Tell Me How This Ends

307 thoughts on “Tell Me How This Ends”

1. “Tell me how this ends.”
   Badly.

2. Yeah Rob, that’s the “shorter” version of this post.

3. The case for supporting the rebels, or not supporting the rebels, is not obvious. More to the point, how best to provide such support is not clear.
   However, given that there is a significant internal opposition, removing Qaddafi probably ranks with removing Mugabe as a “good thing” in itself. And just giving logistical support would probably be a significant factor.
   As for Exum’s comment that, “Benghazi had sent more foreign fighters to Iraq than any other city in the Arabic-speaking world,” that fact can be taken two ways. It may indicate that there is more inclination to radicalism there. Or it could arguable be taken to suggest that the radicals have sorted themselves out and left, thus leaving the city less radical than it was.
   Granted that the former is more likely. But assuming that it is a certainty is perhaps not the best starting point for determining policy.

4. Granted that the former is more likely. But assuming that it is a certainty is perhaps not the best starting point for determining policy.
   For the record, I don’t assume it is a certainty. Mine was a question, that contained a point, about the fact that we are largely ignorant of the composition of rebel elements and their goals.
   There are tribal cleavages and grievances underlying a large portion of the resistance. In that instance, victory for the rebels might not translate into democracy. In fact, it could create a prolonged insurgency amongst those tribal groups affiliate with/that benefit from Qaddafi.
   However, given that there is a significant internal opposition, removing Qaddafi probably ranks with removing Mugabe as a “good thing” in itself. And just giving logistical support would probably be a significant factor.
   I doubt logistical support would be enough. And still, the questions remain: what do we do in the aftermath if successful, or not?

5. As usual Eric, nice job.

6. it is not our problem. and we should not make it our problem. we are not the world’s policeman.

7. Would supporters of the no-fly zone on either side of the aisle support a tax increase to pay for it?
   Has any reporter asked them this question? If not, why not?

8. If supporters clamor loudly enough for the no-fly zone, The President, such as he is, should propose one and send a tax increase to the Congress to pay for it.
   Include a little extra margin for Planned Parenthood and the Special Olympics, and maybe for that coolant delivered in Japan.
   When they turn the tax-increase down, the President should direct the Treasury to default on the entire $14 trillion national debt.
   Just burn it down.
   You’ll need a fly-over zone covering the entire United States.
   But you can’t afford it.

9. Are pundits/politicians sitting around in China and/or (before the recent unfortunate events) Japan asking whether they should impose a no-fly zone or take some other military measure with respect to Libya?

10. There is the Machievellian rule that when you face two groups you can support, you go all-in for the one you want. The canonical example is a famine striking two regions- take all of the grain from one and send it to the other. The people of the second region will love you, and the people of the first region will be dead…
    If K survives this, then he will be upset with the support that the rebels have received (both practical and in sentiment). If the rebels win they will have no love for a UN and a NATO that was willing to watch them get slaughtered.
    Now, is that better than betting on the wrong horse? Im not sure. But the possibility of a K regime rededicated to destabilizing actions is different than thinking that not supporting the rebels will lead to status quo ante bellum.
    [Not that you said that, but it’s worth explicitly underlining this point- the bang is not going back into the firecracker here.]
    Likewise, if the rebels win, today or 5 years from now, it will be better to have some clout with them. You make that clout into a negative (‘are we willing to pick winners?’). Or even simultaneously say ‘we may not be able to control them, and that’s bad- but then if we can control them, that’s bad too.’- at least that’s how Im reading this.
    I dont know enough about the rebels or the political situation in Libya to have an strong opinion on this question- I think it depends a great deal on what the likely endgames are for either outcome (or middle grounds such as the ‘Egyptian solution’ of ousting the dictator but maintaining the existing tyrannical apparatus in tension with the newly-empowered masses). And I think we probably ought to err on the side of inaction if we’re not sure.
    I guess, fundamentally, I don’t think your approach works for me though- even if I want to err on the side of inaction, I don’t want to get paralyzed by every possible bad outcome of intervention while ignoring every possible bad outcome of nonintervention.

11. It really seems like an EU/Eurozone issue to me. Libya is in part a mess due to colonialization from the French, Brits, and Italians, the EU will bear the brunt of any mass exodus of refugees, the EU has the preponderence of capital invested, and the EU gets the preponderence of high grade oil.
    If there is a need for any form of support to the rebels, I think it should be those with a stake in the outcome that bear the cost in both treasure and blood.
    But I wouldn’t be against selling some hardware to the EU if they find they don’t have the capacity to perform anything useful.

12. But I wouldn’t be against selling some hardware to the EU if they find they don’t have the capacity to perform anything useful.
    So you think the EU doesn’t have modern military aircraft? Tanks? etc. Just curious what would make anyone say this.

13. So you think the EU doesn’t have modern military aircraft? Tanks? etc. Just curious what would make anyone say this.
    I didn’t interpret it that way at all. As I understand it (and jrudkis probably understands it better), there is a real shortage of heavy lift capability outside the US military, even in otherwise modern militaries like those of France, the UK, etc. Tanks are useless if you can’t get them to the battlefield in a timely fashion.
    Back during the Rwanda crisis, this was a real issue as the African Union seemed willing to pony up forces but they had no heavy lift capability….

14. So you think the EU doesn’t have modern military aircraft?

    Good aircraft; not so good targeting systems.

15. Likewise, if the rebels win, today or 5 years from now, it will be better to have some clout with them. You make that clout into a negative (‘are we willing to pick winners?’).
    My point here is that “the rebels” are not a cohesive, monolithic group, so if “the rebels” win and then “the rebels” start fighting amongst themselves, will we or could we effectively pick winners?
    I guess, fundamentally, I don’t think your approach works for me though- even if I want to err on the side of inaction, I don’t want to get paralyzed by every possible bad outcome of intervention while ignoring every possible bad outcome of nonintervention.
    I am not suggesting such an approach, nor am I so paralyzed. I supported the intervention in Afghanistan, for example, despite the questions.
    But I’m not sure events in Libya are so vital to our national interests to get involved when we have very little discussion of what the objective would be, and whether such an objective is feasible.

16. Good aircraft; not so good targeting systems.
    Good enough to take on the Libyans though, I strongly suspect.
    Likewise on transport capacity- according to Wikipedia France has 14 C-130s and 51 C-160s. Many African nations may lack transport, but we’re talking about the country with the 3rd- or 4th-largest military budget in the world ferchrisake. They’ve got an aircraft carrier. They’ve got several amphibious military transports.
    And that’s just France, I dont want to bother looking up the rest of the EU bc Im pretty sure that’d be sufficient transport to take on a military that’s just holding its own against irregulars.

17. a military that’s just holding its own against irregulars.
    All recent reports that I’ve seen is that the Libyan army is making serious advances, w/rebel forces in full retreat.
    PS: The UK doesn’t have an aircraft carrier anymore.

18. But I’m not sure events in Libya are so vital to our national interests to get involved when we have very little discussion of what the objective would be, and whether such an objective is feasible.
    Sure. But we must also take into account what’s happening there and how it might turn out in the absence of our intervention. You pose several questions that would have to be answered before we intervene. But I could just as easily imagine posing similar questions that we would have to answer before we decided *not* to intervene eg could these events push K towards radical groups or regimes, and lead to a reckless action such as providing terrorists with WMDs?
    Not saying that that will happen or is likely, Ive not enough time these days to get deeply into Libyan politics. Just as an example of how this situation is dynamic, not static, and therefore we cannot consider your questions for intervention in the vacuum in which they were actually presented.
    Ignoring the various levels of support etc we could give, simplify the decision to yes/no. Then, one year or five years from now, we face 2 possible futures. The national interest is: is it worth the cost in money and lives to pick between these two outcomes? *Both* of which contain considerable uncertainty, humanitarian issues, etc?
    The way you’ve presented it, it seems that we’d be deciding between intervention, and all of the risks that that poses, and nonintervention with zero risk and zero questions to be answered.

19. PS: The UK doesn’t have an aircraft carrier anymore.
    France does. Which is what I said.
    And the UK actually does too. Spain has one. Italy has two.
    So yes, the creaky European military machine can probably take on Libya without having to borrow hardware from the US.

20. So you think the EU doesn’t have modern military aircraft? Tanks? etc. Just curious what would make anyone say this.
    
    One quote that I can no longer find indicated that during time of the Kosovo war, the EU spent 60% of the defense dollars for 10% of the capacity of the US. I spent some time looking but it was from 1999, and is buried.
    The disparity of capacity is significant when it comes to force projection, but even when it is Europe’s backyard, as in Kosovo, the US had to provide the lion’s share of the force:
    The air campaign is now costing the United States around $1bn a month for munitions, fuel and other operating costs. As the number of aircraft committed to the operation increases, this rate of spending is likely to rise further.
    Other Nato members are providing far fewer aircraft than the US. Nevertheless, Britain, France and Germany are probably now spending around $100m a month each on the operation. The entire Nato campaign may therefore be costing around $1.5bn a month.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report
    /1998/kosovo/341869.stm
    BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the Kosovo war demonstrated just how far Nato’s European members are behind the US in the military punch that they get from their existing spending.
    Mr Cohen drew attention to this. “The disparity in capabilities, if not corrected, could threaten the unity of this alliance, he said.
    ” A great alliance cannot have only one country, the US, conducting virtually two-thirds of the all support sorties and half of all combat missions.”
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/
    545597.stm
    I do not believe that since the Kosovo conflict that Europe has significantly increased its ability to project force.
    So yes, the creaky European military machine can probably take on Libya without having to borrow hardware from the US.
    
    Hopefully. Libya is obviously different from Kosovo. I just want the EU to be able to deal with it without us.

21. Good enough to take on the Libyans though

    I’d want to be a bit more specific and take on the Libyan military.
    😉

22. And the UK actually does too.
    Not exactly:
    However, Illustrious is of “ski-jump” design and has no aircraft assigned to it, nor are any even available anywhere in the UK’s arsenal. Harrier jets, the only type Illustrious can handle, are no longer in service there
    The same post interesting bits on France’s carrier:
    http://bit.ly/dNqHRo
    Also,
    But I could just as easily imagine posing similar questions that we would have to answer before we decided *not* to intervene eg could these events push K towards radical groups or regimes, and lead to a reckless action such as providing terrorists with WMDs?
    I would love to hear those questions. Sincerely. I don’t think they’re being asked, though one would imagine that they should be of paramount importance.
    As an aside, I’ve always thought that us intervening militarily would have a much higher probability of pushing K to the extremist side than not intervening militarily.
    But, lastly, a large point of this post is to highlight that the supposedly sterile, limited appeal of a NFZ would likely lead to much greater involvement, including, with some likelihood, nation building and possible counterinsurgency/civil war interdiction.
    Whereas, those outcomes would be easier to avoid if we don’t initiate military intervention.
    Otherwise, please ask the questions.

23. Harriers were pulled from carrier deployment so recently (last November) that it’s be a piece of cake to redeploy if needed.

24. How quickly slarti? NFZ timeframe being what it is, are we talking days, weeks, or months?

25. In fact, Harriers were flying combat missions in Afghanistan a year and a half ago, and should be UK’s best (and possibly EU’s best & most accurate) targeting platform. Not as agile as some of the other airframes, but it can get the air-to-ground job done better, in my estimation.

