Written Evidence from Professor Wyn Rees, University of Nottingham (LIB0004)
The Libyan crisis did not follow the traditional model of western military interventions. It was European governments, especially the UK and France, rather than the United States, who were at the forefront of both the decision-making and the application of military power. These governments argued for the protection of civilians in the face of imminent violence by the Gaddafi regime and secured United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1973 to authorise the use of force. The US led the initial aerial campaign but then performed a largely supporting role - ‘leading from behind’. European countries carried out three quarters of the aerial sorties, and, along with Canada, provided all of the ships that enforced the arms embargo.
This resulted in a debate over whether Libya presaged a turning point in which Europe would take-over the reins of leadership from the US. According to Lord Robertson, a former NATO Secretary General, President Obama had performed a favour for Europe by forcing them ‘..to confront their destiny…’. Yet such a conclusion was misguided. This submission argues that it was the particular circumstances of the Libyan situation that explains UK and French leadership. Four factors account for why the traditional balance between the US and its European allies was reversed in the case of this intervention. First, Libya did not satisfy the US criteria for a major intervention. Second, Libya was not a vital interest for the US. Third, the level of force required was comfortably within the capabilities of European countries such as the UK. Finally, Libya offered a rare opportunity to achieve a broad international consensus about recourse to the use of force. Each of these factors will now be explained.
America did play an important diplomatic role in the early stages of the Libyan crisis. It helped to gather a coalition, and it engaged with countries such as Russia and China to dissuade them from wielding their vetoes in the Security Council. On the 18 March, President Obama stated that the US would help to coordinate a No Fly Zone over Libya but that he expected other countries to take the lead role.
American reluctance to lead stemmed from a longstanding scepticism of operations that lacked clear objectives. In 1992 Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (subsequently Secretary of State under George W. Bush), published an article in Foreign Affairs (Winter 1992) in which he laid out the criteria that should guide American decisions about overseas interventions. These criteria stipulated that America should enter a fray only when its mission is well-defined, its exit-strategy determined and public support assured. In the case of the 2011 Libyan crisis, the country was experiencing an internal revolt within the context of the ‘Arab Spring’. It was the fear of a brutal backlash by pro-government forces that drove the international community towards military intervention. The outcome of the rebellion was inherently unpredictable. It was far from clear whether air-strikes could guarantee the protection of civilians and whether the rebels would be capable of mobilising sufficient strength to overthrow the regime. Many commentators expected that the situation would degenerate into a stalemate and that the country would become divided into a region controlled by Gaddafi and an eastern half controlled by the rebels. It was not even evident who the rebels were and whether their post-war aims were compatible with western desires for a free and democratic Libya.
A credible exit-strategy eluded the Obama administration and they feared an open-ended commitment. Public opinion in the US was opposed to further actions overseas. There was a deep-seated reluctance within America to become involved militarily in the domestic affairs of another Muslim country. It was feared that there would be insufficient domestic support for such a campaign and that this would harm the re-election prospects of President Obama in 2012.
France and the UK proceeded to provide the backbone of the political and military decision-making. They are the two most significant military powers on the continent, accounting for nearly 40% of defence spending amongst EU members. Policy was concerted between London and Paris, facilitated by the good working relationship between Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicholas Sarkozy. This was underpinned by Anglo-French military ties that had been placed on a new and more intimate footing in the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).
David Cameron, a relative newcomer to the international stage, was eager to demonstrate to the US that Europe was willing and able to share international burdens. The Libyan crisis offered the UK an opportunity to act independently of Washington whilst at the same time burnishing its credentials as an international actor. It accorded with Britain’s stance that NATO should always have the right of first refusal over a military operation. In this spirit the UK led the efforts at the United Nations to secure a No Fly Zone over Libya and moved quickly to seize the assets of both the regime and some of its leading figures. France had been damaged by its ambivalent attitude towards the preceding demonstrations against President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and French Foreign Minister Michele Ailliot-Marie had resigned over the holiday she had taken there. Sarkozy was the first European leader to initiate military action when he announced, after a summit on Libya held in Paris on 19 March, that French forces had attacked Gaddafi’s armoured units advancing on Benghazi.
Britain led the argument that NATO should assume control of the air-strikes against Libya, following the US decision to stand aside. Despite French reluctance, the UK contended that NATO possessed well tested mechanisms for command and control and its members were experienced in training together. It also provided an established framework to which the US could hand over control of the operation. French officials relented eventually and the Alliance took over responsibility for enforcing the NFZ from 25 March. There was support from other European states such as Spain, Italy, Denmark and Norway for the military operation.
