Tossing in the towel on Libya
Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 12:01AM 
Asked recent by a commenter what I would imagine a decent effort in Libya would entail, I now turn to Max Boot's piece yesterday in the WSJ entitled, "It's not too late to save libya."
The guts of the military explanation:
The Pentagon, from Defense Secretary Robert Gates on down, has reacted as if this would be a military operation on the order of D-Day. In reality, it would not be hard to ground Gadhafi's decrepit air force.
The job could probably be performed with just one American ship—the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, now in the Red Sea, which has 34 F/A-18F Super Hornets and 10 F/A-18C Hornets along with a full complement of electronic-warfare aircraft. The Enterprise strike group could also unleash a devastating array of Tomahawk cruise missiles.
And the Enterprise would not have to fight alone. It could easily be joined by numerous American, British and French aircraft flying out of Aviano and other NATO bases in Italy. A forward operations base could be established at the Gamal Abdul el-Nasser airfield, one of Libya's major air force bases (built by the British), which is located south of Tobruk and has already been captured by the rebels.
As the enforcement of no-fly zones over Bosnia and Iraq should have proved, the risks of such an operation are minimal—especially if we first neutralize Gadhafi's air defenses.
By itself, a no-fly zone might not be enough to topple Gadhafi. At the very least, however, it would dishearten Gadhafi's supporters and buy time for the rebels. We could further tilt the balance in their favor by bombing Gadhafi's installations and troops.
It may also be necessary to send arms and Special Forces trainers to support the rebels. Without committing any combat troops of our own, we could deliver the same kind of potent combined-arms punch that drove the Serbs out of Kosovo when NATO aircraft supported ground operations by the Kosovo Liberation Army.
That's pretty much what I was thinking of. I just don't know enough operationally to express as well as Boot does here.
Per the WSJ editorial on the preceding page, we are seeing how much "Arabs love the pax Americana." I remember during Abu Ghraib and everything else hearing about how America's standing in the region would take "decades" to resurrect. You knew that was bulls@&t then. When the right circumstances hit the right fan, the Arab League wants our no-fly-zone, even if Turkey's Erdogan is being too egotistical to admit it.
But of course, we now bow to the "international community," Obama's pet phrase decoded as, "I'm with chickens@$t!" Just some leadership here would be nice.
Niall Ferguson, in Newsweek, quotes some senior WH aide as saying, "[The President] keeps reminding us that the best revolutions are completely organic."
Ferguson thereupon blows that idiotic reading of history out of the water. Good God, take a peak at the American Revolution, why don't you?
It scares me to think Obama really views history that naively. Ferguson goes on to make a truly sophisticated argument on the Helsinki Accords killing the Soviet Union (whip communism . . . eventually, Jerry!). Great point. Revolutions that succeed without outside help are rare.
But hey, now Washington seems to have bought into the Beijing Consensus when it comes to non-interference. I'm sure the view on this new world order is great from Benghazi.
Reader Comments (12)
I really enjoyed this post. I tried to convince a co-worker that one air-craft carrier would level the playing field in Libya. They didn't buy it, and I honestly was guessing. Glad to hear I wasn't far off from a more informed analysis.
I too read the article by Ferguson, and was truly disgusted. His selective outlook of history is pathetic. If you look at the history of my home land, then at best we have had 60-70 years of partial equality. Women still are not making as much as men, and racial tensions remain high. That's not even bringing into account the polarized political system that seems less and less likely to compromise everyday.
That said the USA is one of the most positive influences that has ever graced the human race. Can't be too negative after all.
A couple of documentaries I watched interviewed some Arabs on Abu Ghraib. They were not shocked that it happened, what they were shocked by was that a leader of any government would get on television and apologize for it. THAT was amazing to them.
Obama's response is not puzzling to me. We are getting exactly what he said he would deliver. I don't like it, but it is what it is. The only benefit I see for this situation if it continues along this trajectory is that there may be more pressure to act on the next crisis. It's really sad because we had a real opportunity here to free another country with minimal effort on our part.
Thanks,
Brian
Well, the Gadhafi forces have 'turned the corner', and gotten past the best defensible position before Benghazi. (Just check your WWII North Africa history and Google Maps, that neck of land between Marsa and Ras Lanuf where the swamps/salt marshes/lakes come close to the ocean.) At this point, things look very bleak for the rebels.
I feel like the woman at the town hall a while back who exclaimed that she was "exhausted from defending Obama." I just can’t understand why they are letting this “crisis/opportunity” (with apologies to the former COS) go to waste.
Gadafi purposely kept everyone weak within his country.There is no organised analogue of the Kosovo resistance that we can assist with on the ground.
The rebels will lose or never win therefore a NFZ is just postural.
A prop for an embarassed Sarkozy ( slow over Tunisia ) and a Cameroon who wants to have his moral fibre stamped over a small war ...which our Prime Ministers now believe is an essential ' rites of passage' ever since Maggie + Falklands...
Libya is not a equation that alters the balance anywhere in the world.This NFZ idealism taken to its natural conclusion means that these arguments can be re-run for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain when they find the need kill of large numbers of Shias ( to teach them a lesson) .
I wonder where these same voices , that are telling us the Obama is naive , will be if that happens.
"Revolutions that succeed without outside help are rare."
But they're better, no?
The organic American Revolution was only made possible by the royal French guns of Lafayette.
"Revolutions that succeed without outside help are rare."
"But they're better, no?"
By what measure? Probably not blood...
Even the British "Glorious Revolutuion" of 1688 that they are so proud of was really made possible with outside help, namely, the Dutch. William of Orange landed in England with about 15,000 Dutch troops and a substantial fleet. This ensured that the ouster of James II - and his replacement with a Dutch Protestant monarch - would not be followed up by the sectarian violence that had plagued Britain for decades.
Bush #1 seemed a wimp after Saddam took Kuwait. It gave Saddam an incentive to stay and posture. After shooting started, Saddam even made a minor invasion of Saudi Arabia for working with US. Because Saddam did not keep his forces in rear defensive postures where they could inflict more US and allied casualties, he lost more quickly and easily. IW helps cause your enemy to fight where, when and how it is to your advantage.
Because Saddam did not keep his forces in rear defensive postures where they could inflict more US and allied casualties, he lost more quickly and easily.
Huh? Any analysis of the (first) Gulf War sure doesn't support this position. With the massively superior airpower, once Saddam's forces were fixed, they were pulverized. Saddam's better alternative was to keep moving into Saudi Arabia, over the light infantry "speed bumps," and get his forces fully into urban areas.
By the way, that's what Gadhafi should probably do, rush as many troops into urban Benghazi as he can. Air power can't take them out without substantial collateral damage. But on the other hand, that gives the Libyan rebels a much better fighting chance, at the cost of large civilian casualties and destruction (e.g. Chechnya!)
And that is probably what we want him to do.