26. I am not privy to that information, Eric. It was news to me that Harrier had been taken out of service, really. Last I head heard (and this was I think within the last year) they had just built a new OFP (flight code) for the Harrier.
    Funny how suddenly this can happen. They’re going to replace the Harrier with the F-35; wonder how long it’s going to take to build their force back up? F-35 isn’t going to be a deliverable aircraft for another four years, I think.

27. Likewise, if the rebels win, today or 5 years from now, it will be better to have some clout with them.
    CW, I’m a good deal more hawkish, or I was, than EM, but I still can’t get easy with this. Among other things, we don’t know which rebel faction, if any, will prevail, and even if the one we helped did prevail, what good reasons do we have for thinking we’d get the credit we’d like to have?
    Moreover, any gov’t that comes to power with our aid is inherently tainted in the eyes of so many in that region.
    If the Europeans want to make a go of it, I would offer only AWACS type support. But I don’t think they have the legs. All of the European carriers are VTOL/helicopter vessels, none of which have the heft to tangle with even K’s outdated but superior fighters. And remember, bullets and missiles fly both ways. It would be worse than bad for a European carrier to go down.
    As I understand a ‘no fly’ zone, the first order of business is to permanently suppress the target’s radar and anti aircraft defenses. We do this well, and so do the Europeans using our assets for all but the actual flying part.
    Perhaps if they staged out of Sicily, land based, more capable aircraft could be brought to bear. Crete would be better, but I don’t know where the Greeks stand on this and I can’t even say that, based out of either island, air superiority fighters would have the loiter time needed to effectively ground the Libyan air force.
    Not to start an OT battle, but when countries cut defense spending to the point the Europeans have, options become limited. Not a critical issue in this instance, but the day may come when all of those saved dollars turn out to be a very sadly postponed reckoning.
    Anyway, while I hate the idea of innocents getting chopped up by a bastard like K, our involvement is a multi-edged sword, with too many of the blades cutting against us.

28. but it can get the air-to-ground job done better, in my estimation.
    But, the issue is air-to-air, isn’t it? Harriers don’t do this well, too slow.
    F-35 isn’t going to be a deliverable aircraft for another four years, I think.
    The VTOL version is having a lot of problems, from what little I’ve seen. That’s what the Europeans want, IIRC. Their carriers can’t do full-on jet stuff.

29. Not to start an OT battle, but when countries cut defense spending to the point the Europeans have, options become limited. Not a critical issue in this instance, but the day may come when all of those saved dollars turn out to be a very sadly postponed reckoning.
    Repeating my question in this post: how do proponents of the NFZ/additional support plan to come up with the tens of billions of dollars required?
    Tax increase?
    Spending offsets?
    Deficits don’t matter for this (but everything else)?

30. To Carleton’s point, to the extent Obama has said publicy it is time for Qaddafi to go, we have effectively taken sides, or at least our side is “Not Qaddafi.” So, if he’s the victor in this battle, we’re stuck with him and, I assume, that means we’re back to the 1980s and him stirring up trouble (or wanting to).
    Not sure that tips the scale to intervention, but it’s not like we’re going to be doing business with him (so to speak) in the near future.

31. Tax increase?
    Spending offsets?
    Deficits don’t matter for this (but everything else)?
    Don’t you owe us a magnum opus on future defense needs/force structures? How’s that little assignment coming along?
    Many smiley faces.

32. Re some remarks above, I have a fundamental disagreement about how the argument is conducted. I don’t think the burden of making justifying arguments should rest equally on the non-interventionists and on the interventionists alike. If the interventionists think that killing wholesale bundles of people will advance the national interest, it’s up to them to demonstrate that, not up to me to demonstrate that not killing them will work out well in every scenario I can contemplate. People explicitly advocating war (the killing and maiming of large numbers of people) SHOULD carry a vastly heavier burden to explain why they’re advocating that and how they’ve carefully considered every possible means of making it as limited and effective as possible. War is, or ought to be, a morally problematic thing because it is killing, which is bad enough by itself, but it also frequently leads to unanticipated and horrible results for those affected by it, as demonstrated by our own recent history. Mr. Martin puts the burden of persuasion where it ought to rest, with those who want us to wage war and (inevitably) renew many of these terrible results for the people of Libya.

33. But, the issue is air-to-air, isn’t it? Harriers don’t do this well, too slow.

    The issue is both. If you own the air over the battlespace, you can hit their aircraft while they’re still on the ground. OTOH if you don’t have aircraft decently configured for ground attack, you’re guaranteed to have to resort to an air-to-air role. I’m sure that strategists are working out various plans of attack.
    But, agreed, Harrier vs. MiG-25 is probably not the matchup you’d want. Harrier vs. MiG-25 still on the ground is more like it.
    There’s always dropping heavy ordnance on their airbases using long-range bombers out of Diego Garcia, but that brings US back into the game I think.

34. Damn you McTex!

35. If the interventionists think that killing wholesale bundles of people will advance the national interest

    I don’t believe anyone has proposed that, in this thread.

36. The disparity of capacity is significant when it comes to force projection, but even when it is Europe’s backyard, as in Kosovo, the US had to provide the lion’s share of the force
    First, there is a significant leap from the actual ‘did’ and your unfounded ‘had to’.
    And I would find the statement of a single BBC reporter to be more convincing if it were backed by data or were more specific. The EU nations can contribute iirc a couple hundred fourth-generation aircraft- what prevents them from making a larger contribution? Were those aircraft not flight-ready? Did they not have the trained support crews, spare parts, pilots etc to handle a deployment? And, if so, has that changed since the Serbian conflict which was well over a decade ago?
    Hopefully. Libya is obviously different from Kosovo. I just want the EU to be able to deal with it without us.
    That’s odd, it sounds to me like you very much want the EU not to be able to deal with it. At least, if we trust that your obvious biases in finding and interpreting data exist in support of your hopes rather than contrary to them, as is usually the case in my experience.

37. War is, or ought to be, a morally problematic thing because it is killing, which is bad enough by itself, but it also frequently leads to unanticipated and horrible results for those affected by it, as demonstrated by our own recent history.
    Id be more inclined to agree with that regarding starting a war, as opposed to entering one already in progress with the hope of affecting the outcome. Altho I still think that the default is to not intervene, Id disagree with “vastly heavier burden”.
    If someone can make a solid case that where Libya is headed without intervention is considerably worse- for Libyians or for us- than it is with intervention, Im good with that.

38. Not exactly
    Exactly. I say the French have an aircraft carrier. You reply that no, the UK doesnt have an aircraft carrier. I say, well, yeah actually both of them do. You say, well, it doesn’t have any aircraft since the harriers were decommissioned.
    So after a couple of iterations, you’ve actually arrived at an accurate statement. Glad to be of assistance.
    The same post interesting bits on France’s carrier
    Interesting bits- they had some trouble with the propulsion systems and it had to get repairs for a month or so. But it’s working now, according to your link. Interesting yes. And yet, they still have an aircraft carrier, and they are still not the UK…
    And the EU could still enforce a no-fly zone from Sicily and the French carrier, or make a pretty good go of it.
    I would love to hear those questions. Sincerely. I don’t think they’re being asked, though one would imagine that they should be of paramount importance.
    I don’t think Ive got the info or expertise to formulate the right questions. That wasn’t really the point- just that our national interest could be seriously impacted by inaction, and that this didn’t seem to be on the scale in your analysis. The point that a NFZ could easily lead us down the road to a more serious commitment is a good one and well worth raising- I agree that if we were to commit to a NFZ it ought to be because we understand that path forward and the decisions it holds, not because we hold the illusion that it will all necessarily stop there.

39. All of the European carriers are VTOL/helicopter vessels, none of which have the heft to tangle with even K’s outdated but superior fighters.
    The French aircraft carrier can handle non-VTOL aircraft.
    And Im not so sure that a 2nd gen Harrier V MIG-23 combat is a sure win for the MIGs, especially when pilot quality, awacs/ground support, etc is considered. Not saying I know jack about that, just that I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss them. The first gen did Ok in the Falklands War against non-VTOL aircraft iirc.

40. Not to start an OT battle, but when countries cut defense spending to the point the Europeans have, options become limited.
    The EU spend 322B on defense in 2009 (cite). That’s over 3x as much as China, 5x Russia, 6x India, and close to 300x Libya’s defense budget. Excluding the US military budget, the EU is responsible for about 40% of the world’s military budget.
    How much do you want them to spend?

41. Interesting yes. And yet, they still have an aircraft carrier, and they are still not the UK…
    Right. I never said either of the following:
    1. France has no carrier.
    2. France is the UK.
    Nor did I say that “interesting” meant France’s carrier is unusable.
    I say the French have an aircraft carrier. You reply that no, the UK doesnt have an aircraft carrier.
    No, that’s not the exchange.
    You did post that France had a carrier, and that you didn’t know about the rest of the EU.
    I didn’t reply “no, the UK doesn’t have an aircraft carrier” – I simply pointed out that the UK didn’t have one anymore in reference to the “rest of the EU” discussion.
    I was relying on some recent chatter about no usable carriers, but it is technically true that they have one (just not one that can carry any presently deployed aircraft, which renders it useless as a platform to launch air sorties).

42. Damn you McTex!
    Stand in line, amigo.
    Id be more inclined to agree with that regarding starting a war, as opposed to entering one already in progress with the hope of affecting the outcome.
    Fair point. Not a game winner here, but still a fair point in the abstract.
    The first gen did Ok in the Falklands War against non-VTOL aircraft iirc.
    Against outdated A-4’s, a ground attack jet, not a purpose built fighter. And, the Brits still lost ships to air-launched missile attack. French missiles, IIRC.
    How much do you want them to spend?
    As much as they need to fulfill a mission they think is in their vital national interests. Comparing Russia, China or India defense spending to Europe or the US is not apples to oranges, it’s meat to vegetables. You can eat either, but they are still different in kind–different missions, different personnel costs, etc. False equivalency is a phrase I see a lot here.
    Generally, VTOL are close air support/ground attack aircraft that only operate in hostile theaters with an overhead CAP or against an opponent with no fighters in its inventory.

