTF) that would be formed around the core of the I MEF staff.[57] Since this meant he would be going to Somalia in a leading operational role, he was ecstatic.
But it turned out that Johnston had a better idea. He wanted Zinni to be the director of operations. Even though the chief of staff was the senior position, he felt strongly that this operation was going to be so challenging
