Yet again, current events mirror fiction..
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...on-Africa.html

I think this is a terrible idea, but it sure is a great hook for a T2K/T2013 campaign.

I hate to say it, I think this follows "Yes Minister" logic. Something needs to be done, this is something, therefore we will do it.

Troops or Health Workers? They really need both.

Troops, supposedly to provide support operations - not security (except probably self-security) or quarantine control.

Setting up field hospitals is the only actual activity I heard (offered as an example), and probably expanding infrastructure to allow for easier provision of aid. For that they need 3000 troops? How many field hospitals do they want to set up?

Uncle Ted

After a medical team got killed by a machete-wielding mob in Guinea yesterday, some of those troops may be necessary to provide security for the medical personnel...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29256443

- C.

Troops or not, it'd be a dangerous job i would have thought. Not just the physical danger of a "mob" or being in an unfamiliar country, but the health risks also.

I'd be more frightened deploying to an Ebola zone than I would be to the Middle East or Afghanistan. There's something much more insidious about an unseen and misunderstood threat (although I suppose the latter could describe Western Civilizations enemies there as well).

The problem with a UN combat troop deployment is the ROEs -- they're like a steel cage that has been crushed tight with a vise. With almost all such deployments, the uber-restrictive ROE ends up putting the UN troops in extreme danger, with nearly no ability to patrol constructively, spot-intervene if necessary, or do little more than sit in their barracks.

I have to believe the founders of the UN had a better idea of what to do with armed forces in the relief zone (And no, not simply kill everyone.)