43. This is from an interesting article printed in 2007 by the European Union Center of North Carolina. The European Union Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is funded by the European
    Union to advance knowledge and understanding of the EU and its member countries.
    All the same, Europe’s military feebleness remains, to a certain extent, a matter of perspective. While European forces are said to possess only 10% of US capabilities for 60% of the US budget, NATO Europe, collectively, still commands the second largest defense budget in the world. Indeed, Europe’s current defense expenditure of approximately US $240 billion is the equivalent of the next six largest defense spenders put together (China, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, India, South Korea). Moreover, Europe’s defense industry maintains considerable capabilities and European armies are
    gradually acquiring many of the same types of high-tech equipment and munitions that
    are employed by the US. Does that mean that European military capabilities have been
    falsely underestimated?
    …
    Europe’s inability to muster an autonomous military response became apparent for the first time during the Balkan crises of the early 1990s. While the Bosnian crisis (1991-95) was supposed to demonstrate Europe’s ability to deal with its own problems – the “hour of Europe” – Europe failed miserably. European policy-makers could neither muster the political will nor the necessary military forces to prevent the region from sliding into
    chaos. The small contingent of European forces that was eventually deployed was illequipped, lacked a clear mandate, and had little impact on the final outcome of the war. Similarly, NATO’s Kosovo campaign in 1999 turned out to be a largely American-run campaign, with European aircraft making only a limited contribution – approximately
    30% of all sorties. By the end of the 1990s, Europe, therefore, appeared embarrassingly feeble and incapable of independent military action. Determined to overcome these weaknesses, Britain and France, Europe’s principle military powers, pledged to reconcile their political differences and to develop military capabilities that would enable them to
    act more effectively in the changed international environment.
    …
    Potential shortfalls that remain are limitations in strategic transport and logistics that could affect the reaction time of European forces and the size and length of their deployment.
    • Humanitarian and rescue tasks that involve high-intensity operations over shortperiods of time and involve a limited number of specialized troops involved. Again, EU forces are fully capable of fulfilling these tasks, with the same recognized shortfalls in strategic transport and sustainability.
    • Crisis management and combat tasks of small and medium scale. Here capabilities
    shortfalls continue to be the most significant. Due to the limited number of troops available for the execution of these tasks, no full operational capability has been attained. Moreover, shortfalls in command and control, intelligence and precision guided munitions increase the risk of casualties and collateral damage.
    http://www.euce.org/assets/doc/
    business_media/business/Brief0705
    -military-capabilities.pdf

44. As much as they need to fulfill a mission they think is in their vital national interests. Comparing Russia, China or India defense spending to Europe or the US is not apples to oranges, it’s meat to vegetables. You can eat either, but they are still different in kind–different missions, different personnel costs, etc. False equivalency is a phrase I see a lot here.
    Well, that’s the only quantifiable thing I could come up with. I agree, spending depends on mission, but then you didn’t say that. You said: Not to start an OT battle, but when countries cut defense spending to the point the Europeans have, options become limited.
    Of course, everyone has limited options. But that statement suggests to me that the EU’s options are particularly limited by their spending. But their spending is actually pretty huge, compared to the rest of the world. If their options are limited because of their spending, then they’re still much larger than everyone else’s, excluding the US.
    Of course, I also think that the idea that the EU couldn’t take on Libya or enforce a NFZ there is somewhere between doubtful and silly, and motivated by the usual dislike of Europeans rather than any military calculation.
    Against outdated A-4’s, a ground attack jet, not a purpose built fighter. And, the Brits still lost ships to air-launched missile attack. French missiles, IIRC.
    Like I said, I have no idea. How good is Libyian air command and control? How well are their pilots trained? Are their SAM sites well-maintained?
    But I suspect you don’t know either. Slarti might, at least more than anyone else here. I do know that there’s a whole bunch more to air-to-air combat than ideal plane or weapons performance, and that most of those factors (other than the logistical factor of home airspace) will favor the EU.

45. 1. France has no carrier.
    2. France is the UK.
    Nor did I say that “interesting” meant France’s carrier is unusable.
    Let’s just say that your statement was ambiguous. And that you missed the Spanish and Italian carriers, if you were counting. And that you also missed that the UK’s carrier, even if the Harriers weren’t recommissioned, can carry VTOl aircraft from other EU nations- very different from not having a carrier.
    On my part, apparently I mistook “interesting” for “relevant”. My bad.

46. And that you missed the Spanish and Italian carriers, if you were counting
    Jeez CW, I was adding one tidbit from chatter I have heard from Brit friends complaining that Cameron was calling for NFZ but had rendered their one carrier useless. I did not portray that as a full inventory of EU capacity. Not even by implication.
    On my part, apparently I mistook “interesting” for “relevant”. My bad.
    Rather friendly chat with you today. Is something bothering you?

47. Rather friendly chat with you today. Is something bothering you?
    Naw, this is how I always am, Im just usually not arguing with you about stuff. Ask GOB. 🙂

48. Of course, I also think that the idea that the EU couldn’t take on Libya or enforce a NFZ there is somewhere between doubtful and silly, and motivated by the usual dislike of Europeans rather than any military calculation.
    I’m not sure that the EU could take on Libya and enforce a NFZ. And I love Europe. I really do wish the US would adopt some policies pioneered by European countries. So, for me at least, your theories are not correct.
    My skepticism stems from my belief that the ability to conduct sustained military operations does not always rise with military expenditures. I mean, Saudi Arabia spends an enormous amount of cash on its military but is, by all accounts, far less capable of conducting operations than its budget would suggest.
    Beyond that, I think there are substantial coordination costs when you’re talking about an entity as disparate as the EU acting militarily. We struggle mightily to get the different branches of our own military to inter-operate and we all speak the same language and have had a lot of practice running actual operations in hostile theaters. Getting military organizations from a dozen different countries to meaningfully interoperate under fire seems…hard. Not impossible, but difficult. And yeah, I understand that NATO was designed to deal with precisely this set of problems and that joint exercises are done all the time, but working under fire is different.
    Perhaps I’m ignorant, but I don’t know that the Italian and French navies have operational experience running the sort of sustained carrier ops needed to enforce a NFZ. Scrambling jets at the maximum operational tempo for months at a time without interruption stretches organizations. Do they have experience with that? Having a carrier is different
    To the extent that big ticket defense purchases like aircraft carriers and submarines are objects of national prestige, I don’t think we can necessarily assume that just because a country has spent lots of money getting an aircraft carrier that they therefore have invested in acquiring the operational capacity needed to use it.

49. But that statement suggests to me that the EU’s options are particularly limited by their spending. But their spending is actually pretty huge, compared to the rest of the world. If their options are limited because of their spending, then they’re still much larger than everyone else’s, excluding the US.
    They spend so much because you are talking about 13, 15 (I am not sure) different countries, each with its own adminstrative core, huge redundancies, etc. No cohesion whatsoever. Add to that that the Europeans, rightly in my view, spent their limited defense dollars on facing a Warsaw Pact threat, not preparing for over the horizon missions. That is, they spent on high tech, survivable, force multipliers that made sense, and still do with the US involved, back in the day, but doesn’t leave much for stand alone force projection. But, the main feature, and the main reason why using spending as the metric is misleading are (1) personnel costs, (2) level of training and proficiency, (3) quality of equipment and (4) the incredible amount of redundancy.
    Of course, I also think that the idea that the EU couldn’t take on Libya or enforce a NFZ there is somewhere between doubtful and silly, and motivated by the usual dislike of Europeans rather than any military calculation.
    I actually am quite fond of Europeans, having married one and making it a point to visit there as often as possible. So, you’re wrong in that department. More on point, you are mistaking capacity to wage general war with capacity to successfully interdict over the horizon for a sustained period of time. If Europe went to war against Libya, it would win, but it would first have to spend a lot of time and money getting ready.
    Could Europe successfully enforce a ‘no fly’ zone without active US support as in a carrier fleet or two? Depending on how you define “successfully”, maybe. If it had basing rights on Libya’s borders, that would make a big difference. If it landed troops and set up a perimeter and an airfield to base out of, that would be big, because they could then heavily reinforce with SAMS and more muscular radar, etc. It could also look like a really clumsy and ineffective Goliath if it didn’t get the job done quick and decisively (more subjective terms, I admit) or, if it ran out of juice 6 months down the line and pulled out(I wonder if Sarkozy talked to his air force people before he opened his mouth). Jet fighters aren’t built to fly 300-400 miles and then circle for 3-4 hours, fight a dog fight, and then come home. Mid air refueling, wear and tear, etc. would degrade a long term committment plus the inventories of the right mix of aircraft is not high.
    My eyeballing of a map of the Med indicates the straightline distance from Taranto Italy (the main Italian naval base) to Tripoli to be roughly 1500 KM. Sicily appears to be roughly 1000 KM, farther if you use Palermo as your point of reference.
    This is relevant because, for example, the F-16 has a ferry range (most economical, one way cruising speed) of just over 2000 miles or 3200 KM. http://www.af.mil/information/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=103. The F-15 get “Range: 3,450 miles (3,000 nautical miles) ferry range with conformal fuel tanks and three external fuel tanks.” Same source.
    None of this lends itself to actual combat operations over Tripoli, much less inland, and even much, much less to maintaining station. Another complicating factor is there is no where to bail out or crash land if something goes wrong. You simply can’t mount an SAR with choppers over that distance.
    All up, the European community can field 6 carriers (http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail). But none of them can maintain a NFZ long term without at least one, preferably two US carriers in a major supporting role. They probably could force a landing, but that’s not a NFZ, that’s an invasion.
    Even against Libya.

50. Looks like Turb and I were thinking along the same lines, for the most part.

51. I’m with Turb & McKT and not motivated by any particular anti-European sentiment, although I don’t think you should underestimate how ineffective European forces are compared to the US.
    The US just spends vastly more than everyone else and does so consistently over decades while maintaining bases around the world, a dozen gigantic aircraft carriers, hundreds of warships, hundreds of transport and mid-air refueling aircraft, and a strategic bombing force that just doesn’t exist in any other Western country.
    Europe has a mixture of services in various countries that don’t have the same ultimate trust and cooperation that the US does in its armed forces, and that have a wide variety of equipment in service (as every country tries to preserve a domestic defense industry). They don’t go on Exciting Foreign Adventures all the time the way the US does, and when they do, it’s not usually very successful.
    For instance, in the Falklands War – probably the most significant force-projection attempt by any non-US power in the last 30 years – Britain disastrously lost two destroyers and two frigates to a rag-tag & outdated Argentine force that was operating much closer to home. In the end they prevailed, but their losses were much higher than a comparison of the forces on paper might have suggested.
    My problem with any intervention in Libya is that I don’t think the rebel forces have the capability to win a ground war with Tripoli or even defend the ground they’ve taken, with or without a NFZ. Ghadaffi supposedly has several billion dollars in cash to pay members of his army and mercenaries, and as we saw in Egypt, money talks – there it was our money talking to the Egyptian military.
    It would cheaper and probably more effective to just bribe Ghadaffi’s army into mutinying – whatever he offers, double it. That would mean rewarding a bunch of complete assholes with a big pile of cash, to be sure, but I am dubious that any intervention we mount would end up being anything other than giving a big pile of cash to a different group of assholes. cf. Iraq, Afganistan.

52. I’m not sure that the EU could take on Libya and enforce a NFZ…. My skepticism stems from my belief that the ability to conduct sustained military operations does not always rise with military expenditures.
    I get that- if the EU had to project power to the Arabian peninsula or something, against a substantial military like the Saudis, logistics and basing would be a big part of the consideration.
    But we’re talking about Libya here. I suspect the Italians alone, operating out of Sicily with their F-16s and Typhoons (assisted by their navy), could maintain air superiority over a signficant part of Libya most of the time (remember, they don’t need to suppress Libyan planes that aren’t anywhere near the rebels, although they could). Suspect- again Im no expert.
    Not because the Italian Air Force is particularly a force to be reckoned with. Because the Libyans are flying old planes that probably haven’t been maintained well, in conjunction with old SAM systems etc suffering from the same defects. Their training is likely poor. Their morale may be poor. etc.
    Perhaps I’m ignorant, but I don’t know that the Italian and French navies have operational experience running the sort of sustained carrier ops needed to enforce a NFZ. Scrambling jets at the maximum operational tempo for months at a time without interruption stretches organizations.
    This seems disconnected- yeah, it might stretch their capabilities. Their capabilities might degrade over time. Some aircraft might be lost. But that is very different from saying that they couldn’t do it.
    I just try to picture the scenario in my head where the EU goes all-in to enforce a NFZ; bombers and fighters out of Sicily and Greece, all manner of ships, etc- and it fails. They’re driven off by the ancient Libyan air force and SAMs. Dozens of Typhoons knocked down. MIG-23s winning dogfight after dogfight with F-16s.
    If you see that, then I don’t know what to say. If you see the various EU militaries having communications issues that even occasionally lead to a serious problem, or problems with logistics leading to reduces sorties, that’s a very different thing.
    I could even see saying that the EU would eventually lack the political will to continue enforcement over a long period of time (if that were, in fact, necessary in this scenario). But that again is very different than claiming that they lack the capability, period.
    McTex- same thing. You talk a good game about military matters here, but I just don’t see how you can claim to be making an objective analysis when you- at no point- discuss Libyan capabilities. According to this the UK couldn’t possibly have won a war against Argentina in the Falklands- look how far it is! They can’t project force etc.
    The way you tell it, the EU couldn’t enforce a NFZ over Libya even if the Libyans all left for Morocco.
    Sicily appears to be roughly 1000 KM, farther if you use Palermo as your point of reference.
    I checked an airline ticket from malta to tripoli- 233mi. And Malta is much closer to the airbase in Sicily than it is to Tripoli (eyeballing, that is).
    Another complicating factor is there is no where to bail out or crash land if something goes wrong. You simply can’t mount an SAR with choppers over that distance.
    It sure would be awesome if they had 4 or 5 carriers to provide chopper and VTOL aircraft support for operations like that. oh, wait…

53. although I don’t think you should underestimate how ineffective European forces are compared to the US
    On the contrary, I don’t not think you should fail to underestimate how non-ineffective those forces would be. I think. Im not even sure I can underestimate a comparison, so I may be a bit hazy on the middle bit.

