The resolution is surprisingly far-reaching.
It's also interesting that it bans an occupation explicitly. Someone is learning.
Especially not a bankrupt hegemonic puissance living off loans from its hypothetical rivals.Originally Posted by M-A Lagrange
I don't really buy into the idea that the US and Europe must or inevitably will face off against Russia, China, or any unlikely combination of the two (who are quite likely to face off against each other somewhere down the line), but multipolarity and a Europe that's willing to lead when called for are certainly good things.
I sense a strange emphasis on leadership instead of on cooperation.
The former is mostly a myth, while the latter is everyday occurrence.
Americans call it "American leadership" when U.S. interests happen to be close enough with others' interests and cooperation happens. It's annoying.
This whole leadership idea should have been laid to rest during the GWB foreign policy debacle, for there was no leadership. There was meddling in conflict with most others and with fooling the rest.
The solution of a foreign political problem very rarely requires leadership, but most often cooperation. Better don't hope for a leadership-coined future, it won't happen.
In fact, the EU is more prone to be influenced by leadership than the games in which State Dept plays.
All EU countries are to some extent prisoners of the same cell in European affairs, and few countries (typically Germany+France, less often France+UK or France+Italy) can steer the problem solution path by agreeing on a strategy early on. That comes closer to leadership than almost all of what US State Dept does imo.
Chips that China, especially, or Russia particularly care for? The French have little to offer other than their influence over EU trade policy, which they must share with the Germans. What chips do they really have?Why not? What makes the U.S. different here?
It's not like the French would be unable to talk or to offer some bargaining chips.
The U.S., on the other hand, is China's biggest and most important single relationship by far, both economically and in the security realm. It's not even close.
Apparently Gaddafi has now declared a ceasefire.
Ah, the French viewpoint
Thanks to Patrick Porter's emailing:Link to statement within an Australian news report:http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...18/3168059.htmMr Baroin said the goal of the military action would be to "protect the Libyan people and to allow them to go all the way in their drive for freedom, which means bringing down the Gaddafi regime."
Norway and Canada plan to contribute, air and naval forces respectively.
davidbfpo
I'm guessing that's a charade of compliance aimed at buying a little time, delaying strikes and possibly weakening the consensus behind immediate action.
We'll see.
and
Those two are related. You'd think the people who drafted this policy would be more cognizant of how easily the "protecting the population" justification could be gamed and manipulated. MQ implemented this ceasefire to take away any justification for attacking his forces. It's the first of many tests for this coalition - does "protecting the population" really mean "bringing down the Gaddafi regime" when that regime isn't engaging in overt military action against the rebels? Do the Europeans realize they've signed up for regime change? I doubt it, so there will not be the political will to "seal the deal" and overthrow MQ as long as he's smart enough not to provoke action and by all accounts he is.Mr Baroin said the goal of the military action would be to "protect the Libyan people and to allow them to go all the way in their drive for freedom, which means bringing down the Gaddafi regime."
The stage is therefore set for OSW part deux - an enduring, undecisive intervention where a dictator maintains nominal control through manipulation of yet another half-assed UNSC resolution and the wishful thinking of policymakers who should know better.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
Folks like you.
Who may have once done something but now do little but carp will carp. They have been throwing things in our faces for years -- hasn't hurt much, hasn't changed much but as long as you're entertained, we're all for it...Nope, long fully retired after two 'careers,' don't need another and if by spin you mean having to point out the glaringly obvious to people who are supposed to be old enough and smart enough to know better than a lot of the dribble they espouse, why, that sounds sort of bo-ring. It's okay to while away idle hours doing that just for grins but I sure wouldn't want to do it for a career.I like the spin... you ever thought of a second career at State?
Uh, actually, what's embarrassing to many American is having to pick up the slack for a lot of people who don't want to pull their weight and who purport to want said 'Merkuns to fix their messes or the messes they left around the world. BTW, how are things going in your neighborhood? Anyway, we're embarrassed for them plus it's really getting tedious...Yes, it must be embarrassing to Americans... I sympathize.
Sigh...
Sad but true...
If we fall in with a plan to deliver airstrikes against anything on the ground, we've just granted Ghadaffi martyrdom, no matter how it ends. He will have fought the bullying great powers that thirst only for oil and cloak it under thw guise of protecting innocent Libyans.
This was a popular movement that seems to have fizzled for all sorts of reasons, and we are casting our support out there to prevent the rebels falling into disarray. It will always go down in the mind of the jihadists that once again we stuck our nose into the Arab world to shape it into sommething the West wants. This half of the Catch-22, in my opinion, is not outweighed by any national interest that I can see. We are going to break another vase, and widen our diplomatic, economic, and military problems in the wake of what happens. I see us as just not having the resources for this, and even if we did, this is not smart.
Being criticized for sitting on the sidelines is the half of the Catch-22 I would have preferred to see us fall in line with. It is easier to mitigate, considering Libya was not an ally nation.
Last edited by jcustis; 03-18-2011 at 03:00 PM.
