![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
This study explores the development of Libya’s security situation following the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 up to March 2016. It provides an overview of Libya’s main warring parties and the struggles they are engaged in. The analysis covers both domestic groups and the main external stakeholders. The study finds that the security dynamics are changing quickly and that Libya has many political hurdles and security challenges to overcome before a more durable situation of stability can be achieved.
Notes
This article is based on previous research presented in Eriksson, A Fratricidal Libya; Eriksson, ‘Towards Selective Regionalization?’
1. Ayoob, Will the Middle East Implode?; Pollack et al., The Arab Awakening; Dabashi, The Arab Spring; Fosshagen, Arab Spring; Haas and Lesh, The Arab Spring; Danahar, The New Middle East; Marcovitz, The Arab Spring Uprisings; Inbar, The Arab Spring, Democracy and Security.
2. Mhenni, Tunisian Girl; Joffé, North Africa’s Arab Spring.
3. Lynch, The Arab Uprisings Explained.
4. St John, ‘Libya’.
5. For a comprehensive coverage of Libya’s armed conflict 2011–2013 (mainly from an international law perspective), see Bassiouni, Libya, from Repression to Revolution; Dalton and Lobban, Libya: History and Revolution; and Chorin, Exit Qaddafi.
6. Hehir and Murray, Libya.
7. Pack, The 2011 Libyan Uprisings.
8. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, ‘Dignity and Dawn’.
9. See for instance the so-called ‘cockroach’ speech by Qaddafi on 22 February 2011.
10. Several commentators have convincingly argued that the US government took a ‘leading from behind’ position in the intervention.
11. Lindvall and Forsman, Internationella insatser i Libyen 2011.
12. See the ‘positive’ analysis of the Libya intervention by Ivo Daalder (former US Permanent Representative to NATO) and James Stavridis (at the time Supreme Allied Commander of Europe), Daalder and Stavridis, ‘NATO’s Victory in Libya’. See also Hehir and Murray, Libya; and for a very critical and comprehensive view of how the international community has handled Libya (including, NATO, the AU, the EU, the LAS and the United States), see Campbell, ‘Failure in Libya’.
13. See Roberts, ‘Who Said Qaddafi Had to Go?’.
14. Kuperman, ‘Obama’s Libya Debacle’, 67–72.
15. Ibid.
16. Hehir and Murray, Libya; Eriksson, ‘Towards Selective Regionalization?’.
17. Falk, ‘Chaos and Counterrevolution’.
18. Fishman, ‘How We Can Still Fix Libya’.
19. Sayigh, ‘Crumbling States’.
20. The fact that Libya was left to its own destiny is further exemplified by the 2015 UK Parliamentary report, a public document revealing that the UK spent 13 times as much money (£320 million) bombing Libya as it provided for rebuilding after the NATO intervention (a cost of £25 million, of which most went to humanitarian support). Although each country has its own reasons for investing money and resources in post-conflict intervention programmes, the asymmetric proportions mentioned in this UK example are likely to mirror the same lack of post-intervention reconstruction interest by other states, see MiddleEastEye, ‘UK spent 13 times more money bombing Libya’.
21. As noted by Sayigh, ‘Crumbling States’, groups included ‘. . . secular opposition activists, some of whom had recently returned from exile; the Muslim Brotherhood and its parliamentary vehicle, the JCP; Salafist Islamists; and the ‘liberal’ National Forces Alliance’. Cf. note 19.
22. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, ‘Dignity and Dawn’, 17.
23. Haftar was previously a serving general under Qaddafi who defected after coming into personal conflict with him. Haftar left the region for the United States. During the Arab Spring he came back to side with the anti-Islamist coalition in Libya under the sponsorship of countries like the UAE and Egypt; The Independent, ‘Libyan Government Should Be Suspended’.
24. The aim was to target groups such as the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries in Benghazi (of which Ansar al-Sharia and other armed Islamists were part), which largely rejected the formal political process at the time (the Islamists were at the time influential and in control of parts of Tripoli). Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, ‘Libya’, 3.
25. Cf. note 17; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, ‘Libya’, 3.
26. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, ‘Dignity and Dawn’, 23.
27. Kuperman, ‘Obama’s Libya Debacle’, 68.
28. Members of the HoR, having recognised the Supreme Court up to this point, rejected the court ruling on two bases, arguing (1) that Tripoli, where the Supreme Court operates, was under the control of Islamist and Misratan militias, and (2) that the electoral law to which the Supreme Court referred in its ruling was put in place by the GNC (having been dominated by Islamist and pro-militia blocs and therefore biased). See Eljarh, ‘The Supreme Court Decision’.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Reuters, ‘Libya Parliament Allies with Renegade General’.
32. Ibid.
33. The New York Times, ‘Arab Nations Strike in Libya’.
34. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, ‘Dignity and Dawn’, 23.
35. Institute of Security Studies, ‘World Attention on Libya as Migrants Die’.
36. Vandewalle, History of Modern Libya.
37. United Press International, ‘Egypt seeks U.S. Gear’.
38. Newsweek, ‘Spiritual Leader of Libya’s Biggest Jihadi Group’.
39. Wehrey, ‘Rising out of chaos’.
40. Rosenthal, The Jihadist Plot, ch. 3.
41. The Washington Post, ‘The Islamic State’s Model’.
42. The New York Times, ‘Arab Nations Strike in Libya’.
43. Cf. note 39.
44. CNN World News, ‘ISIS Comes to Libya’.
45. Eljarh, ‘A Snapshot’.
46. Gartenstein-Ross and Barr, ‘Dignity and Dawn’, 40.
47. Guardian, ‘Libyan Rebels’.
48. International Business Times, ‘Libyan Prime Minister Accuses’.
49. However, Libya is also important for Europe for many other traditional geopolitical reasons, notably when it comes to migration from Africa, as an important supplier of energy, and for the challenges posed by radicalisation. Serwer, ‘Libya’s Escalating Civil War’.
50. See for instance France Soir, ‘Le gouvernement de Tripoli’; The Telegraph, ‘British “Advisers” Deployed to Libya’.
51. Institute of Security Studies. ‘World Attention on Libya’.