I have a new article on Egremont today, pointing out worrying similarities between the intervention in Libya – and its alleged success – and the mistakes we made in Afghanistan in 2001/02. We helped a loose coalition of factions to topple a regime without knowing much about them or about what we wanted the postwar environment to look like. As a result, our uncoordinated actions empowered individuals and created problems which undermined the illusory peace of 2002/05.
The comparison is not an exact one, obviously; as Tolstoy wrote, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I would remark derisively that at least there was a good reason for the intervention in Afghanistan. Another difference is that there isn’t a Pakistan in the mix; I don’t know enough about the politics of the region to posit Algeria as a possible enabler of/safe haven for a loyalist insurgency, but things don’t seem to have gotten off to a good start anyway.
Shashank Joshi and I have had a back-and-forth on this on Twitter this afternoon. He queried my contention that postwar planning has been scant and asked what kind of things would have allayed my concerns. To name one, I would have liked it if we had spent the last six months deciding which countries should lead the peacekeeping mission and having a force ready to deploy once Tripoli fell. In Afghanistan: How the West Lost its Way (2011), Tim Bird and Alex Marshall point out:
In post-conflict stabilization scenarios the window of opportunity to provide a basic foundation of security is usually small, to the extent that (as Iraq would demonstrate all too soon) it can be measured in months. Security vacuums tend to be filled, in one way or another. Such was the case in Afghanistan through 2002. The result was predictable. Warlords, from the traditional “big beasts” of the north and west to the new “American warlords” of the south and east, consolidated their power and influence. The chance to marginalize corrupt local power brokers was lost.
This is what I was hinting at when I wrote a few weeks ago that at Paris, at the glitzy conference on Libya in September, politicians and diplomats will be making decisions about a postwar environment that has already been shaped, right under their noses. By not planning for what comes next – as I say in my Egremont piece, thinking about war and peace sequentially because they happen sequentially – that window of opportunity to shape the country will have been closed.
Now, Shash says that the expectation in London is that the Transitional National Council (TNC) will be able to stump up stabilization forces themselves, with some assistance from NATO. Although they are a loose coalition of factions, the rebels can work together if expedience demands it, as the fall of Tripoli ought to show. Personally, I am sceptical. They have cooperated expediently to achieve the goal that has united them – the ouster of Colonel Gaddafi – but they suffer from the inherent problem of all coalitions. Henry Kissinger summed it up perfectly in A World Restored (1957):
It is the essence of a coalition, by definition almost, that the differences between its members and the common enemy are greater than their internal differences among each other. Since the appearance of harmony is one of its most effective weapons, a coalition can never admit that one of its members may represent a threat almost as great as the common enemy and perhaps an increasingly greater one as victories alter the relative position of the powers
My concern is that with Gaddafi gone these factions will begin to jostle with one another to advance their own interests, empowered either by Western cash and arms or their own martial prowess. It is in this situation that I can see Britain being drawn into a civil war in Libya and into nation building, against its own wishes and its own interests.
This might not happen, of course. As Alexander Hamilton once wrote, with typical common sense, ‘Evil is seldom as great, in reality, as in prospect.’ I hope Libya does suddenly become all unicorns and rainbows, as it means I won’t have to write about it anymore. However, I would have preferred it if we had avoided the possibility, and the cost if things go badly, altogether. The forces that are determining our future this century have nothing to do with the constitutional make-up of Libya; this war has been nothing but a strategic distraction.
Dan
August 26, 2011
As the post in Fox Mulder’s office from the X-Files said, “I Want to Believe.”
But…September?
This unfortunately perpetuates the general trend in interventions by NATO and the US: we concentrate our efforts on “anybody but THAT guy,” but have made no cohesive plans for what happens once “that guy” is no longer in power.
If we’ve learned nothing from the toppling of regimes, it’s that removing the dictator from office allows for the development of fault lines in whatever “unity” had been artificially imposed by the efforts of an opposition against a common enemy.
When the Soviet Union fell apart, the following years resulted in that same kind of chaos that exists whenever a strong dictatorial regime is removed from power, and, is likely to happen in Libya.
Freedom is a wonderful thing, but in the interest of long-term stability, a plan should already be in place (leaders, organization, methods of support) now, in order to avert the nearly-inevitable chaos that will result.
That’s the good news.
Where the bad news comes into possible play is this: what do we really know about the intentions of these rebels when it comes to their dealings with the West and other nations that would want to engage in long-term post-Gadafi activities? Of course they’re happy with NATO now…we helped them get rid of the guy.
Solid piece, and the short-sighted approach to foreign relations exhibited by NATO is, as always, just depressing.
Gareth Anderson
October 25, 2011
There are several reasons why I disagree with your concerns here.
Libya and Afghanistan are worlds apart, and this is reflected in both the nature of their opposition/dictatorships and our involvement. AFG is deprived to an extent we can barely imagine over here. It has little infrastructure, a very poorly educated people, has rarely been governed effectively including by the Taliban, has little in the way of meaningful economic activity internally or externally other than heroin production, and indeed there was little support for or planning of nation-building for after the conflict.
