Libya

Robert Haddock in an article at Forign Policy warns International airpower will be enough to escalate the civil war in Libya, but not to win it.

After a very short discussion, the U.N. Security Council, led by Britain and France, passed a resolution on March 17 that authorizes the use of military force against Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime and forces. The resolution permits the use of "any means necessary" but prohibits a foreign military occupation of Libya. It specifically calls for a no-fly zone and the use of force to protect civilians. The rapid advance of pro-Qaddafi forces toward Benghazi forced the United States to quickly harden its position. Equally surprising were abstentions by China and Russia, allowing the resolution to pass.

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Obama administration officials may have thought they would have many more days, or possibly weeks, to organize a multilateral response to the Libyan situation. It seems clear they badly misjudged the timetable pro-Qaddafi forces have been able to maintain.

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Although the French government boasted that air strikes against Qaddafi's forces would begin within a few hours after the Security Council vote, organizing an air campaign that will have a meaningful effect on Qaddafi's ground forces will take much longer to organize. Most crucial in this regard is Obama's hesitancy to have U.S. military forces in the lead in this operation. Second is the strong desire by Western powers to have Arab military participation (Qatar and United Arab Emirates are mentioned), hopefully in the very first waves of attacking aircraft. Take away the United States, the most powerful and experienced air power, and add in completely inexperienced Arab air forces, and the result will be many long planning meetings as various European and Arab political and military leaders attempt to cobble together a multilateral air force.

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Although his overseas bank accounts have been seized, Qaddafi already has the necessary money, troops, weapons, and ammunition to sustain a low intensity but brutal campaign against the rebels. The investigation begun by the International Criminal Court has left him and his sons with little choice but to fight on. The United Nations has authorized the wide-ranging use of air power against his regime. Air power will be enough to escalate this war but not enough to win it. Although prohibited for now by the Security Council, "boots on the ground" will eventually be required to remove Qaddafi and his sons from Libya.

Read the entire Article and click on it’s links for more background.

Analysis.

While his word choice of “quagmire” might be a bit hyperbolic he highlights the basic problem.

The basic Western policies of supporting democracy, opposing pigs like Qaddafi, humanitarian protection, maintaining peace or least stability to say nothing of a stable oil supply do not seem to Western political leaders to be supportable by normal political means. It was hoped that the rebels would be able to oust Qaddafi but rather it seems they will lose without outside intervention. The UN Securty Council res0lution is an escalation of the means to obtain this goal.

The Just War Doctrine and plain common sense state there should be a reasonable probability of success for launching a military operation. A no fly zone has about zero possibility of success and limited air strikes slightly better. The only thing that is likely to succeed is a full scale attack, ground sea and air, to effect regime change. As noted in the article this will take more time to set up than exists. While one hopes that the calls for only a no fly zone are based on genuine humanitarian motivations, I can’t help but get the feeling that this is an attempt to put a foot in the door to justify a more serious action later. There is a possibility that after removing Qaddafi it will develop into an insurgency but the quicker the action the less chance of that happening.

I am not at all enthusiastic about this operation, and I really doubt it is mandated by our national interest, but if it is to be a success strike hard and fast, don’t pussy foot around with no fly zones and the like. It will save many lives and much suffering in the long run.

Read the whole article


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John Bolton and Edmund Burke

One of today’s hot button issues is the nomination of John Bolton as US Ambassador to the UN. “The National Interest” magazine has republished and article written by Mr. Bolton for their Winter 1997/1998 issue: The Prudent Irishman: Edmund Burke's Realism.

The article points out different attitudes regarding US Foreign policy since the fall of the Berlin wall and looks to 18th century philosopher Edmund Burke for suggestions on how to proceed.



In view of the polices of the current administration the first two paragraphs are interesting.

Today, Cold War-era anti-communists argue among themselves--and the disagreements are not about tactics. Let us be frank: some have become near isolationists. Others enthusiastically espouse Woodrow Wilson's view that the world needs to be made safe for democracy and its family of values. Some of the latter seem to long for a new crusade to keep America at the top of its game, if nothing else. Then again there are those who see the world as still dangerous, but far more opaquely so than it was during the clearer days of the Cold War. They seek an interests-based foreign policy grounded in a concrete agenda of protecting particular peoples and territories, defending open trade and commercial relations around the world, and advancing a commonality of interests with our allies.

Finding myself in this third school, I often turn for guidance to that political philosopher whose understanding of the interplay of interests and values remains unsurpassed. Edmund Burke's insights into civil society seem strikingly apposite today to American foreign policy. Among those are his reliance on the accretion of experience and reasoning from empirical reality, his abhorrence of elevating abstract principles into a theology, and his fear of driving policy on the basis of metaphysics.

The second school he mentions is similar to the post 9/11 policies of the Bush Administration. But Mr. Bolton sees himself as part of the third school, which is more attuned to the major conserative critics of the Bush administration. Some commentators have suggested that the appointment is a kick upstairs to a better title in a less significant job. If so, this could stem from the underlying differences with the majority opinion of the administration.



Strong opposition to four movements characterized Edmund Burkes career. The first three were the British Imperial policy in America, India, and Ireland. This has gained him approving selective quotes from left leaning commentators. The fourth was his ardent opposition to the French revolution, which gains him approving selective quotes from right leaning commentators. Both groups often have trouble with Burke because of this seeming contradiction. Bolton sees the four campaigns by Burke not as a contradiction, but deriving from a coherent worldview of protecting individual liberty. The colonial governements create obvious poroblems of indivdual liberty.

. . . [the] French Revolution and its progenitors were theorists who knew so little of reality that they could not conceive of the consequences of their ideas. He described them as "fanatics: independent of any interest, which, if it operated alone, would make them much more tractable; they are carried with such a headlong rage towards every desperate trial that they would sacrifice the whole human race to the slightest of their experiments." Specifically, these philosophers simply did not care about people as individuals:

A common conservative criticism of the UN can be summarized by saying the UN advocates policies that are strong on pure theory but with little understanding of the actual effect on the real people. To the extent he has discretion, I think that he will lobby against UN polices he sees as harming individual liberty or where he is not confident that they will actually benefit the people they are supposed to help.



If he is confirmed, I doubt Mr. Bolton’s tenure as UN Ambassador will be boring.