Libya: The End of Intervention
Without Western responsibility for the outcome of the intervention in Libya and without any transformative promise, Western powers were strengthened morally and politically through their actions, whereas in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, they were humbled and often humiliated.
Was the International Intervention in Libya a Success?
The UN-mandated intervention in Libya is now officially at an end. Perhaps only time will tell whether Libya turns out to have been a great case of international intervention or something rather less.
Qaddafi’s Death is Only the Beginning in Libya
The death of Qaddafi is, naturally, a very public symbol that his reign of oppression is over and will not return, but this is not the end of the story for Libyans, the UN or NATO. The campaign to maintain peace between the various factions could prove to be more difficult than the defeat of Qaddafi’s forces.
What role for the EU in the new Libya?
Perhaps, looking back at the EU’s performance in the Libyan crisis in five years’ time, the best lesson to (re-) learn is that the EU is not good at hard security policy, but does a very decent job when the task is about dealing with the aftermath of conflict. Stable democracies cannot be built on the battlefield. They require a whole different set of capabilities than what NATO can offer.
How to Lose a Revolution
Some are calling the coalition intervention that began 19 March 2011, in Libya a success. I call tens of thousands of deaths and injuries a tragedy. When such casualties occur owing to a military intervention never shown to be necessary, the intervention is a failure.
R2P, Libya and International Politics as the Struggle for Competing Normative Architectures
The UN was neither designed nor expected to be a pacifist organisation. Its origins lie in the anti-Nazi wartime military alliance amongst Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. The all-powerful UN Security Council is the world’s duly, and only, sworn in sheriff for enforcing international law and order.
Transatlantic Relations: A Case for Optimism
In the coming weeks as the Libya drama comes to a climax and as the debate on Afghanistan sharpens on what happens next, the European nations will have to make a decision on what kind of transatlantic relationship they want, or need, or value. The option of grumbling dependency is over, an era of shared responsibility and mutual contribution is about to dawn.
Why Libya is Not (Yet) Kosovo: The Time for a Ground Option has Arrived
Unfortunately, the events of the Libyan conflict have thus far only reinforced the lesson that there is no such thing as a “cheap” military solution to a political problem. To continue to operate under this seductive myth will only compound the error. By breaking the Libyan regime, the international community has bought its problems.
Review – The Good War: NATO and the Liberal Conscience in Afghanistan
One of the challenges facing anyone who wishes to write on the war in Afghanistan is to squeeze this fiendishly difficult topic into an appropriate framework. It is not easy to find an approach that avoids oversimplifying the issues, or bamboozling the reader into boredom, confusion, deep cynicism, or a combination of all three.
Gates’ Parting Shot
What NATO has demonstrated in the past 20 years is its utility as facilitator of action by its members, deployed on the basis of what are seen as the compelling strategic and political judgements of the time. Despite this, US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, has recently warned of a dismal future for the transatlantic alliance. Yet we should not assume that the Alliance is condemned to possible irrelevance.
