Libya's foreign policy in flux

Abstract

This article provides a brief assessment of Libya's often unpredictable foreign policy with regard to Africa. The first section presents a brief historical background to Libya's involvement on the African continent and Colonel Gaddafi's military interventionism in Africa. The next section assesses the 1990s and Muammar Gaddafi's popularity during this period as well as his often extravagant economic involvement in Africa. The third section considers Gaddafi's ambitious role in the African Union and his efforts to secure a united Africa. The fourth section assesses Gaddafi's dramatic foreign policy shift from rogue criminal to responsible statesman, following his historic decision to relinquish his country's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and an almost enthusiastic willingness to welcome the West back after decades of antagonism and the subsequent wave of international praise as a consequence. Finally, it gives a brief assessment of the future of Libya's foreign relations. LIBYA'S FOREIGN POLICY HAS PRODUCED AT LEAST TWO INFLUENTIAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. The first approaches the matter from the point of view of the psychological determinants of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's personality, typically viewing the Colonel as an irrational megalomaniac, whose hegemonic ambitions are limitless and who lacks all sense of perspective and reality. Gaddafi's military adventurism secured him such titles as 'rogue criminal' (in the words of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger).1 President Gaafar Nimeiri of Sudan described the Colonel as someone suffering from 'a split personality - both evil'.2 Even Fidel Castro dismissed Gaddafi as a 'reckless adventurer' while U.S. President Ronald Reagan branded Gaddafi 'the mad dog of the Middle East'.3 A second school of thought analyses Gaddafi's ideological preferences and views him as a more