One other element to keep in mind: we know Egypt is 'interested' in Cyrenaica, and would be moreso were ??? hundred thousand Libyan refugees (as well as the estimated million Egyptian guest workers) to stream over the border. (Nb. in the event that Gaddafi had gone into Benghazi (then Tobruk, etc.) with his armor, it's a fairly safe prediction that most of the first refugees across the wire would come armed and riding Toyota technicals).
We know Egyptian 'distraction' by events in Cyrenaica would be particularly unproductive in the context of its current political turmoil.
Finally, we know just how bad 'refugee distraction' has been in the past for Egypt's political development: the '48-73 period is one where repeated refugee crises entangled themselves with war and increased military authoritarianism.
This larger context tends to justify according events in Libya far more strategic weight than would normally be merited by a small (6m people) albeit oil-rich country.* (Not clear whether the 6m figure includes the 1m (!!!) Egyptians working in Libya).
Conversely, Libya's scale (2m smaller than New York City, about 1/4 the population of 1989 Yugoslavia) does impose an upper limit on the amount of trouble we can get into in our intervention. This is, I suspect, one reason why the U.S. has -- so far -- been able to avoid bogging itself down in Libya in the past, despite 2-3 previous 'interventions' of only modest utility.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
On the Balkans
There's an interesting comparison between Libya and the Balkans... probably an important one because the Balkan adventures (and the Rwanda disaster) were likely on the Clinton's mind as the Libya crisis unfolded. That basic thought I'll leave as a stub.
For my part, at the time I was in graduate school at Chicago, studying history, but being pulled gradually and reluctantly into the orbit of Chicago's arch-realists: Walt and Mearsheimer particularly.
I remember now, one thing I found particularly perplexing was their expectations about the Balkans, and particularly their carping about 'the mission,' about 'European dithering,' and, inevitably, about the inherent pusillaminity of anything French. Whatever.
The big problem I always had: people -- both the TV talking heads and Chicago's scholars -- would talk about the 'tragedy of Sarajevo,' and generally they'd be talking about how a cute little tourist town and ex-Olympic resort had become war zone. Concerned bleeding-heart that I was, I always had a hard time swallowing the term 'foreign policy disaster in the Balkans' -- a term that came bubbling up from time to time.
I am a historian, perhaps as much by avocation as profession. I could never accustom myself to thinking of a 'Tragedy of Sarajevo' as anything but the event of June 28, 1914, 'foreign policy disaster in the Balkans' as anything but the Guns of August: the onset of war that sent three generations of Europeans to -- or through -- Hell. Or, perhaps, the scenario set out in Sir John Hackett's 1982 novel, The Third World War , a novel that seemed -- by 1993 -- eerily prescient about incipient disaster in Yugoslavia.
Given my impression of the stakes involved, I tended to be far more respectful of Europeans' diplomatic efforts in the Balkans. To my mind, things were turning out well if Russians, Germans, and French were not shooting each other, or, for that matter, if Turks and Greeks remained at peace. I guess my colleagues tended to think I was not sufficiently critical.
Part of the reason this I'm thinking about this now: I find myself again at odds with most opinion about events in Libya. From my perspective, most of the commentary mis-perceives what is at stake, which is not so much the stability/democracy/welfare of Libya itself. Rather, really, the danger is that turmoil in Libya -- and particularly the threat of refugee exodus from Cyrenaica -- might disrupt and distract Egypt from the crucial chores of domestic reform and political reconstitution.
For my part, at the time I was in graduate school at Chicago, studying history, but being pulled gradually and reluctantly into the orbit of Chicago's arch-realists: Walt and Mearsheimer particularly.
I remember now, one thing I found particularly perplexing was their expectations about the Balkans, and particularly their carping about 'the mission,' about 'European dithering,' and, inevitably, about the inherent pusillaminity of anything French. Whatever.
The big problem I always had: people -- both the TV talking heads and Chicago's scholars -- would talk about the 'tragedy of Sarajevo,' and generally they'd be talking about how a cute little tourist town and ex-Olympic resort had become war zone. Concerned bleeding-heart that I was, I always had a hard time swallowing the term 'foreign policy disaster in the Balkans' -- a term that came bubbling up from time to time.