Concur. We don't really have a clear interest here, and it's best to stay out of it.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
yup, he just pushed his pawn into check...and...mate.
I believe they did, in deed
The Speaker of the French Government:
When I was saying few hours or quickly (...), without giving any strategic locations or strikes configuration, I do not believe that anything may bring to its senses that terrorist and bloody dictatureQuand je disais quelques heures ou rapidement (...), sans donner de lieu stratégique ou de nature de frappes, je ne suis pas sûr que quoi que ce soit puisse faire entendre raison à cette dictature terroriste ou sanguinaire
It's a military intervention that is not I remind it, an occupation of the Lybian territory, but it's an operation of military nature to protect the Lybian people and allow them to go up to the end of his freedom will.(C'est) une intervention militaire qui n'est pas, je le rappelle, une occupation du territoire libyen, mais qui est un dispositif de nature militaire pour protéger le peuple libyen et lui permettre d'aller jusqu'au bout de son souffle de liberté
Well, G seems to have managed to piss off Sarko who was keen to have his "just war".
Can't say I disagree; on that point only.
I don't know, that seems to be openly contradicted by the earlier part of your post:Do the Europeans realize they've signed up for regime change? I doubt it, so there will not be the political will to "seal the deal" and overthrow MQ as long as he's smart enough not to provoke action and by all accounts he is.
Mr. Baroin is a French government spokesman.Mr Baroin said the goal of the military action would be to "protect the Libyan people and to allow them to go all the way in their drive for freedom, which means bringing down the Gaddafi regime."
People seem to be forgetting that the opposition is now in a position to reconsolidate its positions and build a military force, apparently now with a military supply chain via Egypt and Tunisia. Stratfor is posting on the presence of Egyptian special forces troops in Libya already. Airstrikes to crush Gaddafi's artillery and armored vehicles around Benghazi, combined with a rebel push to recapture the oil terminals, would quickly emasculate the Gaddafi regime's ability to fund its mercenaries and buy support. Given that the regime has only held on through mass arrests and killings in Tripoli and the west, this could embolden more defections from his security forces and more uprisings from people who will no longer fear Gaddafi's tanks.
A few thousand Black African mercenaries are cheap. The possession of oil export facilities is rather of symbolic importance in this conflict imo.
Logistics (and thus organisation), competence and motivation (loyalty, morale) are the keys. A lasting draw would most likely lead to a collapse of the loyalists.
More on the German position:
Our foreign minister drew harsh critique from newspaper comment sections, but chancellor Merkel backs him with the same arguments.
'Behind closed door' she's supposedly more harsh and considers the military actions s not fully thought-out and too risky in regard to escalation.
Keep in mind that until a few days the rule of thumb that it's a bad idea to get involved in a distant civil war was still held in high regard.
Merkel was somewhat pro-Iraq invasion in 2002 and has apparently learned since, becoming less belligerent.
Last edited by Fuchs; 03-18-2011 at 03:16 PM.
I am honestly surprised we haven't seen the employment of several well-placed, simple IEDs, to give the tankers reason for pause.
There's nothing channelling on the terrain. Where should the mines be laid? Almost all vehicles can quite easily travel off-road, especially the military ones. No mountains or hills, thus no narrow valley. No irrigation channels limiting choice of route, nor drainage channels.
A couple wadis and the streets in settlements offer the only canalized terrain afaik.
Mines only played a significant role in Africa during 1940-1942 in the defence of fortified settlements (Tobruk) and at the natural bottleneck El Alamein.
I was pointing out that not everyone agrees with Mr. Baroin's position on what the resolution authorizes. It's pretty clear it does not explicitly authorize regime change since it is focused on "protecting civilians." The resolution calls on Gaddafi to implement a ceasefire immediately which he has done. He's nominally complying. Maybe I missed something in the resolution, but assisting the rebels in offensive operations against Libyan forces who've declared a ceasefire does not sound like "protecting civilians" to me, especially since a lot of civilians are going to get killed in the fighting. Whatever French officials may say, it doesn't seem likely to me that the public in Europe will support it. Of course, that is an educated guess - I may be completely wrong.
Secondly, if Gaddafi is as weak as you indicate (and on that score I honestly don't know - the Libyan regime is not my area of expertise), then maybe an aggressive NFZ will be enough to enable the rebels to win. What if they don't win? Is the coalition willing to escalate? If not then we've got a recipe for stalemate and an enduring intervention.
In short, it's easy to say that Gaddafi has to go, it's quite another matter to actually accomplish that goal.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
These guys aren't driving across the open expanses of desert. They could, but they don't, and won't. It would only work with the first few dozen or so strikes astride the main roads they are following. After that, it could set them up for other counterattacks that employ other tactics. Again, I'm talking about giving them reason for pause, not necessarily to try to grind them to a halt, although I wouldn't be surprised if a few burning T-72s didn't really wreck a lot of motivation to fight.
I suspect the two main factors are lack of expertise combined with a lack of time due to the rapid retreat.
Supporting "time-limited, scope limited military actions" for 20 years.
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