54. You talk a good game about military matters here, but I just don’t see how you can claim to be making an objective analysis when you- at no point- discuss Libyan capabilities. According to this the UK couldn’t possibly have won a war against Argentina in the Falklands- look how far it is! They can’t project force etc.
    The way you tell it, the EU couldn’t enforce a NFZ over Libya even if the Libyans all left for Morocco.
    OK, here’s the stuff on Libya:
    Total Land-Based Weapons: 5,761
    Tanks: 1,540 [2005]
    Armored Personnel Carriers: 750 [2005]
    Towed Artillery: 647 [2005]
    Self-Propelled Guns: 444 [2005]
    Multiple Rocket Launch Systems: 830 [2005]
    Mortars: 500 [2005]
    Anti-Tank Guided Weapons: 3,000 [2005]
    Anti-Aircraft Weapons: 600 [2005]
    AIR FORCE
    Total Aircraft: 447 [2005]
    Helicopters: 67 [2005]
    Serviceable Airports: 141 [2007]
    Source: http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=Libya
    Let’s stipulate that Libyan forces are not as well trained, motivated, equipped as Europe. Not a problem. Unless they simply lay down and don’t fight, whoever makes up the coalition will have to go in shooting. It’s the only way to do it. But, Libya has a decent sized air force of reasonably capable fighters, among other things. More than sufficient to take on any VTOL even allowing for significant qualitative differences between European pilots and Libyan. I couldn’t tell you what kind of air-to-air missiles Libya has, but if they are fairly recent Russian/Soviet vintage and if they work, you wouldn’t want to try to outmaneuver one in a VTOL, they are too slow. It’s the big trade off for the vertical take off/landing component.
    Further, absent US AWACS, the European jets would have to have their radar on full time just to monitor air traffic, making them huge targets for radar seeking SAMS.
    And note: 141 serviceable airports. That’s a lot of places to hide.
    According to this the UK couldn’t possibly have won a war against Argentina in the Falklands- look how far it is! They can’t project force etc.
    The way you tell it, the EU couldn’t enforce a NFZ over Libya even if the Libyans all left for Morocco.
    No, both England and Argentina were operating over the horizon. Further, England didn’t go to the Falklands to set up a NFZ, they intended to and did invade, which was my point about general war vs. an NFZ. And it wasn’t without cost, either. You might think the greater–general war, includes the lesser, a NFZ, but it doesn’t. A NFZ is a highly specialized operation that relies on large and sophisticated force levels to accomplish a task that only recently and only under limited circumstances could any country have ever even attempted.
    It sure would be awesome if they had 4 or 5 carriers to provide chopper and VTOL aircraft support for operations like that.
    Sure would. If they could operate safely sufficiently close to the Libyan coast to be effective.
    Carlton, you’re not talking about a NFZ, you’re talking about several countries making a sustained, national commitment with limited resources given the task at hand. They can’t do it without the US. With the US, it’s not exactly a laydown, but the short term outcome, i.e. the disablement of the Libyan air force is a foregone conclusion.

55. although I don’t think you should underestimate how ineffective European forces are compared to the US
    My take is the Europeans are, person-for-person, the equivalent of US personnel. It’s the limited numbers of people, equipment, training etc. that goes into something as rare and complex as a NFZ.

56. This seems disconnected- yeah, it might stretch their capabilities. Their capabilities might degrade over time. Some aircraft might be lost. But that is very different from saying that they couldn’t do it.
    What I mean to say is: getting shipboard operations tuned to the point where you can operate continuously for long periods of time is really hard. It takes practice. If you screw up, errors tend to multiply very quickly until lots of people are dead. This situation is ripe for a Normal Accident. But one big accident can have ripple effects: it can make big accidents on other ships more likely and it can raise the political costs of continuing the operation.
    I just try to picture the scenario in my head where the EU goes all-in to enforce a NFZ; bombers and fighters out of Sicily and Greece, all manner of ships, etc- and it fails. They’re driven off by the ancient Libyan air force and SAMs. Dozens of Typhoons knocked down. MIG-23s winning dogfight after dogfight with F-16s.
    That’s not the scenario that I’m envisioning at all. Here’s what I envision:
    (1) The EU doesn’t go all in because the EU is fractious bunch that doesn’t agree about anything so the most that they’re willing to do is partially go in, with some reservations.
    (2) There are several friendly fire incidents where EU air/ship crews accidentally shoot down EU aircraft because of communication/coordination snafus. Calls to bring troops back home arise.
    (3) At least one carrier suffers major damage due to an explosion brought about by an engine mechanic who hadn’t slept in the last 48 hours screwing up. The damage is severe enough to keep the carrier from handling aircraft. As a result, the operational tempo on the other carriers must increase to compensate, which in turn dramatically increases the probability of the exact same thing happening on those other boats. Calls to bring the boys back home get much louder.
    (4) A civilian fishing trawler approaches one of the naval vessels and whips out an imported anti-ship weapon that manages to seriously damage one of the carriers. Calls to end the conflict become deafening.
    Now admittedly, I’m assuming that a NFZ would rely heavily on naval assets and airpower because I thought that Europe lacked both significant in-air refueling tankers and large bases capable of sustaining continuous operations that were close enough to Libya, but I could be wrong about that.

57. And Im not so sure that a 2nd gen Harrier V MIG-23 combat is a sure win for the MIGs, especially when pilot quality, awacs/ground support, etc is considered.

    I was going to say something to that effect, but that’s one of those things that you’d really have to be familiar with both aircraft, as well as their aircrew training, to know for sure.
    What we do know is that the Harrier is, although a rather old airframe, equipped with relatively up-to-date avionics, and have been continuously maintained. Whereas the MiGs have had no Soviet maintenance for the last couple of decades. The Libyan Mirages (if they even have any more) might be in better shape, but unless they’ve gotten a few avionics upgrades in the last couple of decades, they’re way behind the curve.
    So: possibly. Throw in the weapons-technology advantage, and (as mentioned) the AWACS support, and you just might have a win for the Harriers. But you wouldn’t want to plan on doing that.
    From what I’ve read of the Libyan Air Force, they’re mostly in tatters. You can do a lot of damage to people on the ground with a tattered airborne gun-and-missile platform, but that same platform might be a sitting duck for anything in a reasonable state of the art and repair.
    Regarding doing overseas raids, there’s always tanker support. UK has tankers, and there are probably several more that can be summoned from points afar. You wouldn’t want to fly long-range raids without tanker and AWACS support, I wouldn’t think.

    Slarti might, at least more than anyone else here.

    I don’t know much about Libyan air defenses, or even about air defense in general, but what I do know is they seem to be limited to very short range. And of course they’re old, and Soviet.

58. OK….I call Kermit on this thread.

59. The EU doesn’t go all in because the EU is fractious bunch that doesn’t agree about anything so the most that they’re willing to do is partially go in, with some reservations.
    Well, I don’t want to handicap whether the EU has the political willpower to do it, or for how long. I was taking issue with the idea that they *couldnt do it if they wanted to*. Do they want to? I have no idea. Id bet no, probably the pols will see more downside than upside (including, as Eric pointed out, the ‘upside’ of helping people who could turn out to be bad characters into power).
    [And they’ve got tankers. I don’t know how much practice they have with them etc. Again, Id defer to someone who has hard details about air power.]
    What I mean to say is: getting shipboard operations tuned to the point where you can operate continuously for long periods of time is really hard. It takes practice. If you screw up, errors tend to multiply very quickly until lots of people are dead.
    Id say that the sample size is probably too small to justify being confident of this conclusion.

60. OK, here’s the stuff on Libya
    Not sure what mortars, apcs etc has to do with a NFZ. But again, a military expert would maybe be more concerned about what kind of eg tanks, rather than number of tanks.
    I wasn’t looking for a list, I know how to use wikipedia. I was pointing out that your assessment didn’t take Libya into account at all, that Libya could’ve been defended with sharp sticks and Sicily is still 500mi or so from Libya.
    But, Libya has a decent sized air force of reasonably capable fighters, among other things. More than sufficient to take on any VTOL even allowing for significant qualitative differences between European pilots and Libyan. I couldn’t tell you what kind of air-to-air missiles Libya has, but if they are fairly recent Russian/Soviet vintage and if they work, you wouldn’t want to try to outmaneuver one in a VTOL, they are too slow.
    Slarti says this, I listen. You say this, I say- you and what expert? And when did 3rd-gen fighters become “reasonably capable” compared to Typhoons and F-16s? I mean, sh1t, Im not sure if the US could enforce a NFZ now, since the Libyans are apparently well-equipped to take out modern 4th-gen fighters.
    I buy that 3rd-gen fighters might put up a good struggle against Harrier IIs. Not against F-16s. And sure not with all the other factors stacked up against them. You give the Israelis some MIG-23s and Id be more worried about em.
    Further, absent US AWACS, the European jets would have to have their radar on full time just to monitor air traffic, making them huge targets for radar seeking SAMS.
    It would be totally awesome if the UK, the French etc had some AWACS planes, wouldn’t it? Guess what. Not being entirely stupid about developments in air combat since the 70s, they do.
    (nb when you keep being wrong about stuff that you made up, you might reconsider your underlying thesis rather than making up more stuff).
    You might think the greater–general war, includes the lesser, a NFZ, but it doesn’t. A NFZ is a highly specialized operation that relies on large and sophisticated force levels to accomplish a task that only recently and only under limited circumstances could any country have ever even attempted.
    Well, no one’s attempted it in the past on its own, but I think they used to call it complete air superiority”. Yeah, it was usually accompanied by land combat in the past. The Germans have done some of that iirc.
    Sure would. If they could operate safely sufficiently close to the Libyan coast to be effective.
    What, now the Libyan navy is going to get ’em? the Libyan AF is going to mount a serious offensive operation against some very good anti-air ships (eg UK destroyers)?
    Bluntly, I just do not understand this. The UK, French, Italian, and Spanish navies together are not self-sufficient enough to operate a couple hundred miles off of their own shores under their own land-based air cover, in the face of a poorly-equipped, poorly-trained 3rd-world military.
    I dont see how the US is going to help, really. We can’t use our F-15s and F-16 since the Libyans kick 4th-gen fighter butt. Our ships cant get anywhere near Libya because of their fearsome navy and their AF’s offensive capabilities.
    Carlton, you’re not talking about a NFZ, you’re talking about several countries making a sustained, national commitment with limited resources given the task at hand.
    We are, in fact, talking about a NFZ. At least, we were. What does this even mean? Even for you this is a novel debate tactic. “That thing we were talking about? That’s not actually what we’re talking about anymore.”
    And using a lot of other hazy words to describe it doesn’t exactly make your case for you. How sustained? I have no idea, but then neither does anyone else know how long things are going to go on in Libya. Can the EU maintain it forever? Probably not. Can they take on the Libyan AF and win? I still say, silly &%&$ing question.

