Military Intervention In Libya Research Articles

Forcible intervention in Libya: revamping the ‘politics of human protection’?

Following the end of NATO ‘Operation Unified Protector’ in Libya there has been an intense debate in the international community with respect to the impact of the military engagement on both the emerging ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) norm as well as on the international community's commitment to enforce it. The study examines the impact of the international military intervention in Libya on this debate by looking at whether Operation Unified Protector contributed to strengthening or weakening the development of R2P. To do so, it first examines whether the authorization to use force in Libya was indeed grounded on R2P, as well as whether it was perceived as such by the international community. Secondly, the research examines whether the intervening parties' actual use of force was consistent with R2P. Finally, the research provides an assessment of the current state of R2P post-Libya.

Domestic politics, news media and humanitarian intervention: why France and Germany diverged over Libya

The European Union member states split over the military intervention in Libya with France, Germany and the UK voting differently in the United Nations Security Council. This article compares news media in France and Germany to better understand the foreign policy decisions of these key actors. Using a newspaper analysis of 334 articles, it shows that the German domestic debate started very late and was much less stable than the French debate. This supports arguments that Germany's decision-making was erratic. The analysis, however, also shows that the German debate was comprehensive and included an extensive discussion of the legitimacy of intervention. This fits in well with the traditional reluctance of German foreign policy elites to support military action.

The Use of Force Without War: Constitutional War Powers and Intervention in Syria

This paper will evaluate the arguments that the Obama administration has made under U.S. constitutional law in support of military intervention against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in response to war crimes committed during Syria’s ongoing internal conflict. Part I will discuss the crisis in Syria and the U.S. and international responses. Part II will consider the administration’s arguments that the president has the power under the U.S. Constitution to order military intervention without congressional support. This section will pay particular attention to the administration’s arguments justifying its 2011 military intervention in Libya. Part III will discuss international law under the U.S. Constitution and consider the argument that international law provides the President with the constitutional authority to use force.

Emotional (security) communities: the significance of emotion norms in inter-allied conflict management

AbstractWhat doAl-Qaeda, Human Rights Watch, and NATO have in common? They can all be understood as emotional communities. Emotional communities are ‘groups in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value – or devalue – the same or related emotions’. This article develops a conceptual framework for a particular type of emotional community in world politics: a security community. It is argued that emotion norms – the expression of appropriate emotions in a given situation – stabilise a security community during inter-allied conflict. The argument is illustrated by an empirical case study of NATO's military intervention in Libya in 2011. The article shows how the conceptualisation of security communities as emotional communities has significant implications for the study of regional peace and security.

Assessing (In)security after the Arab Spring: The Case of Libya

The struggle to shape the narrative of Libya's postwar transition is being fought more intensely outside of the country than within it. The legitimacy of the military intervention in Libya by the West, supported by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has become tied to the perceived success or failure of the transition process: A positive outcome (i.e., the installation of liberal democracy) would legitimize NATO's intervention and, with it, the merits of interventionist military doctrines more broadly; a failure chastens such a policy. Putting aside questions about whether the legitimacy of the intervention should be primarily judged by the outcome of the transition, the practical consequence of this ulterior motive for judging the success or failure of the transition has warped international coverage of Libya. It has created incentives for observers to cherry-pick their portrayal of events so that they can present unambiguous conclusions about the progress of reforms and the transition in general (Rubin 2013; Wagner and Cafiero 2013). This myopia is unhelpful; it distorts international policy on Libya and results in scant analysis of the underlying (and often antithetic) social, political, or security dynamics shaping the transition. To remedy this, the following analysis examines the micropolitics of violence undergirding Libya's transition. As its basis John Gledhill's tripartite framework is used for understanding the causal pathways to collective violence during political transition (see “Editor's Introduction”). The contributions on Yemen and Egypt, which follow this article, also adopt Gledhill's framework, permitting comparison among these cases.

A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO's Libya Campaign

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO's eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO's action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war's duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If it is a “model intervention,” as senior NATO officials claim, it is a model of failure. Implementation of R2P must be reformed to address these unintended negative consequences and the dynamics underlying them. Only then will R2P be able to achieve its noble objectives.

