Fearing another communist state close to US borders, the American government quickly took interest of the situation growing in the small Caribbean country known as Grenada. The island, located a short distance to the south east of Cuba quickly became a hotbed of communist action during the Cold War. ''In March 1979, widespread dissatisfaction with economic conditions and the government of Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy resulted in the bloodless coup in which the charismatic and Marxist Maurice Bishop took complete power'' (Cole, 9). This new leadership quickly brought the small island to attention of Cuba and the Soviet Union and it appeared another communist Caribbean state may be close to forming. Quick to help their new revolutionary allies, the Cubans dispatched a work force of approximately 600 armed men to complete a 9000 foot runway at Point Salines. This Cuban presence unnerved the United States as the runway would ''...enable MiG 23's to operate from Grenada and extend the operating range of these Cuban fighter-bombers across the Caribbean''(Cole, 10). Grenada quickly found itself in turmoil when in June 1983 members of a leftist movement who were disheartened by Bishop's unwillingness to commit loyalties to the willing Soviet allies. Bishop soon found himself imprisoned, but later escaped only to be recaptured and eventually executed.
Now not only did it appear that Grenada posed a communist threat to the US, but the powers that kept in check had now been removed and the island nation now was open to the Soviet bidding and being led by a revolutionary government with totalitarian rule. In addition to the citizens of Grenada, ''restrictions prevented the thousand or more US citizens on the island from leaving, and caused special hardship to the six hundred American students in the St. George's school of medicine''(Cole, 11). The situation had not only become a possible showdown with another communist country the Untied States' own backyard, but a hostage situation as well.
At this point it no longer seemed that it was a matter of a foreign civil war, but instead another crisis of American citizens trapped abroad reminiscent of that in Iran only a few years prior. As an action of last resort, a full out invasion of Grenada was proposed under the name Operation Urgent Fury. The plan called for a full invasion of the small island using a joint task force of US military assets. Composed of US Marines, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force, the invasion represented the first major mobilization of military forces since the Vietnam War. Speed was a necessity for the operation as the longer the invasion took, the more time Cuban soldiers had to reinforce the island. The attack itself was a multi-pronged invasion using sea, land and air forces to quickly assault and capture key points on the island such as the Salines airstrip and the local prison. Once these key locations were secured the attack turned to the secondary objective of the US citizens. ''Within a few hours the US forces had secured a perimeter around the airport. Five rangers were killed while clearing the airport. The rangers then departed the airort and two hours later reached the True Blue medical school campus, where they found 130 students who were scared but safe''(Crandall, 146). The rangers continued to the larger campus up the road from the medical school to find over 200 more US students in need of extraction.
The operation was however now without its hitches. ''Probably the biggest intelligence failure was in underestimating the number of Cuban personnel on the island who put up a stiff resistance''(Candrall, 148). Specifically the Cuban's heavy anti-air emplacements proved deadly as the primary insertion of ground troops was via helicopter, many of which were torn to pieces on the initial assault and either crashed or were forced to make emergency landings often with loss of life to pilots and crew involved.
The invasion of Grenada ''...raised anew the issue of intervention in the affairs of other states-an issue that has periodically confronted the United States not only in the Western Hemisphere but also in much of the world ever since Edmond-Charles Genet directed petitioned the Unites States of help against Britain in the 1790's''(Schoenhals, 165). The Unites States determined that intervention was warranted when US interested became involved in the respective conflict. In Grenada for instance there existed two interests, those being a new looming Soviet threat in close proximity to the US and the number of US citizens effectively being held hostage by the revolutionary government on the island. Unlike Somalia a few years later however there was little international support for the intervention by the United States as the ''UN General Assembly voted 108 to 9 to condemn the US invasion as a 'violation of international law', a majority that was even larger than the one that condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan''(Crandall, 154). The United States was firstly looking out for its own interests as it rightly should. While it is desirable to help the United Nations, not all missions may be undertaken only with their support; as a sovereign nation the United States retains the right to protect its interests in the ways it sees fit.