61. Ok, so: between France and UK, there are about nine E-3 Sentrys, and about 38 tankers.
    The other EU powers probably can add to that pile a bit.
    I may be being a bit pessimistic about Libya’s air force readiness, but as I recall some were a bit overly optimistic about Iraq’s capabilities back in the early 1990s, and their stuff was a couple of decades more up to date at that time.
    It’s hard to hide a fighter, unless you stash them in ordinary civilian aircraft hangars. If you do that, though, EU can simply drop an LGB on every building on every airfield that they suspect.
    And with that many E-3s, they can simply monitor where they are landing from large standoff distances. I’d guess some of that has already been happening.

62. Can the EU maintain it forever? Probably not. Can they take on the Libyan AF and win? I still say, silly &%&$ing question.
    
    I agree that if the EU were to take the preponderance of its forces and projection and aim it squarely at Libya, there would be no contest. The EU could enforce a NFZ, or invade and be able to crush the Libyan forces.
    I don’t think that the rebels in Libya represent the type of issue that any defense planner would engage most of its war making capability upon. Libya is a sideshow, and the EU won’t expend the majority of its combat power on a sideshow.
    I think it could be true that the entire EU force projection would have to be expended on this sideshow. That it would really take most of what they have to enforce a NFZ and maintain it.
    But that still leaves us at a place where potentially, the EU “can’t” do this without our assistance, where “can’t” includes the additional pertinent fact that it just isn’t that important for the EU to devote everything it has.
    While we spend way too much on defense, at least it appears that we get better bang for the buck than the EU.

63. ah, imperial hubris is alive and well, I see. Despite some excellent strategic questions, there is a huge ommission in the post; that is why would any country have the right to do anything with regards to the Libyan situation?
    Qataffi is doing what any leader of any sovereign nation has the right to do. He is crushing rebellion and insurection.
    Ironic because we recently had a post up on this blog that spoke to the goodness of Lincoln smashing our own rebellion. Also, don’t we, even today, rain death and destruction on “insurgents” all over the globe. This even when we sort of create the insurgents by invading countries and propping up governments not considered legit by a sizable proportion of said countries.
    Shouldn’t someone be talking about establishing a no fly zone around the US?
    I’m just saying, you know.

64. why would any country have the right to do anything with regards to the Libyan situation?
    
    Because sovereignty is based solely and explicitly on power. Libya is sovereign until another country takes that power away. Libya has not attracted the attention of anyone capable of taking that power away recently, but it currently is waving a big “eat me” sign. As recently as 1951, it was not sovereign.
    This post was about why we should ignore that sign.

65. I think it could be true that the entire EU force projection would have to be expended on this sideshow. That it would really take most of what they have to enforce a NFZ and maintain it.
    Well, first of all, much of their military just isn’t going to be part of a NFZ operation. Tanks, amphibious assault ships, soldiers, artillery, etc. I can’t imagine that most of anyone’s airforce would be committed- Im not sure but Im guessing that several hundred land-based fighters would be hard to run out of Greece and Sicily. It might take the lion’s share of some specialized asset classes such as AWACs or tankers though.
    But “most of what they have” or “the majority of their combat power”, not so much.
    But that still leaves us at a place where potentially, the EU “can’t” do this without our assistance, where “can’t” includes the additional pertinent fact that it just isn’t that important for the EU to devote everything it has.
    Yes. When “can’t” means “doesn’t want to expend the resources to do so”, then the EU “can’t” enforce a NFZ over Libya. It may also turn out that the US “can’t”, in the sense of not wanting to, jury’s still out on that one. And, in another turn, the US can’t invade Haiti either- imagine that, the global colossus, and we can’t even invade the poorest country in the hemisphere.
    While we spend way too much on defense, at least it appears that we get better bang for the buck than the EU.
    Does it appear that was based on some set of facts? I mean, Id certainly accept that overlap among national systems costs them something. And some militaries are surely better than others. But I havent yet seen any evidence that the EU as a whole gets inferior military bang-for-the-buck. Challenger II tanks are awesome. Typhoons look pretty good. The new British subs sound cool.

66. much of their military just isn’t going to be part of a NFZ operation.
    Pretty sure I said “force projection” and not “military.” Combat forces that aren’t useful in an operation aren’t actually relevant to that operation.
    Does it appear that was based on some set of facts?
    I based it on the EU funded organization that said it. 10% of power for 60% of the cost.

67. Qataffi is doing what any leader of any sovereign nation has the right to do. He is crushing rebellion and insurection.
    Any time I hear about the “right” of any “leader” to do anything, I get worried that sloppy thought underlies sloppy language. Governments and the heads of governments have powers, not “rights”.
    –TP

68. Pretty sure I said “force projection” and not “military.” Combat forces that aren’t useful in an operation aren’t actually relevant to that operation.
    Pretty sure we can scroll up and find out rather than guessing…
    preponderance of its forces and it would really take most of what they have and the EU won’t expend the majority of its combat power on a sideshow. You also say the entire EU force projection in a different part of it.
    Anyway, it might take most of the tankers and AWACs that they have. It wouldn’t take most of their air forces (hundreds of modern aircraft). It would take a chunk of their navy, but your concerns for their well-being nonwithstanding I don’t think any EU nation would need to overextend itself in a naval confrontation with Libya.
    And if you’re considering whether the EU would bother, then yeah, forces that aren’t relevant are important insofar as you’ve (actually explicitly) said that this would take most of the EU’s combat power. Their actual commitment is entirely feasible, and I dont even think it’s that unlikely from a political perspective. Nevertheless, it’s too cute sleight of hand that says ‘excluding most of their airforces and the entirety of their land forces, the EU will never commit the majority of (what’s left) of it’s combat power to a sideshow.’
    I based it on the EU funded organization that said it. 10% of power for 60% of the cost.
    A quote that you can no longer find, based on ‘a guy’ whose affiliation and expertise you can’t even recall. You have that ability- it would be remarkable if not so common- to find the merest shred of evidence to be compelling when it supports what you would like to believe.
    If I found a guy who worked for some EU-funded organization who said that the EU’s military was the equal of the US, Im guessing that you wouldn’t find that to be as compelling as evidence for some reason.

69. Qataffi is doing what any leader of any sovereign nation has the right to do. He is crushing rebellion and insurection.
    Any time I hear about the “right” of any “leader” to do anything, I get worried that sloppy thought underlies sloppy language. Governments and the heads of governments have powers, not “rights”.
    –TP
    Your argument is mere semantics. Take a look at international law, UN charter, etc and tell me where I’m wrong.
    jrudiks, “Because sovereignty is based solely and explicitly on power. Libya is sovereign until another country takes that power away. Libya has not attracted the attention of anyone capable of taking that power away recently, but it currently is waving a big “eat me” sign. As recently as 1951, it was not sovereign.”
    Well, at least someone here is being honest. Hitlersims for the 21st century. That’s why I read a lib blog?

70. Good jollies and all that. This back and forth really doesn’t sound much different than the talk before invading Iraq.
    The real question is do you want a base in Libya instead of a tame puppet. Given that the ideas of the PNAC are evidently still in play – decapitating governments – I’d have to say the Facebook / Twitter destabilization projects are doing well.
    Big O is just being coy. UK/Mossad,etc. will go for the pound of flesh because of the oil. Causing scarcity for others is basic military doctrine.
    But why Europe should contribute to its own hamstringing party doesn’t seem to have struck home.

71. Shouldn’t someone be talking about establishing a no fly zone around the US?

    No, because it would be stupid, practically impossible to even attempt, and suicidal.
    Next question?

72. Hitlersims for the 21st century.

    And we’ve hit the left tail of the Godwin pdf.

    The real question is do you want a base in Libya instead of a tame puppet.

    I don’t think anyone here is seriously discussing either option, John. To whom are you addressing this question?

    decapitating governments

    I don’t think that’s being discussed, either. Have you read any of this thread?

    But why Europe should contribute to its own hamstringing party doesn’t seem to have struck home.

    This needs some unpacking. Please tell me what you meant by the above.

73. Does anyone have the numbers on combined French/British/Italian air superiority fighters, radar suppression aircraft, ranges, etc.? Do these countries have the depth or logistics capability, on their own, to enforce an indefinite NFZ? When do they quit and go home? When K wins? When the country is de facto partitioned?
    A NFZ is a 24/7 operation. Jrudkis has it right: it could possibly be done, but only as a major effort.
    A NFZ doesn’t contemplate destroying Libya’s air force, merely grounding it. To me, it looks like conflating eliminating K’s air force (not going to happen without sustained combat operations including invasion) with grounding it, an entirely different matter.
    Slarti, the Iraqi comparison is a point, but equally valid is that the US was a participant with overwhelming numbers of the full mix of land and carrier based aircraft and support aircraft.

74. A quote that you can no longer find, based on ‘a guy’ whose affiliation and expertise you can’t even recall.
    I did find it: it is above in the long block quote with the link.

75. Does anyone have the numbers on combined French/British/Italian air superiority fighters, radar suppression aircraft, ranges, etc.?
    Wikipedia. But for starters, there are about 250 Typhoons in operation, and maybe something less than 20 AWACS (plus a couple hundred F-16s). I dont know that anyone has hard info on whether they’ve got highly-trained pilots, practice doing mid-air refuels, etc, but we’re talking about the RAF here, Id tend to give them the benefit of the doubt on things like that.
    Do these countries have the depth or logistics capability, on their own, to enforce an indefinite NFZ?
    Does anyone? If the idea is to enforce a NFZ and watch the rebels win, then this isn’t going to take years. If that isn’t the idea, then I don’t know what we’re talking about- if K wins, then the NFZ would serve no purpose.
    A NFZ doesn’t contemplate destroying Libya’s air force, merely grounding it.
    Well, they could take out aircraft if they wanted to. Technically that’s more than a NFZ. But destroying aircraft, runways, etc might make their jobs easier. So it doesn’t need to be 1)NFZ with no unprovoked attacks or 2)destroy every aircraft in Libya. It can be a mix of those two.
    Slarti, the Iraqi comparison is a point, but equally valid is that the US was a participant with overwhelming numbers of the full mix of land and carrier based aircraft and support aircraft.
    I think Slarti’s point was that many people overestimated Iraqi resistance based on numbers and types of aircraft, SAMs, etc. Not taking into account other factors such as poor training, maintenance, and morale. Whether the US participated isn’t the point at all.

