Libya: the decline of NATO
Steven Metz wonders whether Libya marks the end of NATO’s effectiveness. What he describes is a military action by committee, which doesn’t make sense as a way to fight even a limited war.
But what he fails to address is the fact that Libya was an ill-thought-out venture from the start. To enter a war knowing hardly anything about the forces you are supporting seems, to put it bluntly, mad. And yet that appears to be what NATO has done.
When the war began, one of the first question I asked was, “who are the rebels?” This was hardly a mark of some special brilliance of mine, but merely an obvious question—much like “but why is the emperor not wearing clothes?” I have yet to see an answer that reflects well on NATO, or really much of an answer at all.
That a situation such as this one could exist this late in the game is disgraceful:
Too little is known about Libya’s rebels and they remain too fragmented for the United States to get seriously involved in organizing or training them, let alone arming them, U.S. and European officials say…But the more the intelligence agencies learn about rebel forces, the more they appear to be hopelessly disorganized and incapable of coalescing in the foreseeable future…The realistic outlook, U.S. and European officials said, is for an indefinite stalemate between the rebels — supported by NATO air power — and Gaddafi’s forces…Other U.S. officials said the rebels have no sense of a unifying identity or any critical mass beyond Benghazi, lacking an effective structure that would be a prerequisite for providing training, money or sophisticated weapons.
Washington also has been reluctant to side with the rebels due to concerns that Islamic extremists might be among them, although there is debate here about the extent of the militant involvement in the Libyan uprising.
The head of U.S. Africa Command said it was the stated intent of al Qaeda’s affiliate in the area, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to aid Libya’s opposition.
Harebrained.
It’s even possible that it’s best, in the end, that NATO isn’t being so effective in Libya, with “rebels” like these.
The war was not started in order to support anybody, actually. It is a mistake to presume this. The war was started because Italy and France did not want waves of refugees flooding their already dying nations. They merely wished to stop the wave. They have neither the political or financial strength to resist continued floods of refuges once they gain entrance.
That it was ill planned goes without saying. Europe has depended on America for nearly a century for all military affairs, starting in WWI. They seem to be able to use US military for their decaying republics when we have weak presidents, or presidents with headline issues they would rather have disappear with an avalanche of war news. Lewinsky? Another war fought for the purposes of keeping populations where they were.
NATO has never functioned. The only reason it has held is because US forces remain in many of those countries, ostensibly to keep them free from… well… what they have become. It is time to end the charade, pull our troops back, and enjoy the show. Let them sink or swim. Let us see how socialist they remain without the money from our troops and bases and the structure our military artificially provides. Spare the rod, spoil the child. And they are very, very, spoiled. Let’s see if the rot goes all the way to the core.
You wouldn’t have thought it possible to go to war with Gaddafi and lose.
Why is it that liberal intellectuals think they are competent in foreign affairs? They start with appeasement, and when things go pear-shaped and they find themselves in a weaker position, they double down on appeasement, cf Wretchard’s column today on missile defense “cooperation” with Russia.
I feel the same way about my friends at Monitor with respect to their involvement in Libya. As liberal internationalists, they thought they were stimulating reform through engagement. Once they started down that road, why shouldn’t they help Gaddafi write a book if it would make him feel more appreciated and more disposed to open up a little more. Why wouldn’t Saif Gaddafi prefer to be an intellectual socialite in London, with a partially honorary/partially purchased Ph. D. from the London School of Economics, as opposed to being the heir to an African kleptocracy?
In retrospect, it was a ludicrous bet, but from the first mistake–the belief in the power of engagement and appeasement–all other mistakes flow.
Whatever can’t be true, isn’t. Reality is a stern mistress, and whoever neglects her will pay a terrible price…if they can’t get someone else to pick up the tab for them. When there are dreamers in the White House, the world pays right along with them, and the predators begin stirring.
The original purpose of NATO was to keep the United States in, the Russians out and the Germans down. This was based on two world wars and the Cold War aftermath of WWII. With the US out, all bets are off. The Russians are still out but there’s no good reason to think the Germans must remain down. Someone will naturally rise to the position of leadership in Europe and that still means France or Germany. Libya is opening a bigger can of worms than may be immediately apparent by showing a complete lack of American occupation of the leading spot.
1. When the war began, one of the first question I asked was, “who are the rebels?”
I’ll go further, Neo. That was my very first question; like you, I viewed it as obvious. I haven’t gotten much of an answer, and the little I’ve gotten isn’t reassuring.
2. Come to think of it, back when we moved against Saddam, I asked why we were using finite resources to take down a secular Arab dictator when the enemy is Islamism. I never got a cogent answer to that either.
3. Afaic Sarkozy’s motives are cynical; Cameron’s are stupid; and Obama’s are cynical and stupid.
I hear Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum have once again come to blows. Look for NATO and Der Ein to intervene in the Rattle Wars next.
When the war started my first question was, what’s in it for us? Fortunatly the president explained it. We are killing people to save lives so we can feel good about ourselves. I feel so much better knowing that we are grade A humanitarians.
1) Obama is making Gaddiffi the good guy–that takes talent!
2) NATO has always been the U.S. trying to be the super-giant nice-guy–taking care of security while making lesser nations feel good about themselves.
This campaign was birthed by the malign sisterhood…
And stands as the acme of M.A.D. in inaction:
Maximum Antic Dithering.
As LAG notes, NATO was formed to keep the Russians behind the Iron Curtain and keep Western Germany under our thumb. IMO it is time to leave. The Europeans have been given a free ride on defense for 2 decades after Germany reunited and the USSR fell apart. We need to stop giving them the excuse to not beef up their own forces.
“Obama is making Gaddiffi the good guy—that takes talent!”