I am a historian, perhaps as much by avocation as profession. I could never accustom myself to thinking of a 'Tragedy of Sarajevo' as anything but the event of June 28, 1914, 'foreign policy disaster in the Balkans' as anything but the Guns of August: the onset of war that sent three generations of Europeans to -- or through -- Hell. Or, perhaps, the scenario set out in Sir John Hackett's 1982 novel, The Third World War , a novel that seemed -- by 1993 -- eerily prescient about incipient disaster in Yugoslavia.
Given my impression of the stakes involved, I tended to be far more respectful of Europeans' diplomatic efforts in the Balkans. To my mind, things were turning out well if Russians, Germans, and French were not shooting each other, or, for that matter, if Turks and Greeks remained at peace. I guess my colleagues tended to think I was not sufficiently critical.
Part of the reason this I'm thinking about this now: I find myself again at odds with most opinion about events in Libya. From my perspective, most of the commentary mis-perceives what is at stake, which is not so much the stability/democracy/welfare of Libya itself. Rather, really, the danger is that turmoil in Libya -- and particularly the threat of refugee exodus from Cyrenaica -- might disrupt and distract Egypt from the crucial chores of domestic reform and political reconstitution.
A stub, on the frivolity of American realism
From an exchange with Sorn about Clausewitz;
Carrington:
I get the sense it is very, very difficult to be a Clausewitzian in an American context.
Sorn: That's because to Americans, war is geography by other means.
Or, as a professor of mine said a couple years back war is how americans learn geography.
Carrington_Ward 0 minutes ago in reply to Sorn
:-).
That does, in many ways, get at the heart of the issue: Clausewitz wrote having seen Prussia defeated and dismembered. Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a cover lettter and resume for the prince who had ordered him imprisoned and tortured.
Not only were they pragmatists, they knew firsthand the cost of failure.
It's hard to translate that experience and background to people for whom war is a way of learning (for once) your geography.
Carrington:
I get the sense it is very, very difficult to be a Clausewitzian in an American context.
Sorn: That's because to Americans, war is geography by other means.
Or, as a professor of mine said a couple years back war is how americans learn geography.
Carrington_Ward 0 minutes ago in reply to Sorn
:-).
That does, in many ways, get at the heart of the issue: Clausewitz wrote having seen Prussia defeated and dismembered. Machiavelli wrote The Prince as a cover lettter and resume for the prince who had ordered him imprisoned and tortured.
Not only were they pragmatists, they knew firsthand the cost of failure.
It's hard to translate that experience and background to people for whom war is a way of learning (for once) your geography.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Preempting "Mission Creep:" Debates over Libyan intervention
Much of the concern -- and much of the neocon 'excitement' -- over Libya seems to be over the prospect of 'regime change' and about deposing Qaddafi. Even President Obama, who should know better, has contributed to the chatter with an ill-advised mention of a 'tightening noose.' And, on the other hand, there is a well-founded fear that Libya might constitute yet another in our growing list of quagmires.
All the the chatter obscures the current reality of a limited war for limited political goals. And, arguably, it makes it much harder for those limits to be maintained, especially given the politicians' rhetorical taste for "wars to end all wars," "promotion of democracy," and the public's desire that the ends actually clearly justify the means.
As such, there is a fairly Bismarckian and cold-blooded point to be made in favor of NATO's current Libyan adventure, such as it is. Specifically, the real and significant danger in Libya is the potential that a bolus of armed, angry, and desperate Libyans 'rebels/refugees' might end up crossing the Tunisian and Egyptian borders and further roiling already troubled political waters. Especially in the Egyptian case, the consequences are fairly imponderable but certainly bad... much as a flood of Irish and Italian refugees (in, say, 1796) could not have helped quiet the turmoil of French politics at the end of the 18th century.
It's a difficult point to make. Essentially, it's saying that an ongoing, slow-burning Libyan Civil War is -- for the time being -- better than a bloodbath/exodus that might (re-) destabilize Tunisia and Egypt. Is this a goal worth fighting and dying for? It is hard to answer the question, but it's important to remember three things:
1) Egypt is commonly accepted as lying at the heart of the Arab world. It's a huge country with significant resources and a millenia's history as a geopolitical center of mass. What happens there matters.
2) The tragedy in Rwanda has come to an end. The tragedy in Central Africa and the Eastern Congo is ongoing, and of a terrible scale. Rwanda's displaced have played no positive role in this tragedy.