76. I did find it: it is above in the long block quote with the link.
    Thanks. From the context:
    1)He says “it is said”, and then goes on to dispute the matter. He finishes that para with the question does that mean that European military capabilities have been falsely underestimated?
    2)From the previous paragraph, I think he’s just talking about 10% of the power projection/expeditionary force capabilities of the US- that the EU was focused on combat in Europe with the Warsaw Pact, not expeditionary warfare. That has nothing to do with not getting “bang for the buck”.
    3)Once more, I don’t know why you think a single quote with no facts backing it up would be definitive- here not even the opinion of the author, but something “that is said”. It seems that you’ve managed to use a quote about other peoples’ opinions and taken the meaning out of context in order to prove what you already ‘knew’.

77. Let me try to summarize, mostly to see if I’ve understood the discussion.
    Not in order,
    1) we discussed whether we (and/or the Europeans, as the EU or as individual countries) should intervene in Libya. There’s general agreement that Qaddafi is a scumbag, and the world would be better off without him. But much less as to whether there is a moral case for taking him down.
    2) we discussed who has the capability to intervene. For a NFZ, the EU is far inferior to the US in capability. Fortunately, they would be up against Libyan air defense, not American air defense. How effective Libyan air defense would turn out to be is a matter of dispute.
    Could an EU-only NFZ cover all of Libya? Probably not. Then again, while there are some airfields inland, the vast majority of Libyans, and Libyan infrastructure is close to the coast. Air defense operations out of central Libya are limited by logistics: jet fuel has to be gotten from the coast to the bases there.
    Could European military forces establish a NFZ? Yes. Not without losses, but then it’s really mostly just Americans who think that combat military operations should be without losses. Would the political will in Europe to act last, once the decision was made? Perhaps not for long, but probably long enough to Qaddafi to be taken down.
    3) What would follow Qaddafi, and how important is that? First, nobody knows. Probably, there would be a lot of wrangling amongst the victorious rebels. (See America in the decade or tow following the Revolution.) But it is far from certain that would-be jihadists would prevail. Second, it is not clear (at least to me) that even a jihadist Libyan government would be noticeably worse that a victorious Qaddafi after the way the world has viewed him vs. the rebels. To say that he’s going to be furious at everybody from the Arab League to the EU to the US would be putting it mildly. And he has a history which suggests that he would act on that.
    I suspect that, if the EU (or even just France and/or Italy) decides to intervene, the US will provide support — not active combat involvement, but support. AWACS being the most obvious thing we could do without much effort. (Heck, take it out of the training budget. Those guys gotta train anyway, and live exercises are the best training.) Other logistic support becomes important only for supplying the rebels; and the EU (e.g France) seems to be managing that themselves.

78. With regards to #1, it’s not so much the “moral case” that leaves me unpersuaded, but rather the national interest, cost/benefit case.
    Again, nobody other than Sen Lugar that I’ve seen thus far has raised the issue that this would cost tens of billions of dollars. How will we pay for it?
    If we’re talking pure “moral case” we should probably be in Cote d’Ivoire already, not to mention Sudan and Somalia and at least a few other locales.
    Also: We should be leaning hard on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to stop their tandem attacks on protesters (much cheaper ftr)

79. i’ve been watching this out of the corner of my eye, so I think wj’s summary is pretty good. Some points I didn’t note.
    -Eric mentions tribal issues, but my understanding is that Libya national military ability has degraded quite a bit in the past decade because of this tribal infighting, and the elite forces, which are small but well equipped, are those who are tribally affiliated with the regime (link and link and link)
    This makes analyses of the Libyan military, such that you would get off of Wikipedia, miss the point. One could take this as evidence for either side (elite troops loyal to the regime are more likely going to be using tanks and boots on the ground, so some sort of air intervention could be very valuable, but this might be a lot more than an NFZ in terms of intervention so we should therefore maintain a hands off approach). One thing is for sure, Gadhaffi is probably the biggest beneficiary of the recent disaster in Japan, as the amount of information I have seen about Libya has dropped to a trickle and I assume that it will give him breathing space to retrench.

80. I said ‘some points’, and I thought I had 2 more, but I’ve forgotten them now. May not have had them, apologies for that.

81. I don’t suppose you’d buy a rationalization that acting when it isn’t in the national interest and fails a cost/benefit analysis is immoral? Naw, didn’t think so. 😉
    Point taken.

82. wj: there’s something to that, but it is perhaps a separate discussion.

83. A NFZ doesn’t contemplate destroying Libya’s air force, merely grounding it. To me, it looks like conflating eliminating K’s air force (not going to happen without sustained combat operations including invasion) with grounding it, an entirely different matter.

    I’d think it could be any number of things. First, declaration of No Fly Zone, along with detailed enumeration of consequences for violation.
    Second, preparation to enforce the NFZ. This includes putting assets in place to (yes) destroy any and all Libyan aircraft on the ground, and plans for scale of said destruction (just the offending air base? The entire known fleet of aircraft? Some third, middle-ish option?).
    I would think that it’s a given that we/NATO/some UN task force would NOT want to fly continuous CAP and simply shoot down the offenders. That’s asking to spend a great deal of blood and money just to make the skys safe for as long as you’re around to keep them safe.
    I’d guess this, instead, would be the way to go: continuous surveillance, tracking of violators to their respective landing sites, and visitation of consequences in the event of violation, with some (unavoidable, I think) delay. I haven’t really considered this fully so there might be flaws.

84. I’d think it could be any number of things
    Galrahn at Information Dissemination thinks it would involve a lot more than what you’re thinking Slarti:

    If anyone wants to establish a “no-fly zone” in Libya, it starts with a declaration of war by Congress, because anything short of that is a boondoggle. There is no way any nation is going to run around and shoot down aircraft inside Libya without taking out the defense infrastructure including SAM and ASM sites, virtually the entire Libyan Navy, every airfield being used, every aircraft that is in the open on the ground, and every radar and electronic emission site. That means thousands of strike sorties just to set the conditions for a no-fly zone, because establishing air superiority is the prerequisite of any no-fly zone.

85. And then we’ll have an obligation to rebuild in the aftermath, adding to the price tag that, so far, nobody has proposed a means to pay for.

86. Plus if you think that Galrahn is correct in claiming that a NFZ would require thousands of sorties, you have to wonder: how many of those sorties will kill civilians or rebels? And how many such incidents will it take to destroy political support for continuing the operation?
    Now Carleton seems to be focused on an incredibly narrow definition of feasibility which boils down to asking whether a NFZ is doable if all the military hardware in Europe was deployed in the hands of a unified fighting force that had extensive experience running continuous operations together and massive political commitment back home. I’m not sure why anyone would care about feasibility in a world so far removed from our own, but he’s made a very convincing case about events in this other world.

87. Could an EU-only NFZ cover all of Libya? Probably not. Then again, while there are some airfields inland, the vast majority of Libyans, and Libyan infrastructure is close to the coast. Air defense operations out of central Libya are limited by logistics: jet fuel has to be gotten from the coast to the bases there.
    True, but Im thinking from a practical perspective the NFZ only needs to be enforced in the areas where the rebels are active. There was some discussion about whether a NFZ would just be directed at military attacks by fixed-wing aircraft, or if helicopters and/or ferrying operations would be included.
    Now Carleton seems to be focused on an incredibly narrow definition of feasibility which boils down to asking whether a NFZ is doable if all the military hardware in Europe was deployed in the hands of a unified fighting force that had extensive experience running continuous operations together and massive political commitment back home.
    Well, Id say with the experience they actually have, and with the given that there are a bunch of nations involved. And as has been repeatedly pointed out, other than a few specialized asset classes, the EU has more than enough land-based aircraft etc. So “all the military hardware in Europe” isn’t correct at all. The majority of the military hardware in Europe isn’t even relevant to the mission.
    And sure, dismissing concerns about political implications isn’t the whole case- I even said that I dont think this will actually happen (altho if it does they’ll keep up it for a while or until it’s successful- if they lose a few planes etc backing down would be politically worse than staying the course IMO).
    But all of that was in response to jrudkis: But I wouldn’t be against selling some hardware to the EU if they find they don’t have the capacity to perform anything useful.
    I just don’t think that stands up to serious analysis. The EU has considerably more than they need to take on the Libyan AF and win hands-down. Im not even sure what jrudkis thinks we would be selling them- fighters? AWACS? SAM-killing missiles? Maybe if he wants to keep this going he can tell us specifically what we would be selling them.

88. Eric, you’ll never be accepted as a neocon, or even a strong conservative in today’s world. Even ignoring your use of the term “price tag,” you used “aftermath” and “obligation” in the same sentence. For shame! The proper approach is to bomb hell out of (whomever), declare mission accomplished, and . . . that’s the end of it, at least as far as required planning is concerned. Simple, no?

89. Eric’s #2 is how a NFZ ends.
    a NFZ simply slows down the government forces. the rebels, who are still are an irregular force with no heavy weapons, still get beat. it just takes longer.
    a NFZ doesn’t stop the govt. the rebels still lose.

90. Eric: in short, although I initially tossed off some half-baked notions in the opposing direction in the first week of events, by the second week I’d come round to this same position, also by product of reading the same arguments and wisdom you have.
    I reserve the right to again change my mind if the situation changes dramatically, but otherwise we’re in — I’m responding to your post here, not subsequent comments, since I’m afraid I’ve been too busy to read the blog in many days — as usual, more or less full agreement.
    Attractive as a no-fly zone might seem at a first glance, it would be a sucking quagmire that is, at least as yet, not yet a compelling enough cause, despite the evils of the Libyan Leader (I’m feeling like avoiding spelling inconsistencies at the moment), and the desire to counter-the massacres and violence with more violence, to engage in the necessary risks, and dangers of adding yet more violence to the violence.
    On the matter of costs of military expenditures versus what we could do to help people, in this case, “merely” Americans, I’ll fall back on yet another graphic of The Same Old Classic Comparisons.
    

91. I know, this will be bad for my career 😉
    That said, I reiterate this:
    We should be leaning hard on Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to stop their tandem attacks on protesters (much cheaper ftr)
    And add that the US comes out of the Bahrain mess looking much, much worse because of our active complicity (as opposed to “decision not to intervene” where there is no underlying relationship):
    http://bit.ly/hWaT5g

92. How effective Libyan air defense would turn out to be is a matter of dispute.

    It appears that they may have better equipment than I’d thought; they seem to have a collection of SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 missile defense systems that have rather larger standoff ranges than do their smaller mobile SAM counterparts in the Libyan Army. The downside of these systems is they must be emplaced, and they are (being all at least 40 years old, design-wise) susceptible to various countermeasures. And they’re radar-guided, which means large, multi-vehicle emplacement sites that are easily seen by photorecon satellites, and are also easily detectable by airborne radars. If you wanted to, you could put a HARM into each of the acquisition radars from outside of their engagement range.
    Now I’m just spitballing.

    If anyone wants to establish a “no-fly zone” in Libya, it starts with a declaration of war by Congress

    Really? If NATO, or the UN want to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya, that requires a declaration of war by Congress?
    News to me. I’m not saying it isn’t so, but I had no idea the rest of the world needed our permission to engage in such things. OTOH, if no-fly zones required a declaration of war, weren’t we already at war with Iraq?

93. Not saying what we should and shouldn’t do as regards Saudi Arabia, Eric, but wouldn’t it look really feckless of us to be leaning on Saudi Arabia to straighten up and fly right, if Fisk’s article of last week is accurate?

