Thirty years after Australian troops tried to police the civil war in Somalia, today's Governor-General has spelled out the lessons the military which he commanded learned there.
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In 1993, General David Hurley commanded the 1st Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment in the first major foreign deployment since Vietnam twenty years earlier.
He cited four lessons.
The first was Australian troops were "underdone" on knowing how to interact with local people.
"US land forces had military-civilian teams. We didn't have that," he said. "We had to create that from our own forces and learn on the run."
Nor did Australian troops in Somalia have tailor-made, specific training for the kind of operations they were about to undertake. "Scenario-based training" was introduced only afterwards, General Hurley said.
After Somalia, logistics - moving troops and material - was improved.
"We weren't as proficient and efficient as we could have been to support a force," General Hurley said.
And the fourth lesson which the commanding officer of the time cites is "command and control". In General Hurley's view, there was not enough coordination between different bits of the military. He cites the difficulties which occurred when soldiers (in the Army) needed to use naval helicopters.
"This was a big learning experience in the joint command of operations," he says.
Since Somalia, command of troops on operations has been unified. Turf wars between the services (and their senior officers) are meant to be replaced by a single structure.
There were several deployments to Somalia, initially with the United Nations and then under US command. The aim was to stop humanitarian aid being stolen by militias rather than getting to hungry mouths.
Australia put in more than 1200 people under the codename Operation Solace. HMAS Jervis Bay and Tobruk, and the RAAF took part.
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After the long period of home-based activity, Somalia was the first of a string of foreign operations (Cambodia East Timor, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq) as the old Cold War world order collapsed. It was a steep learning curve.
"For a digger going on patrol, understanding the geopolitics might not be that important but understanding the culture, the local language and the local politics is very important," Dave Sutton, historian at the Australian War Memorial said.
Diggers realised the local greeting in the local language, as well as a smile, could improve attitudes, Dr Sutton said.
In Cambodia, Australian solders were given a phrase book in the local language.
They learnt in Somalia that trusting local elders didn't always work, according to Dr Sutton. "We had Australians going into villages and asking who the bandits (stealing grain) were. And the clan elders would point to rival gangs."
They learnt there, too, that peacekeeping troops need to be visible. "There must be a message to friend and foe so that friends feel secure and that foes should start to feel insecure."
Dr Sutton says the big lesson, though, is that peacekeeping needs to be long-term. Thirty years on, Somalia is still a complete, anarchic, poverty-stricken, lawless mess.
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Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