3) It's difficult to gauge whether NATO's Balkan intervention was successful or not. As with everything else, it's difficult to tell the longer-term consequences of outright failure. At the time certainly, there were reasons to worry about a conflict that could force Greece and Turkey to contend cooperatively with a refugee crisis.
Against these concerns, NATO's involvement in Libya seems fairly low-risk, at least in the immediate sense. Certainly NATO's leaders must quell public expectations that the end-game will be regime change, and maintain focus on the the fairly limited political goal -- firewalling Libyan violence from the ongoing Arab/Egyptian unrest. Further and more significantly, it would be well that Qaddafi were meditating on the fate of Idi Amin or Napoleon Bonaparte, rather than Saddam Hussein or Benito Mussolini. This especially because Libyan-sponsored terrorism would almost certainly make regime-change a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Within the this context, public realists may have a particularly important role to play in 'managing public expectations' about the Libyan conflict, but this role may involve far more cautious and nuanced critiques than produced so far.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responding to Stephen Walt's post on the Libyan intervention, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/24/social_science_and_the_libyan_adventure, to Yoni Applebaum's post on the "Third Barbary War"
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/the-third-barbary-war/72749/
And to Max Fisher's "In Arming Libyan Rebels, U.S. Would Follow an Old, Dark Path"
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/in-arming-libyan-rebels-us-would-follow-an-old-dark-path/73019/
All the the chatter obscures the current reality of a limited war for limited political goals. And, arguably, it makes it much harder for those limits to be maintained, especially given the politicians' rhetorical taste for "wars to end all wars," "promotion of democracy," and the public's desire that the ends actually clearly justify the means.
As such, there is a fairly Bismarckian and cold-blooded point to be made in favor of NATO's current Libyan adventure, such as it is. Specifically, the real and significant danger in Libya is the potential that a bolus of armed, angry, and desperate Libyans 'rebels/refugees' might end up crossing the Tunisian and Egyptian borders and further roiling already troubled political waters. Especially in the Egyptian case, the consequences are fairly imponderable but certainly bad... much as a flood of Irish and Italian refugees (in, say, 1796) could not have helped quiet the turmoil of French politics at the end of the 18th century.
It's a difficult point to make. Essentially, it's saying that an ongoing, slow-burning Libyan Civil War is -- for the time being -- better than a bloodbath/exodus that might (re-) destabilize Tunisia and Egypt. Is this a goal worth fighting and dying for? It is hard to answer the question, but it's important to remember three things:
1) Egypt is commonly accepted as lying at the heart of the Arab world. It's a huge country with significant resources and a millenia's history as a geopolitical center of mass. What happens there matters.
2) The tragedy in Rwanda has come to an end. The tragedy in Central Africa and the Eastern Congo is ongoing, and of a terrible scale. Rwanda's displaced have played no positive role in this tragedy.
3) It's difficult to gauge whether NATO's Balkan intervention was successful or not. As with everything else, it's difficult to tell the longer-term consequences of outright failure. At the time certainly, there were reasons to worry about a conflict that could force Greece and Turkey to contend cooperatively with a refugee crisis.
Against these concerns, NATO's involvement in Libya seems fairly low-risk, at least in the immediate sense. Certainly NATO's leaders must quell public expectations that the end-game will be regime change, and maintain focus on the the fairly limited political goal -- firewalling Libyan violence from the ongoing Arab/Egyptian unrest. Further and more significantly, it would be well that Qaddafi were meditating on the fate of Idi Amin or Napoleon Bonaparte, rather than Saddam Hussein or Benito Mussolini. This especially because Libyan-sponsored terrorism would almost certainly make regime-change a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Within the this context, public realists may have a particularly important role to play in 'managing public expectations' about the Libyan conflict, but this role may involve far more cautious and nuanced critiques than produced so far.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responding to Stephen Walt's post on the Libyan intervention, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/24/social_science_and_the_libyan_adventure, to Yoni Applebaum's post on the "Third Barbary War"
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/the-third-barbary-war/72749/
And to Max Fisher's "In Arming Libyan Rebels, U.S. Would Follow an Old, Dark Path"
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/in-arming-libyan-rebels-us-would-follow-an-old-dark-path/73019/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)