94. The 10% for 60 % quote is attributed to Defense Secretary Cohen, according to this dissertation:
    Furthermore, there are substantial and widely recognized inefficiencies in the way
    European countries—both individually and collectively—spend their defense
    24
    budgets. According to an oft-quoted statement by former U.S. Defense Secretary
    William Cohen, European NATO members spend 60 percent of what the United
    States spends on defense and get only 10 percent in return.32 In terms of airlift
    capacity, they get less than 20 percent of the U.S. capacity—by volume or tonnage
    (Heisbourg, 1999). There are two main reasons behind this low return on
    investment: European defense spending is fragmented, thereby forgoing potential
    scale economies; and it is focused on different priorities.33
    http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand
    /pubs/rgs_dissertations/2007/
    RAND_RGSD219.pdf
    From the same paper:
    EU members’ defense spending is skewed towards personnel. Considering today’s potential missions, EU nations have too many soldiers: the EU-15 nations fielded 1.9 million soldiers in 1999 versus 1.4 million in the United States. Also, in 1999, personnel expenses consumed about 61 percent of defense budgets in the EU-15, compared to 39 percent in the United States. According to Heisbourg (1999) “An extreme case is provided by Germany, Greece and Italy, which together field 800,000
    military personnel (close to 60 percent of the U.S. total) whereas they spend 12 percent ($8 billion) of what the United States does on procurement.” Procurement expenditure among European NATO members dropped by 6.9 percent between 1996 and 2000, compared with a 4.7 percent increase in the United States over the same period (Morrocco, 2001). European spending on R&D fell by 2 percent a year over the same period to reach only a quarter of that spent by the United States (IISS, 2001).
    another interesting paper re: European capabilities:
    http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21659.pdf
    And an article about the Nato Response Force, which would presumably be the central core to a NFZ. Which, accroding to the article, needs US technology.
    http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/docUploaded/DTP%2018%20NATO%20Response%20Force.pdf

95. Running through the comments on the thread quickly, and speaking as a guy who simply Reads A Bunch about the military, I’d suggest there are some serious misconceptions underlying some comments:
    1) the idea that Amount Of Money Spent Per Country on Military Spending In General somehow correlates to force effectiveness to do a specific job is, well, ridiculous. Just because country a has, say, a draft, and technically runs a million young people through six months of small arms training and has to spend a lot on barracks and food, doesn’t mean they can fight an air battle, run submarines, or actually fly an effective set of ground troops, with artillery, heavy munitions, air support, command and control, suitable training, adequat communications, a professional non-commissioned corp, ets, hardly follows.
    b) The idea that one Nato or more NATO countries has a ship or ships called an “air craft carrier,” which might, in abstract theory, be “capable” of flying the same “sort” of airplane, (Harrier versus Rafale M, say, simply isn’t relevant. These elements aren’t interchangeable parts. A carrier equipped with one type of catapult and a crew, both sea and pilots, who have trained in communications and details of landing on one Navy’s carrier can’t just blithely land on another Navy’s carrier save in the most dangerous and risk sort of circumstances, let alone be reequipped, let alone regularly deployed. It’s just not the way real navies, as opposed to bath-tub toys, work.
    Unless the units have actually thoroughly trained and excerised together for months, making sure that the can work together, they can’t, and it’s just that simple.
    As for the theoretical integration of NATO, well, it’s a nice theory, and there are some limited actual capabilities, sure, and they’re exercised in very specific operations, but if you want to follow the general practice, all you have to do is start running through some of the relevant boilerplate bafflegab to understand that a lot of it amounts to having official delegations staffing an awful lot of office buildings, with an awful lot of PowerPoint presenttions being done in multiple languages, and a Vast Profusion of Charts, and a considerable army of personnell devoted to producing more PointPoint charts, re-organizations, and more meetings and memos, than it often amounts to actual fighting forces that can actually conduct real military operations, rather than parliamentary speeches, endless committees, and nice sounding press releases.
    Sure, there are real units, that can actually fight and act at sea together, but these are fairly limited capabilities.
    Meanwhile, arguments over which corporation and country should be engaging in which contracts to sell non-existing equipment to which military in some future procurement plan which will be vetoed or run through umpty national parliaments in years future doesn’t seem particularly relevant to what orders might be given to which forces deployable next week in a given place and time.
    Those are nice abstract arguments, but what they have to do with questions like “what should the EU or U.S. or NATO do to act, or not, militarily, in the next month,” I can only answer: nothing.
    Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, the “rebels” in Libya are a widely disparate set of groups, with no political or military or ethnic unification or coordination, completely mixed desires, at best, as regards foreign intervention, “we,” for whatever value you wish to consider “we” to represent, can’t impose a no-fly zone without attacking land-based air defenses, at which point we’re already killing Libyans on the ground, engaging in “collateral damage,” being seen by at least some Libyan oppositionists as foreign imperialist killers, being seen by yet other Libyan rebels as outsiders who will only damage their on legitimacy as true patriots, and unless such questions as “what next, then what next, then what next,” “what’s the exist strategy,” “where do we draw the line at who we stop killing, who do we attack, how do we make up for the oopsie civilian deaths, what are the moral and practical and long-term costs of engaging in mass killings?” and dozens or hundreds or thousands of other questions, can be answered very very very quickly, and either by a whole set of bureaucracies — even if only one country’s, such as the U.S. — and good luck getting all the Pentagon, State, and intel agencies lined up like ducks to do that, let alone Congress — you haven’t begun to define the word “mess.”
    Save that an awful lot of blood will be on American hands again.
    And, yes, standing by also results in much suffering, death, killing, and horror.
    That’s the world we live in. There are never simple answers, but the least we can do is try to limit the obvious harm we do through our actions — and yet, then, no one wants another Rwanda, or Holocaust, either.
    But I agree that the case for ANY military intervention needs to be as compellingly clear as possible before it can possibly be justified, either morally or practically, and the easy comments I made a couple of weeks ago about a no-fly zone being a “no-brainer” were a wonderful example of me displaying no brain at all.

96. Slarti: I’ve seen a lot of incredulity about Fisk’s piece from a wide array of commentators (of all persuasions). Not sure that means it’s incorrect, but there was an unusual consensus.
    Even if Fisk is right that the US tried to get SA to play that role, SA didn’t seem to have an appetite to get involved in Libya (why would they given their own interest in stemming the tide of revolutions?)
    But if the US position is to encourage, even tacitly, the revolutions, I don’t think there’s any inconsistency here.

97. Adding: the optics are always worse on these matters when it’s a US ally, w/US weapons because US authorization is presumed (as rumors of HR Clinton green-lighting the Saudi incursion are already gaining wide circulation on twitter).
    Also, we have some leverage available absent armed intervention. Not costless, but that’s not really a possibility under any scenario.

98. Also, it’s deeply silly to be cite any sources at all you can find online as to numbers of craft, planes, missiles, ships, etc., unless you can find readiness figures on last week‘s supplies and effectiveness — and you can’t.
    You can get a rough estimate on some NATO forces, but those will be immensely rough, months out of date, won’t take into account what’s actually on hand and effective, because of operational security, and the fact that websites are going to be months out of date, including those maintained by those of the ships and air wings themselves, since they do those almost as hobbies, for the morale of the civilian families of the crews, amd for promotion/publicity, more than any other reason; they certainly don’t put information out there so every Fighting Jane, Dick, and Wang can conveniently look up enemy capability, and you’re certainly not going to find terribly accurate or up to date info on Wikipidia, and that idea is just very silly.
    Let alone being able to tell how well-manned, supplied, or which side, the individuals and units of a given Libyan outpost, base, crew, are.
    These are pretty known unknowns.
    And, crap, I just wrote another couple of thousand words, and then because I’m having a Firefox problem, and momentarily hit a link to check a word, just as I was finishing, wiped out the entire last two thirds of my piece, and [curse words curse word curse words, curse words].
    Well, there went an hour or or so of time.

99. Okay, maybe only 20 minutes or so. Still.

100. Frak. I don’t have the time to rewrite all that. Now I’m just going to have to say “yes, I addressed all that. And it disappeared. And I hate Microsoft. But I blame only myself for not having stopped to have fixed my momentary Firefox problem, or done my usual automatic habit of saving to buffer. Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for a while, and then… whatever.”

101. I should have just written a post on what I think we should do, since that’s basically what I did, but now I’ve got to go do other stuff instead.

102. Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for a while, and then… whatever
     I find this uncomfortably reminiscent of so much of my life.

103. And an article about the Nato Response Force, which would presumably be the central core to a NFZ.Which, accroding to the article, needs US technology.
     First, this is a rapid-deployment combined arms force. Im not sure what you think it has to do with enforcing a NFZ. Let alone “the central core” of the effort.
     Second, much of the concerns expressed over US technology were the lack of effective communications between US and other forces. There were also concerns about technology sharing between allies, but the ‘needs US technology’ part is ‘needs US technology to be able to operate jointly in close proximity with the US, sharing sigint etc’.
     Third, this force actually exists. It may or may not use some technology provided by the US. But if it does have some role in a NFZ operation, then it’s there, ready to carry out that role afaict. If you’re (dubiously) arguing that it couldn’t exist wo US technology, that’s a very different thing than claiming that the EU couldn’t carry out the operation at all.
     But let’s go back to the first point- you just keep throwing stuff against the wall here hoping it’ll stick. This rapid-reaction force- depending on mission requirements, the NRF will operate either as an Initial Entry Force to facilitate the arrival of Follow-on-Forces, or as a Stand-alone Force. Within the full spectrum of NATO missions, the NRF may conduct the following types of missions:
     * Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations
     * Counter Terrorism Operations
     * Embargo Operations
     * Quick Response Operations to support diplomacy as required. cite
     Again, you want to break out your military expertise and tell me how that has anything whatsoever to do with this conversation about a No-Fly-Zone?

104. Okay. Take the phrases “humanitarian aid,” “making diplomatic, political, and intelligence contacts and outreach with all relevant opposition forces in Libya, surrounding countries, national, subnational, ethnic, and otherwise,” “attempt as generally consistent as possible approach to the Arab world, mideast, and Mediterranean area as possible,” “avoid treating the issues as a giant game of Harpoon as possible, “quit talking so much about military solutions, and focus on the politics, diplomacy, and intelligence aspects,” put in a bunch more about humanitarian steps we can talke, talk about how we shouldn’t entirely exclude a very limited middle range of arguments for extremely limited military support steps that aren’t insane arguments, and expand on that for a couple of thousand words, with a bunch of cites, and you’ve kind of got what I wrote. Just add hot water and air, stir, mix, and pretend I wrote that.
     Useful, eh?

105. The idea that one Nato or more NATO countries has a ship or ships called an “air craft carrier,” which might, in abstract theory, be “capable” of flying the same “sort” of airplane, (Harrier versus Rafale M, say, simply isn’t relevant. These elements aren’t interchangeable parts. A carrier equipped with one type of catapult and a crew, both sea and pilots, who have trained in communications and details of landing on one Navy’s carrier can’t just blithely land on another Navy’s carrier save in the most dangerous and risk sort of circumstances, let alone be reequipped, let alone regularly deployed. It’s just not the way real navies, as opposed to bath-tub toys, work.
     I have no “idea” if the UK “air craft carrier” has or has not conducted “operations” with Harriers of other “nations”. Or if eg the “Italians” have practiced such with the “Spanish”. Real navies do joint exercises, so it certainly seems possible.
     Perhaps you are aware if this is true or not. Sharing that information would actually “add” to the “conversation”.
     Also, it’s deeply silly to be cite any sources at all you can find online as to numbers of craft, planes, missiles, ships, etc., unless you can find readiness figures on last week’s supplies and effectiveness — and you can’t.
     I want a ballpark idea of what’s going on. Say, the UK has 200-odd 4th gen aircraft. It’s *possible* that all but one of those isn’t operational, but it’s friggin *unlikely*. And I have better things to do than try to find out exactly how many are operational today (as if that wasn’t classified info anyway).
     What’s deeply silly is rejecting rough data and claiming that it’s all totally unknowable unless we’ve got access to classified information. I mean, *maybe* the US can’t enforce a NFZ because all of our AWACS and carriers are offline. Not likely, but guess we can’t have a conversation about that anymore either. We can’t have *any* non-silly conversation about military capabilities. Or, *you* can’t, apparently.