Liberal intervention in the foreign policy thinking of Tony Blair and David Cameron

David Cameron was a critic of Tony Blair's doctrine of the ‘international community’, which was used to justify war in Kosovo and more controversially in Iraq, suggesting caution in projecting military force abroad while in opposition. However, and in spite of making severe cuts to the defence budget, the Cameron-led Coalition government signed Britain up to a military intervention in Libya within a year of coming into office. What does this say about the place liberal interventionism occupies in contemporary British foreign policy? To answer this question, this article studies the nature of what we describe as the ‘bounded liberal’ tradition that has informed British foreign policy thinking since 1945, suggesting that it puts a distinctly UK national twist on conventional conservative thought about international affairs. Its components are: scepticism of grand schemes to remake the world; instinctive Atlanticism; security through collective endeavour; and anti-appeasement. We then compare and contrast the conditions for intervention set out by Tony Blair and David Cameron. We explain the similarities but crucially the vital differences between the two leaders' thinking on intervention, with particular reference to Cameron's perception that Downing Street needed to loosen its control over foreign policymaking after Iraq. Our argument is that policy substance, policy style and party political dilemmas prompted the two leaders to reconnect British foreign policy with its ethical roots, ingraining a bounded liberal posture in British foreign policy after the moral bankruptcy of the John Major years. This return to a pragmatic and ethically informed foreign policy meant that military operations in Kosovo and Libya were undertaken in quite different circumstances, yet came to be justified by similar arguments from the two leaders.

Turkey's Changing Stance and Paradoxes over the Libyan and Syrian Crises

1 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVI, No.4, Summer 2013 Turkey’s Changing Stance and Paradoxes over the Libyan and Syrian Crises Muhsin Baran* Introduction The current uprising in the Middle East, the Arab Spring, has been sui generis with respect to the exclusive support from the masses and large protests against the regimes in the related countries. The primary reason for such spectacular public backing lies in the demands for change by the peoples of the region. Since these demands were closely related with democracy, the western world, particularly the United States, was expected to devote close attention to this issue and contribute to toppling these regimes. The support from the western world was well below these expectations as the United States and its allies only launched a military intervention in Libya. Other states, namely Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Syria, were assisted in different forms rather than direct military intervention. Turkey’s attitudes towards a foreign intervention were a bit blurred in the beginning. No sooner was a military operation launched by the western world on Libya, than Turkey insistently stressed the danger of third parties’ military interventions in the region and urged that, first and foremost, the internal dynamics should be backed rather than going ahead with a direct military intervention. However, it was not long before when Turkey shifted from its past opposition to a military intervention in Libya and backed the operation indirectly. This new stance was based on the grounds of the rising number of casualties. Turkey’s stance during the Syrian crisis was similar to that of Libya. As the civil war became more brutal and the death toll seemed likely to reach *Muhsin Baran is a PhD candidate at Uludağ University, Department of International Relations. His research interests are the Middle East, Kurdish issue, discourse analysis and Critical Security theories. He has been writing his dissertation on relations between Turkey and Kurdistan Regional Government. 2 an alarming level, Turkey called for a military intervention led by international organizations to stop the bloodshed. The reluctance of the western world due to the Islamist factions in the Syrian opposition and the vetoes of Russia and China in the United Nations Security Council blocked a military intervention in this country. Turkey’s new stance started to be severely criticized by both the secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Action Party (MHP) as this new policy was different from traditional Turkish foreign policy. The zero problems with neighbor’s policy developed by Ahmet Davutoğlu, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, was criticized and recast sarcastically by the Turkish opposition as the zero neighbors policy. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) was blamed for turning once friendly regional states into new foes and deviating from traditional Turkish foreign policy. Apart from the internal opposition, there were serious criticism from regional states such as Iran, Iraq and Russia, for they held Turkey partly responsible for the instability and civil war in Syria. Turkey’s new stance demanding a foreign intervention in Syria was paradoxical with respect to the Islamist identity of the ruling AK Party and Turkey’s treatment of Kurdish opposition in Syria. Calling for non-Islamic third party interventions in a Muslim state contradicted the Islamic approach, which has always urged the unity of the Muslim world. The exclusion of the Kurdish opposition whilst patronizing and arming all other factions including those believed to have connections with al-Qaida was another paradox. This study provides an analytical discussion on Turkey’s paradoxes over the Libyan and particularly Syrian crises. It starts with a brief description of Turkey’s traditional foreign policy during the Cold War era. Then the new policy shaped by Davutoğlu, a renowned professor of International Relations, is explained. Following this, Turkey’s new stance and the paradoxes affiliated with this shift during the Libyan and Syrian crises is discussed in the context of the Arab Spring. The study ends with a conclusion that the foreign policy of a state, as in the case of Turkey, is primarily dependent on national interests. (I) A New Paradigm in Turkish Foreign Policy...