In Libya you have a country that is almost the mirror opposite in terms of wealth creation, population education, infrastructure (including communications), and the opposition is d=both more defined and purposeful than anything we have seen in Afghanistan, even today.
A big mistake in iraq was dismantling the entire state from law enforcement to education in order to clear out all Ba’athist elements. This is not a mistake that will be made in Libya. There IS an opposition in Libya, which cannot be said of Afghanistan which was always a vastly under-developed feudal/tribal society. Yes, Libya has tribes, but they are of far less importance in this well educated society than in Afghanistan or the importance that Islamic factions played in iraq for example.
The international presence, and therefore interest, in Libya is also much greater than it ever has been in Afghanistan. This is reflected not only in the number of international companies who have been operating in Libya but also the international workforce AND the international governmental support given to the NTC since these events began. All of these things are as far from Afghanistan as you can imagine, and in fact bear closer inspection to Iraq. yet even in comparison with Iraq the positions in Libya are a huge improvement over that country under Saddam or since and our intervention has learned many lessons from that sorry failure.
So I believe your comparison with Afghanistan is wide of the mark, and even the closer one with Iraq gives us much more cause for hope than you probably believe.
And as for the coalition that is the NTC falling apart, of course it will. That is what we call democracy, with different parties and groups presenting themselves to Libyans in the coming months in advance of their first elections.
If that coalition turned out to be nothing but a single alternative power base, installing a new dictatorship, elective or otherwise, we would rightfully bemoan the situation.
As one regular Tweeter on this subject noted, “For those worrying about Libya’s future: it might get worse, but it has never had a better chance to get better.”
Yes you disliked our intervention, but instead of looking for reasons for it to fail, why not seek to give advice and support as 6 million Libyans stand on the edge of what could be achieving freedom and democracy for the first time, at the cost of the blood of their sons and daughters.
Aaron Ellis
October 25, 2011
As I write in the post, the comparisons between Libya and Afghanistan are not exact; the most important difference is that there isn’t a Pakistan in the mix.
The specific comparisons I make are between the make-up of the rebels and the Northern Alliance, both of which were a loose collection of factions; and the way we enabled them to overthrow their regime, with little idea about what sort of government would come next other than a vague sense that, because they’re opposed to Gaddafi, they MUST be democrats!
Because of this ignorance about the rebels, and, as a result, the absence of a coherent political-military strategy in engaging with them, postwar realities have been created in Libya, as they were in Afghanistan, that will have a profound effect on everything that follows. Namely, you have all kinds of armed factions, emboldened by their martial prowess, who have no sense of loyalty to the NTC, and feel they can do whatever the Hell they like (for example, mass murdering Gaddafi loyalists, arresting medical staff, raping an old man with a stick).
And I can’t ignore all this and get lost in rhetoric about helping people achieve “freedom and democracy” because I’m a grown up and I have to deal with reality. It’s all very well to throw around the Magic Democracy Words when everything seems to be going fine, but not so much when you find yourself in stuck in a country that doesn’t matter to you, with thousands dead and billions of pounds pissed down the drain.
Gareth Anderson
October 25, 2011
I am pretty sure I haven’t denied that things are potentially going to be difficult but because I believe in the power of democracy to kindle a fight in human beings who are educated yet denied that freedom, doesn’t mean I am immune to the potential realities of a situation.
What is infuriating is how we can sit here having not endured dictatorship in centuries, having not endured a civil war since the 17th century and having NEVER experienced what Libyans did for 42 years nor during the fighting of the last several months and expect them all to behave as angels. You should not find anybody excusing their behaviour, those events you outline are dreadful and appalling, but human beings under horrific stress sometimes do terrible things (this is a fact not an excuse).
I hope those individuals are brought to account for what happened through civil justice, a system that the entire nation of Libya now has a chance to create for the first time in modern history. But we do not condemn the entire nation of America for the actions of some of its soldiers in Iraq (nor the entirety of our nation for that matter for similar events). You cannot judge the whole by a part.
And I also believe you are wrong on the issue of a post-conflict strategy. We have had officials there throughout, working with the NTC. And, as your aim is to think strategically, you need also to look at the Arab Spring as a whole, the elections in Tunisia on one side and the potential for improvement in Egypt, both brought about by their own people. This could be the start of an historic sea-change along the lines of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yes, I am optimistic, but I believe there is evidence to support that optimism in at least equal measure to that for your pessimism, though I believe, and hope, much greater.
Aaron Ellis
October 25, 2011
The Arab Spring is overrated: only one country has successfully overthrew its regime. It is also a complete distraction for British foreign policy. Our challenges this century have nothing to do with the constitutional make-up of Libya or Egypt: they’re to do with the relative decline of America, the political make-up of Europe, the rise of China and India, the disintegration of Russia, energy independence, etc. etc. etc.