As this column was being written, the air war against Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi was approaching its third week. Although the war was far from over (and may still be ongoing when this is read), some observations can already be made. The first is how important it is to be clear about objectives before committing military forces. The air operation began after a period of agony for the Libyans, who found that Colonel Gadhafi had no intention of tolerating their peaceful protests. The explicit international cry was to even the odds, giving the protesters (and then the rebels) a fair chance by taking away the colonel’s bullying air force and, to a lesser extent, his ground force.
The unspoken view was that the rebels had right on their side; they were finally trying to emerge from a 40-year nightmare. The protests throughout the Arab world appeared to be a hopeful sign of modernization. Intervention in Libya was probably seen as a way of putting the West on the right side of history in the region. Conversely, unsuccessful support of repressive regimes previously allied to the West was dangerous because if they fell, their successors would take revenge (the history of Iran since the time of the Shah can be read that way).
Even support of the revolution may not erase bitterness about Western (particularly U.S.) long-term support of corrupt and repressive regimes. That Washington dithered so about Egypt may have unfortunate consequences. Action in Libya can be seen as an attempt not to repeat the mistakes made with Egypt. Of course, it can also be argued that had the United States backed the Shah in 1979, Iran would not have evolved into the menace it now is.
Once force had been used in Libya, it is difficult to see how anything short of the colonel’s ouster would be acceptable. If Gadhafi survives, he is likely to be vengeful. Even if he has no connection whatever with al Qaeda or other established terrorist groups, he has shown a considerable taste for terrorism in the past, and he would surely promote it again, using the vast funds at his disposal. Because the Coalition and the United Nations could not bring themselves explicitly to authorize the colonel’s ouster, however, the objective of the operation has been somewhat muddled. In theory it is a no-fly zone coupled with measures to protect Libyan civilians. That can mean anything from patrolling Libyan airspace to destroying the Libyan army that is massacring civilians. Without the army, of course, it would be difficult for Gadhafi to survive.
In these situations, however, there is always a “but.” In this case, as with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gadhafi operates partly by divide and conquer, championing a minority tribe against the others. He has a substantial part of the Libyan population on his side, because they are unpleasantly aware that if he goes, they will become the victims of those who have suffered under his regime. Surely many will remember the rather naive U.S. view going into Iraq, that somehow everyone there would rejoice once the evil dictator was gone. That missed the point. Most Iraqis did rejoice. However, those who had helped Saddam and had benefited from his rule did not, because the winners supported by the United States probably wished them dead. After all, they had tried to revolt in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, when a botched no-fly agreement left Saddam’s forces free to use helicopters against them.
The way essentially peaceful protests toppled what had seemed to be strong regimes in Egypt and Tunisia may have encouraged policy-makers to imagine that the Libyan regime was similarly brittle. In Egypt at least, the key seems to have been that the army decided to side with the protesters. Once that happened, the leadership had no hope of survival. Egypt is a sophisticated country with a truly national mass army. In Libya, Colonel Gadhafi was well aware that his army always stood between him and disaster. He had to ensure it would never side with his population. He did that by relying on mercenaries, who could be well paid with his oil revenue.
Mercenaries often perform poorly against competent armies, but for the colonel the main point of his army was the ability to cow his population. It is not all that difficult to bomb or shell crowds of untrained (even if armed) civilians. Our calculation was that a limited air offensive would convince the mercenaries that this time it would be wiser to cut their risks and run. Their own calculation now could be that they cannot run, and that if they lose they themselves will be massacred in revenge for the violence they have perpetrated. That proved sufficient motivation for many surviving supporters of the Saddam regime in Iraq.
The operation is currently described as enforcement of a no-fly zone. Despite that, Colonel Gadhafi’s forces are proving effective against the rebels. As this was written, it was reported that President Barack Obama had signed a “finding” authorizing covert action against Gadhafi, and there was considerable discussion of providing the rebels with matériel assistance, such as arms. Without training, which takes time, arms are not very useful.
Is It a War?
It is unlikely that anyone in Washington would be happy for this particular fight to go on for months or years, nor is it likely the rebels can survive inside Libya for that long. Possibly the hope is that some kind of covert attack will bring down the colonel directly. Since he must have survived numerous plots against him by those much better placed than outside operatives, the odds of covert operations working are not very good. This would change if some large part of his security apparatus changed sides, but his mercenaries are unlikely to do that.
At some point, then, it will become painfully obvious that this is a war, and that without direct engagement (beyond the no-fly zone) it cannot be won. At that point the U.S. and other Western governments will have to face at least some ground combat. That should have been obvious, but clearly it was not. Misreadings of recent wars may be to blame.
The single most spectacular recent case of painless victory through air power was the NATO operations in Kosovo and Serbia. After a bombing campaign, the Serbians came to terms; they abandoned Kosovo. In retrospect, that seemed odd because the Serbians also boasted that their use of decoys had preserved all of their military assets. Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic claimed that he had given up Kosovo to spare Belgrade from NATO carpet-bombing. But it must have been obvious to all concerned that no such threat had ever existed. Precision attacks had been mounted in Belgrade against particular government assets (and, in a horrible error, against the Chinese Embassy). Had this kind of threat motivated Milosevic by attacking the assets of his closest supporters?
What was missed was that the end of the war was a win-win, not a win-lose. Milosevic believed he had strengthened his position by appearing to defend Serbia against overwhelming force (the political culture emphasized victimization). Kosovo had never been a vital Serbian asset; rather, it had been a way of rallying Serbian nationalism. Toward the end of the war air attacks were mounted successfully against the paramilitaries who were the main props of the Serbian regime, and it was very much in Milosevic’s interest to preserve those forces. For NATO, of course, ejecting the Serbians from Kosovo was the war aim. In Libya there is unfortunately no room for a win-win solution: if Colonel Gadhafi loses, he will most likely be killed. It does not help that an international court in the Hague makes it difficult for dictators to flee because even then it will prosecute them for their crimes: they have little hope of asylum. Perhaps someone should have realized that those with no way out become desperate.
The initial fight in Afghanistan is another misread war. The United States certainly deployed ground troops, but the war was overwhelmingly an air operation—from the U.S. point of view. From the Afghan point of view, however, it had a large ground component, for which the United States supplied vital air support. Unfortunately, there is no Libyan equivalent of the Northern and Southern Alliance forces, most of whom had had military experience. Lack of experience on the part of the Libyan rebels is why Colonel Gadhafi’s forces have proven so deadly.
A larger lesson also emerges here. Crises are unpredictable. A week before the Arab world came to a boil no one would have imagined it was unstable. People were miserable, but they had been miserable for decades, and they had not revolted. Ground forces cannot be stationed around the world waiting for what are often remote possibilities. Only naval forces can quickly be moved into place for sustained operations without massive preparations. It is no accident that France was the first country to declare armed support for the rebels, because France has a carrier (which has figured prominently in the operation).
Having decided to scrap its existing carrier force (presumably because it would not be needed until the two new carriers were ready) the British government found itself in the position of supporting the NATO operation with a few submarine-launched Tomahawks and then flying RAF Tornadoes vast distances from the United Kingdom to spend a few minutes over Libya. It had lost its ability to play in any serious way. To a great extent the point of maintaining British military forces is to be able to contribute enough to an international operation to have a say in its direction. It is difficult to see how a remote land-based air force helps. Those with land bases much closer to the action, particularly the Italians, can reasonably say that they contribute enough to give them a voice. However, one of the forgotten lessons of the campaigns against Serbia was that weather often closes land bases, so that even small carriers are disproportionately valuable.