The Responsibility to Protect: Libya and the Problem of Transnational Solidarity

The first part of this article examines some of the legal, ethical, and political dimensions of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine by engaging with cosmopolitan proposals for its application to Libya before the international military action to enforce it was initiated in March 2011. It presents reflections of a historical kind on state sovereignty, international community, and the political theology of humanitarian intervention while assessing the nature of the moral imperative underpinning cosmopolitan assertions of responsibility to save lives in Libya. Considering the official recognition of the Transitional National Council by the enforcers of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine as the sole legitimate authority on Libyan territory, the second part of the article situates this act of recognition within a history of colonial practices that include the legal mechanism of “the protectorate.” It also discusses the prominence of imperial affects in the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. The third part of the article evaluates disagreements among certain anti-imperialist commentators over the desirability of a military intervention in Libya in order to reflect on the politics of transnational solidarity from an angle that may present itself as an alternative to the Responsibility to Protect framework. While calling for a renewed critique of violence, the article concludes with an examination of telling difficulties that afflict attempts to differentiate acts of “foreign intervention” from acts of “transnational solidarity.”

The Responsibility to Protect and the Responsibility While Protecting: Why Did Brazil Write a Letter to the UN?

The responsibility to protect was invoked by the United Nations (UN) Security Council in support of its authorization of a military intervention in Libya in 2011. In the wake of the intervention, Brazil approached the UN with a new doctrine: the responsibility while protecting. The responsibility while protecting implies a greater degree of caution on the part of the international community in its exercise of the responsibility to protect. Intentionally or unintentionally, Brazil mixes aspects of the jus ad bellum with aspects of the jus in bello in the new doctrine. This is controversial and potentially detrimental to both areas of law. An additional layer of limitations on the use of armed force in multinational peace operations is introduced beyond the existing restrictions on warfare following from international humanitarian law. A lack of clarity pertaining to the use of force and to the respective roles of the Security Council and the General Assembly in this respect in the exercise of the responsibility to protect contribute to making the responsibility while protecting seem increasingly enigmatic. Interpreted constructively, however, the responsibility while protecting simply urges the international community to follow international law. This would be good.

The Libyan Model and Strategy: Why it Won't Work in Syria

Operation Unified Protector (Libya, 2011) is the latest example of how a limited-means military intervention in a humanitarian crisis can stop the murder of innocent civilians. Proponents of intervention in the name of "responsibility to protect" (R2P) have stated that the air campaign strategy used in Libya could be the model for future U.S. military engagement overseas. This begs the question of when the United States should insert itself militarily into a humanitarian crisis. For instance, Syria is a potential candidate for military intervention. The following article takes the reasons for military intervention in Libya, as explained by President Obama in his address to the nation in March 2011, and creates criteria for future humanitarian military intervention. By defining and applying these criteria to a humanitarian crisis such as Syria, it is revealed that the Libya campaign model does not fit Syria now, nor does the model provide a panacea for all future humanitarian crises. While the tenets of the Libya strategy could apply to other humanitarian crises, proponents for military intervention must meet the criteria laid out in this article, or the United States may find itself committed to a futile air campaign unable to achieve the nation's strategic objectives.