I’m shy (blush, blush) to admit it, but I’m rooting for Qaddaffi simply because it demonstrates Obama’s incompetence and negligence. And, it will have the added bonus of keeping Libya a tribal hellhole instead allowing it to become a hellhole ruled by a militant theocracy.
I’ve been rooting for K-daffy from the begining. The only reason Barry got involved was to support Iran/muslim brotherhood/AQ. He thought it would be easy, like turning Egypt over to the muslim brotherhood. The bonus is that the whole world sees how totally worthless the EUnichs are when it comes to fighting.
Parker’s right about the free ride. It’s coming to an end: “NATO runs short on some munitions in Libya….”–and these guys were supposed to help with that minor chore that would have been defeating the Soviet Union. There’s nothing there–it’s all gone on social programs and fluff.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some-munitions-in-libya/2011/04/15/AF3O7ElD_story.html
Good lord. If the Sovs had figured NATO was this bad….
Steven Metz wonders whether Libya marks the end of NATO’s effectiveness.
Could Steve tell me when NATO’s effectiveness began?
Richard Aubrey says, “Good lord. If the Sovs had figured NATO was this bad….”
NATO, from its inception, was 98% American, 1% UK, and 1% all others combined. Our conventional forces in Europe were there to slow down a Soviet advance. Our nukes guaranteed the USSR mutual destruction at a minimum if things got out of hand. The result was a Mexican standoff which was good enough.
But surprisingly, along came old Ronnie Reagan, a dolt and a dunce according to the MSM & the chattering cocktail party class, who realized the need to push the USSR to the brink by updating the ICBM arsenal, deploying more nukes to Europe (including many thousands of tactical warheads), and funding a R&D program for missile defense. The USSR found out it simply could not compete because capitalism out competes communism. The rest as they say is history.
Then 28 years later along comes Obama, a colossal genius and a messiah according to the MSM & the chattering cocktail party class, and everything begins to unravel…
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.” – WBY
The very first question to ask is “What do you hope to achieve by this action?” Other questions follow this one: What is the likelihood of success? What are the costs? What are the risks? How important is this outcome to you, and how important are the things at risk? What tools do you have to accomplish this result? Are they suited to the task?
As far as I can tell, none of these questions have been properly asked or answered.
Parker, remember one other thing that Reagan did: he upgraded our conventional forces in Europe to the point that the USSR would have been hard-pressed to reach the Rhine, much less the Channel, without going nuclear. And the Soviets knew it. By the end of RR’s second term, with Gorbachev in charge of an imploding Warsaw Pact, the game was up.
NATO running out of bombs is symptomatic of a larger problem. I had the occasion during my military days to participate in some NATO exercises. Here are my observations. Although they’re about 10 years old, I think they still apply. Individually, NATO member states generally have well-trained and competent forces. They can fight, as long as their national commands allow them to (which is another topic for another day). What they cannot do, except for us, and to a much lesser degree the British and French, is project power beyond their national borders, run a sustained combined-arms campaign at anything above brigade level (even that is pushing it), or, despite 60+ years of practice, communicate well across the various national commands. All, and I mean all, of these things only happen when the US takes a leading role.
waltj says, “… he upgraded our conventional forces in Europe to the point that the USSR would have been hard-pressed to reach the Rhine, much less the Channel, without going nuclear. And the Soviets knew it.”
True. And thanks for your service.
“What they cannot do, except for us, and to a much lesser degree the British and French, is project power beyond their national borders…”
As you note, in all of Euro land, no nation has the means to take it to them (whoever them may be).
BTW, I’m not an isolationist. I’m willing to project force IF we’re in it to win and the cause is truly a matter of national security. I have a son, a niece, and a cousin in the service. I can support sending them into harm’s way and spending treasure if our security is truly at risk. I’m not into propping up Europe when Europe is unwilling to spend their own blood and treasure. I’m not willing to see our blood and treasure wasted on battlefields where anything less than absolute, unconditional victory is not the objective.
Fred Kaplan in Slate (he who debunked the Lancet article claiming we killed 100,000 Iraqis) has a very interesting article on this: “NATO’s Last Mission?”
http://www.slate.com/id/2291264/pagenum/all/
He makes the point, which I agree with, that it’s not such a bad thing for the Europeans, for once, to do their own fighting. Which they haven’t done in fifty years, relying as they do on us to be their janissaries.
Parker,
Europeans may not want to spend their own blood and treasure, but the biggest sacrifice they are unwilling to make is their moral superiority complex. The kumbaya crowd can maintain a plausible deniability (to themselves) about the lucrative business deals their countries cut with the world’s thugs and butchers. They can’t deal with living in the same muddy world as provincial, gun-loving, trigger-happy Americans. It is telling that a prime goal Germany’s inept foreign minister (recently deposed from his job as leader of the Free Democrat Party) was the removal of US nukes from German soil. It’s a bit like self-nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
parker
I know about NATO back in the day. When I was at Benning, much of our work was aimed at getting ready for SEA. But, instead of being ninety-day wonders like our fathers, we were 180-day wonders. Because we were also looking over our shoulders at the InterGerman Border. We had exchange officers from NATO teaching some of our classes. When a major from the Royal Scots Royal Regiment taught the Tank Company Team, he wasn’t interested in jungles and stuff.
What you say about projecting power is true, and showed in the Balkans.
If the Sovs had figured out NATO was almost all us and figured out a way to win or at least do very well in the Third Battle of The North Atlantic….
‘course, they probably knew about the 98% us thing and were working on the ocean piece of it. Lucky they never felt confident about it.
Star Wars mentality: Rebels are good and should be supported just because they’re rebels. What their goals are and how they’re going to fill the power vacuum after their victory are questions to be answered later, if at all.