Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
Azor,

From my "armchair" the situations are very different. Chad in 1987 was an obscure nation, largely desert and sparsely populated. Neither Narva, an Estonian city on the Russian border and The Spratlys are low profile, although the resident populations are very different.

The French and Libyans could use their approach without publicity and a local audience. It probably helped that Libya had few friends; although plenty of sellers of weapons.
I was speaking strictly from a military perspective. Probably the closet analogues would be Argentina's seizure of the Falklands in 1982 and Egypt's seizure of the east bank of the Suez in 1973 (to October 13).

I can assure you that China has studied the Falklands intently, while Russia probably leans more toward Suez.