The events of 9/11 served to harden US attitudes towards states such as Libya that were seeking nuclear weapons and supporting terrorism. The Bush administration had placed Libya in the same category of countries as Iraq, Iran and North Korea. It was against this backcloth of America preparing for a showdown with Libya that the Gaddafi regime was implicated in a WMD shipment. In October 2003, less than six months after the formal cessation of the US intervention in Iraq, a German registered ship en route to Libya was detained and searched under the provisions of the Proliferation Security Initiative. Intelligence information had alerted western governments to the fact that materials for a nuclear weapons programme were being distributed by the A.Q. Khan network, in Pakistan. The consignment was thought to include centrifuge technology, for the production of fissile material, as well as warhead designs for ballistic missiles. The Gaddafi regime renounce its nuclear weapons programme and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were admitted to verify Libya’s compliance with its disarmament obligations.
The UK saw Libya’s change of direction as the result of its own long term and patient diplomacy. The British government argued that Gaddafi’s desire to end his pariah status and to lift sanctions on his country had been evident for some time. Negotiations had secured the trial of the Lockerbie bombing suspects and agreement to pay compensation to the families of the victims. The UK regarded its approach of engaging with Libya as having successfully returned it to the international mainstream. This was illustrated by the high profile visit of Prime Minister Tony Blair to Libya. He shook hands with the Colonel in the Libyan desert. It made possible a process of cooperation with Libya against Islamist terrorism, which was a threat that the regime in Tripoli shared with the west.
The rehabilitation of Gaddafi also marked the end of his significance for the US. Ironically, Libya came to matter little to the US administration after 2004 because it no longer presented a threat. It was now feeding information to western intelligence agencies about Islamists and had relinquished its nuclear weapons programme. The reluctance of the Obama administration to be drawn into a commitment to Libya resulted from their view that although Gaddafi was an unpleasant dictator, he was of minimal strategic importance compared to countries like Egypt, Syria or Saudi Arabia.
The Libyan crisis came at a moment when the US was determined to reduce its overseas military commitments. President Obama had entered office determined to remove US combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. America was also feeling the impact of the global economic crisis. A $500 billion reduction in defence spending over a 10 year period had been initiated. Senator Richard Lugar, a former Chairman of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke at a hearing on Libya and argued that there were other threats that were more important for the US to address.
American policymakers were sceptical that Europe possessed the military capabilities to run the Libya operation in their absence. This concern reflected inadequate European investment in key capabilities such as precision-guided munitions, command and control technologies, long-range transportation and intelligence gathering assets. All of these deficiencies were particularly relevant to the task of trying to project military power into distant theatres such as Libya. Because many European countries had played down the importance of global security issues, they had not acquired the appropriate military capabilities to undertake them.
The Libyan campaign exposed some of the collective weaknesses of Europe. The UK’s First Sea Lord, Sir Mark Stanhope, warned that ‘Operation Ellamy’ could draw forces from other military priorities. More fundamentally, there were only a limited number of countries that had the political will and the necessary capabilities to act. Lord Robertson commented that despite all NATO members voting for the Libyan operation, only a third actually participated in strike missions. Germany’s role in the crisis was a particular source of surprise to its allies. To the consternation of the UK, Germany abstained from the UN vote on intervention, arguing that all options should be exhausted before force was sanctioned.
In the early stages of ‘Operation Odyssey Dawn’, US aircraft carried out the majority of the strikes to dismantle and disable Libyan air defences and command and control capabilities, thereby ensuring a permissive environment for the conduct of western air operations. Even after handing over the leading role to their allies, America continued to fill certain capabilities, such as battlefield surveillance, electronic jamming and the provision of unmanned ‘Predator’ drones. The subsequent Libyan operation was limited in nature and the Europeans proved to be capable of carrying it out. They were able to conduct the necessary precision aerial strikes against ground targets, such as tanks and armoured personnel vehicles, command and control centres and some naval targets. It was an operation that the Europeans could undertake without the reassuring presence of the US.
