The limitations on the peacekeepers were part of the broader context of trying not to simply invade the place and trigger conflict with Russia (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/18/world/us-clashes-with-russ... ), a pattern which continues today in Syria.
Quite nauseating to think that this happened in Europe in the 90's.
Edit: even more nauseating to go on vacation there and realize that the people who did this are no different from yourself. This could happen anywhere.
As the article correctly states, this is an issue of trust, but trust can only be earned with experience, which is lacking in such a complex environment.
I guess this post in part has some traction with hn because mission command seems like a wonderful management technique. Just let the people who knows best and have first hand information make efficient decisions, fast, right? But it actually takes good people and a lot of training to work in practice. On every level there has to be a "feeling" of what's reasonable. And management, in turn, must learn when to step back, and maybe more importantly not punish afterwards when equipped with hindsight.
(Served two years in swedish army, too young for Bosnia myself but couple of my officers were in nordbat2)
Auftragstaktik: mission command - part of the German Army doctrine developed in the 19th C. TN DuPuy's Genius for War gives an excellent explanation.
Please fix the title as it is "Trigger-Happy" in the original.
The dash doesn't fit.
It seems to me that punctuation shouldn't be taken into account to compute the character limit.