The Question of Political Responsibility and the Foundation of the National Transitional Council for Libya

In March 2011 Jean-Luc Nancy published an article entitled ‘What the Arab Peoples Signify to Us’ in the Liberation newspaper. The article supported the NATO-led military intervention in Libya that followed the anti-government protests of 15–16 February 2011. It is in the name of ‘political responsibility’ that Nancy makes his intervention. I want to explore the question of ‘political responsibility’ in light of Nancy’s work, and his Liberation article in particular. I do this by first assessing one of the distinguishing features of the uprising in Libya: the emergence of the National Transitional Council (NTC). By setting Nancy’s response against Derrida’s work on spectrality and his critique of the founding declaration (in ‘Declarations of Independence’) we can more clearly appreciate the scope that Nancy’s account of responsibility entails. I suggest that Derrida’s logics of spectrality help not only critique Nancy’s response but also understand the conditions that make his account of political responsibility possible.

Intervention in Libya: Another Nail in the Coffin for the Responsibility-to-Protect?

Abstract The article challenges the widespread assertion in the public and academic discourse that the military intervention in Libya was a successful first true test of the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). Examining the application of the doctrine as a tool of international political decision making as well as a normative framework in international law, the article reviews relevant Security Council resolutions as well as statements made by UN Member States during the Libyan crisis. These suggest that an express invocation of RtoP would have prevented rather than facilitated the adoption of Resolution 1973 (2011) and its authorisation of the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. It is argued further that a narrower focus on ‘protecting civilians’ rather than on the broader concept of RtoP is likely to provide greater political and legal utility in preventing humanitarian catastrophes in the future, even if the Security Council’s response to the crisis in Syria has been disappointing so far.

Obama, the World, and Africa

The article discusses President Barack Obama's troubling foreign policy as it relates to Africa and the Arab Spring; the apparent disinterest amongst African Americans in U.S. military intervention in Libya and unrest in Mali; and the need for building new, internationally focused Black movements in the United States as we look to and beyond the 2012 presidential election.

The Revolt and the Role of the Politicised Youth in the Middle East

1 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVI, No.1, Fall 2012 The Revolt and the Role of the Politicised Youth in the Middle East David Khabaz* The defining characteristics of a spontaneous uprising The revolts that have overwhelmed the Arab world took everyone by surprise. Who would have imagined that within the first three months of 2011 the Arab world would be in the grip of a sustained revolt? More importantly, who would have believed the Arab world would have peaceably disposed of three of its longest serving autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and that the UN would have sanctioned a UN-NATO led military intervention in Libya which eventually led to the downfall of Gadhafi? Perhaps even more astonishingly, who would have imagined that the most decisive and potent actors in the region, the United States and Europe would, along with the various local despots, find themselves suddenly reduced to mere spectators while hugely concerned about the course of the events and the pending consequences? The current revolts in the Middle East have profound implications for the region and the world and they most certainly represent a significant moment in history. This is a region where revolts, revolutions, wars and invasions are commonplace and most of the rulers came to power as a result of military coups a generation ago. Even in such a troubled region the nature and texture of current uprisings is qualitatively different. It *Dr. David Khabaz received his PhD in 2000 at the London School of Economics. He is currently a Sociology professor at the University of Westminster in London. Prior to his arrival at the University of Westminster, David held teaching positions at the London School of Economics, University of London’s Birkbeck College and the Open University in London. He has authored a number of publications including a book entitled Manufactured Schema: Thatcher, the miners and the culture industry which was published in 2006. His most recent article, “The Poverty of Tabloid Journalism: A Post-Mortem to the News of the World,” was published in 2011 in the Chartist Magazine. His research interests are mainly in the field of democracy, human rights and citizenship in the Arab world. 2 started spontaneously in Tunisia in 2011, and rapidly spread across geopolitical boundaries through Facebook, Twitter and smart phones and has arisen from no particular political group or with any real organisation. For generations, the Arabs of North Africa, Syria and the Gulf seemed to accept tokens of democracy, if there were any, given by kings, Emirs and presidents, who suppressed dissent and rewarded their extended families and supporters with the income from oil. In many ways, neo-colonialism has to be seen as a major cause.1 In the interests of the region’s ‘stability’— and for the murkier reasons of oil and money—various Western governments continually supported, armed and protected regimes in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf and North Africa that, by any normal standards of progress, should have been consigned to the dustbin of history several generations ago.2 One of the most startling features of the current uprisings is the common cry for change by all classes and age groups that have simply grown tired of corruption and economic and social deprivation.3 An explicit demand for freedom lies at the heart of the movements . There is a deep desire to do away with existing power structures which are obstructing the achievement of this noble aim. The unemployed youth are clearly the driving force behind the movements. Recent research (including this study) indicates that the youth form a staggering 30 to 40 percent of the total population in the region; most of them are aged under 25. Similarly, recent Gallup research has shown that the rate of unemployment amongst the youth hovers between 26 percent (Saudi Arabia) and 49 percent in Yemen. (See Table I). 1 See: Nathaniel Davis, ‘From colonialism to Neo-Colonialism: Nationalism, Islam and the Framing of Conflicts in Afghanistan’, Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Spring 2010, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp 1- 21 2 For an excellent exposition of the origins of dictatorship in the Middle East see Adrian Hamilton’s...