It was evident from the outset that the rebel forces in Libya were opposed to the despatch of western ground troops on the basis that the overthrow of the regime must be a Libyan affair. They sought outside help against the regime’s heavy weapons and the prevention of their gains being reversed in the early stages. This entirely suited the British government which had no desire to commit land forces. If they had done so, they faced the danger of becoming dragged into a larger commitment than was originally intended. The principal challenge was to shape the rebel forces into an effective fighting formation that could overcome Gaddafi’s regular armed forces. It was imperative to prevent a situation of paralysis that might result in the partition of the country. Other Arab states such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, fortuitously for Europe, took it upon themselves to help train and equip the rebel formations, thereby minimising the risk for western forces.
The Libyan crisis afforded the opportunity to achieve a broad international consensus. Not only did the transatlantic allies agree on the need for action in Libya but Arab governments joined in opposition to the Gaddafi regime. The US changed its position, from scepticism to advocacy of intervention and President Obama announced that his country was willing to coordinate a No Fly Zone.
The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 authorising the protection of civilians in Libya by ‘all necessary measures’. This provided the legitimacy for the use of force. It was invoked as part of the UN’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’ agenda. This was a long running attempt to balance the competing demands of state sovereignty and human rights in cases where populations were suffering governmental persecution. The Responsibility to Protect had been endorsed by the Security Council in Resolution 1674 in 2006 and was tested for the first time in the Libyan campaign.
The protection of civilians was an ambiguous mandate but it was stretched by the UK to justify attacking a wide range of military targets. A fine line was rodden by NATO because overly bellicose action could have led to the break up of the fragile coalition. On the one hand, NATO was aware that the Libyan rebels lacked organisation and would need assistance to undermine the regime. The Alliance attempted to limit Gaddafi’s capacity to use his superior firepower and sought to put psychological pressure on his supporters. On the other, there were countries within the coalition that were opposed to the forcible removal of Gaddafi. NATO reassured its Arab critics that it was not deliberately targeting the upper echelons of the government in order to change the regime. Yet the UK declared that it did not see a future for Libya in which Colonel Gaddafi remained in power and that if he was killed whilst at a military installation, this would be legitimate.
Twenty two nations participated in the coalition, including representatives from the NATO, the Arab League, the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council. Only the United Arab Emirates participated in actual strike missions, whilst Qatar participated in the enforcement of the No Fly Zone. It was a challenging task to keep this disparate group of states together, especially in the absence of American leadership. A Contact Group was established on Libya and it helped to create a Temporary Funding Mechanism to allow funds to flow to the Transitional National Council. It also froze the assets of members of the Gaddafi family and, by preventing the sale of Libyan oil, deprived the regime of vital funds to sustain its activities.
China and Russia argued that using force, unless strictly directed at protecting civilians, was inconsistent with the UN mandate. Along with countries like India and Brazil, they had originally abstained in the vote that led to UNSCR 1973. They came to feel that the West was misinterpreting the terms of UNSCR 1973 in order to overthrow the Gaddafi regime. Countries such as the UK, that had secured UN approval in the first place, chose to block the return of the discussion to the UN for fear that their freedom of action would be restricted by subsequent debate over the mandate. It was evident that they were unwilling to test the strength of the coalition in case some of its members chose to defect.
What transpired in the Libyan crisis was a reversal of the experiences of past interventions in which the US had led and Europe had followed. It has been argued here that this was a reflection of the unique circumstances of the Libyan case: the lessons are not applicable elsewhere.
The fact that the US stood to one side in the Libyan campaign does not signal that it would do the same in relation to another crisis. The Iraq and Afghan insurgencies have increased America’s wariness towards overseas interventions and it will approach nation-building tasks with extreme caution. But if there were to be an escalation in tensions with a country like Iran or North Korea, America would be unlikely to ‘lead from behind’. In such circumstances, the US would have vital interests at stake and would play a key role in galvanising its other allies. Due to its size, strength and influence, the US retains a capacity to lead that eludes that of its European partners.
Nevertheless, the Libyan experience demonstrated that US leadership cannot be taken for granted in the future, that the US should not be relied upon to always conduct the principal war-fighting tasks and suffer the majority of the casualties. In spite of defence cuts, countries like the UK need to retain their ability to act militarily even in circumstances where either the US does not want to be involved or does not want to carry the principal burden. If Europe was capable of contributing more, it would have the paradoxical effect of building closer cooperation rather than driving the US away. It would convince the US of Europe’s value as a partner with whom to cooperate more fully.
September 2015