Looking Beyond Spring for the Season: An African Perspective on the World Order after the Arab Revolt

There is much misunderstanding today about the decision of African countries not to endorse the military intervention in Libya undertaken by France, Great Britain, and the United States in conjunction with a few Arab States. This act of non-cooperation is the result of a tension that is much deeper and, contrary to punditry, goes to the core of the future of global governance and international morality today. This tension arises from two clashing positions: (1) the tendency of a fraction of states frequently self-designated as the West to usurp the mantle of international community, and (2) the longstanding objection from ‘Africa’ that the will of the international community may be appropriated by a small fractions of its constituents, however powerful. The underlying opposition extends today to all domains of international law, from the inception of law (in this case UN resolutions), to its interpretation and implementation, to the appreciation of its execution, or judgment. Hoy día hay un fuerte malentendido sobre la decisión de los países africanos de no apoyar a la intervención militar en Libia emprendida por Francia, Gran Bretaña y los Estados Unidos en conjunción con algunos estados árabes. Este acto de no cooperación es el resultado de una tensión que es más profunda, y contraria al pronóstico de los llamados expertos, que va al núcleo del futuro del gobierno global y la ética internacional actual. Esta tensión proviene de dos posiciones conflictivas: (1) la tendencia de una fracción de estados autodesignados frecuentemente como el occidente que usurpa la capa de la comunidad internacional, y (2) la perdurable objeción de ”África” a que la voluntad de la comunidad internacional pueda ser destinada a pequeñas fracciones de sus constituyentes, aún poderosas. La oposición subyacente se extiende hoy en día a todos los dominios de la ley internacional, desde el comienzo de la ley (en este caso, las resoluciones de las Naciones Unidas). 今天，对于非洲国家不同意法、英、美联手一些阿拉伯国家对利比亚进行军事干预的决定，仍然存在很大误解。这种不合作行为是一种紧张状态的结果，与专家意见相反，这种紧张正成为未来全球治理以及今日国际道德的核心。它产生于两种相互冲突的立场：(1)一部分惯常自命为西方的国家侵害国际共同体外表的倾向；（2）“非洲”长期存在的反对： 国际共同体的意志有可能被一小部分成员（不管多强大）所盗用。今天，潜在的反对正从法律（本例中即联合国决议）的开端延伸到国际法的所有领域。

Germany as a Geo-economic Power

Berlin's March 2011 abstention on the UN Security Council vote on military intervention in Libya has raised questions about Germany's role in the international system. By abstaining on Security Cou...

Commentary: Diplomacy and Libya: Balancing Foreign Policy with Private Party Litigation

The international community's March 2011 military intervention in Libya contrasts sharply to its reluctance during the preceding forty years to halt the Qadhafi regime's sponsorship of transnational terrorism and pursuit of WMD. American diplomacy, eventually supported by international sanctions, was a four decade effort to end Qadhafi's violent foreign policy. This commentary discusses how diplomacy and the American judicial process combined to achieve this successful outcome. Diplomatic and legislative efforts to compel Libya's payment to terrorism victims helped create judicial remedies enforceable in US Courts and ultimately, a bilateral claims settlement agreement that, while disappointing to the terrorism litigants, normalized relations between the Libya and the United States.