106. Ok, now I kind of regret that. The point about interoperability is a good one- Id assumed that joint ops would probably have occurred (and Id be surprised if they hadnt at least planned/trained for emergency diversions of aircraft to compatible platforms during joint ops- but not that surprised, Im not that well informed).
     But couldn’t it just have been delivered as “hey, you might have overlooked this point” rather than a digression into how you read a lot, followed by pedantic ‘idiot quotes’ and snark about bathtub toys?
     This is why I rarely get into threads with you Gary- the intellectual pretensions and the sneering are not worth the content, and I get my dander up so easily that there’s not much of a chance of a useful conversation anyway. Which is a shame bc sometimes there’s some interesting content.

107. I agree that I’d much rather have our government “leaning on” our Saudi allies (shoot protestors, lose our backing) than getting involved in the Libyan civil war.

108. Carleton, how about a guest post?

109. “do you want a base in Libya instead of a tame puppet.”
     I don’t think anyone here is seriously discussing either option, John. To whom are you addressing this question?
     Actually, Slartiblastfast, I mean the ubiquitous ‘you’ of foreign policy. I don’t even mean ‘US’ foreign policy since it is dictated all through NATO/UK/Commonwealth, etc. to be harmonized.
     http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4514938/Intelligence-sharing-between-Britain-and-the-United-States-dates-back-to-First-World-War.html
     So to say that nobody is discussing that question is to evade the ‘how do we leave’ question again…when nobody should believe that will happen should the habit of force projection be done as reflex. If this isn’t in the works, it was rather silly to promote destabilization of governments in the targeted areas of oil production by the same people who got Obama elected through internet marketing. Unless, of course, it was a total coincidence that everything fell to bits at once.
     The Citizens: Remaking the Map of the Middle East
     1 Feb 2011 … What is happening in Egypt today is going to remake the map of the Middle East. Until a couple weeks ago, American policymakers had a …
     thecitizens.blogspot.com/2011/…/remaking-map-of-middle-east.html
     Remaking the Middle East – Council on Foreign Relations
     Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning in the US State Department, offers his road map to the entire Middle East region. …
     http://www.cfr.org › Iraq
     HOW THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST MAP CAME TO BE DRAWN
     The map of the Arab Middle East was drawn by the victorious Allies when they took over …. to be involved in the remaking (& remapping) of the Middle East. …
     christianactionforisrael.org/isreport/midesmap.html
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_%E2%80%93_United_States_military_relations
     The U.S. Army is getting rid of its “pen and paper” and “string and stick” method of tracking fuel use in Afghanistan after nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud resulting in what is likely hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in lost fuel, some of which is sold on the black market and has ended up in Taliban hands.
     http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=BC47E43E607F4BBF29F884D0F5E2114A?diaryId=4657
     So yeah,nobody is discussing
     U.S. military interventions since 1890 or http://www.motherjones.com/military-maps/
     BTW You likely know me – if you do – as Opit.

110. Turb at 12:47 minus the declaration of war part pretty much sums it up. Yes, in theory, NATO, or three or four of the larger members, could pull something off, but the unknowns are significant and staying power is an open question as well. Is there a groundswell of popular support in Europe for such an undertaking?

111. Embargo Operations
     The NRF’s missions include traditional missions, such as deployment of air, maritime or ground forces as
     a show of force; deployment as an initial entry force to facilitate the arrival of follow-on forces; and
     deployment as a stand-alone force for crisis response to perform missions that include peacekeeping,
     support of counter-terrorism operations, consequence management—including chemical, biological,
     radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) attacks; humanitarian crises, embargo operations (maritime, initial land and
     no-fly zone), and non-combatant evacuation operations (Mariano and Wilson, 2003).

112. Second, much of the concerns expressed over US technology were the lack of effective communications between US and other forces.
     Plus the AWACS that are supplied by the US:
     AWACS (SHAPE, AFNORTH, AIRNORTH HQ/E-3A Component)
     page 16, table 1.1, page 16
     http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/docUploaded/
     DTP%2018%20NATO%20Response%20Force.pdf

113. According to an oft-quoted statement by former U.S. Defense Secretary
     William Cohen, European NATO members spend 60 percent of what the United
     States spends on defense and get only 10 percent in return.

     I’m not sure that’s a good comparison, without knowing how LONG NATO members have been engaged in that level of spending. We’ve been investing in our own military for a very long time, now. 10 percent capability, also, by what metric?
     I don’t expect that you know the answer to that; just pointing out that it doesn’t necessarily mean that the EU is collectively pissing away its defense spending on useless crap.

     Actually, Slartiblastfast, I mean the ubiquitous ‘you’ of foreign policy.

     You offered two alternatives, neither of which has been discussed in this thread. If you don’t think those are the only two possibilities (a- base in Libya; b- tame puppet), why are you presenting them as if they are? Or maybe I’ve misunderstood; if so, please set me straight.

     So to say that nobody is discussing that question is to evade the ‘how do we leave’ question again

     There is no ‘how do we leave’ question that concerns us here. Because none of us is discussing ever setting foot on Libyan soil in the first place. Granted, if we’re to be involved in any way in establishing an NFZ, exit strategy is important. But establishing an NFZ doesn’t mean that we do either of establishing bases or installing a puppet government.
     Establishing an NFZ might not even make any sense. Some of us are pretending it does. But we don’t get to make the decisions, so no harm is done if we do some pretending. We can turn right around and pretend it doesn’t, and look at what could happen then, with just as much ill consequences.

     So yeah,nobody is discussing

     I didn’t say no one is discussing it; I said no one here is discussing it. Or wasn’t, until you brought it up. The way that you brought it up seemed to imply that someone in our discussion, here, had taken one of the two positions you describe.
     But again: maybe I’m failing to get something, here.
     Hi, Opit!

114. Carleton, how about a guest post?
     I have no idea what Id post on, honestly. My two biggest criticisms of my blog commentary are that
     1)I spend far too much time arguing and not enough time discussing and
     2)I spend too much time tearing other peoples’ theses down rather than offering my own
     The things I know enough about to have more opinions or facts than questions just aren’t good fodder for a post anyway.

115. initial land and no-fly zone
     The quote makes it clear that this is just for rapid-response setting up embargoes. It’s not that the EU can’t perform a NFZ mission without this unit (which, I add yet again, actually exists), just that they probably can’t set one up in 72 hours or whatever the rapid-response for that kind of operation would be.
     So it’s not that they couldn’t perform a NFZ mission, just that it would take longer to implement without their rapid-response team. Which they actually have, so it still doesn’t help your argument that the EU needs to buy hw from the US in order to perform the mission.
     That was your original point. Please try supporting it or stating some other point that you’d like to support. All this bluster, blockquoting, and distraction isn’t getting you there.
     Plus the AWACS that are supplied by the US:
     AWACS (SHAPE, AFNORTH, AIRNORTH HQ/E-3A Component)
     page 16, table 1.1, page 16
     Those are just the contributions to the rapid-reaction force. Several EU nations have AWACS. This has already come up on the thread.

116. Those are just the contributions to the rapid-reaction force. Several EU nations have AWACS. This has already come up on the thread.
     A side note: saying Country X has an AWACS is like saying Country X has an aircraft carrier. It describes function, not capability. That said, I would expect any European AWACS to be able to control the battle space over Libya. My earlier suggestion that Europe could not perform this aspect of a NFZ without a US AWACS are withdrawn.

117. Which they actually have, so it still doesn’t help your argument that the EU needs to buy hw from the US in order to perform the mission.
     
     I am not arguing for a point, I am having a discussion about whether the EU can conduct a NFZ without US help. The NRF seems relevant to the discussion.
     I’m not sure that’s a good comparison, without knowing how LONG NATO members have been engaged in that level of spending. We’ve been investing in our own military for a very long time, now. 10 percent capability, also, by what metric?
     I think it is fair to question how such a complicated system can be reduced to such a simple statement. I think the point of it is that our NATO allies were not capable of many modern warfare requirements, at least as of 10 years ago. The timeframe of the quote relates to Kosovo, and Bosnia and Kosovo kicked off a round of discussions regarding making the European contribution to NATO more effective. For example, In 1999, NATO launched the
     Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI), and then NATO’s Prague Capabilities Commitment.
     The conflicts in the Balkans
     highlighted the need for more mobile forces, for technological equality between the
     United States and its allies, and for interoperability. In 1999, NATO launched the
     Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI), an effort to enable the alliance to deploy troops
     quickly to crisis regions, to supply and protect those forces, and to equip them to engage
     an adversary effectively. The conflict in Afghanistan marked a new development in
     modern warfare through the extensive use of precision-guided munitions, directed by
     ground-based special forces; many believe that this step widened the capabilities breach
     between the United States and its European allies. At its 2002 summit in Prague, NATO
     approved a new initiative, the Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC), touted as a
     slimmed-down, more focused DCI, with quantifiable goals. Analysts have cautioned
     that the success of PCC will hinge upon increased spending and changed procurement
     priorities — particularly by the European allies. At NATO’s 2004 Istanbul summit and
     its 2006 Riga summit, the alliance reaffirmed the goals of PCC and, in light of NATO
     missions, particularly in Afghanistan, stressed the urgency of acquiring specific
     capabilities such as airlift. During the 110th Congress, lawmakers are likely to review
     the alliance’s progress in boosting NATO capabilities, especially in the context of the
     appropriations process.
     …
     NATO officials point out, however, that PCC differs from DCI in several important
     ways: PCC is focused on a smaller number of goals, emphasizes multinational
     cooperation and specialization, requires specific commitments from member states, and
     was designed with a particular force in mind: the NATO Response Force (NRF.)
     http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RS21659.pdf

118. A side note: saying Country X has an AWACS is like saying Country X has an aircraft carrier. It describes function, not capability. That said, I would expect any European AWACS to be able to control the battle space over Libya.
     True. I expect that to be more often true of 3rd-world countries without good modern military traditions, like the Saudis.
     I am not arguing for a point, I am having a discussion about whether the EU can conduct a NFZ without US help. The NRF seems relevant to the discussion.
     Ok, but how? They have it. They want it to coordinate better with the US. You originally brought it up thusly: And an article about the Nato Response Force, which would presumably be the central core to a NFZ. Which, accroding to the article, needs US technology.
     It isn’t necessarily key to a NFZ, although it might be important to implementing one very quickly. That the NRF wants/needs US cooperation and sharing to be able to coordinate with US forces, Im not sure how that’s relevant. And that, in the interests of long-term cooperation, the US and the EU should share tech more, not sure how that’s relevant either in general.
     So tell me, what is your point about the NRF? How does that point support the contention that the EU is not capable of performing the mission? What capabilities do they lack that they need to carry out the mission?

119. The NRF is the force that has been built since Kosovo to be the European mechanism for joint response. This is what they have to do things, like a NFZ.
     The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a “coherent, high readiness, joint, multinational force package” of approximately 25,000 troops that is “technologically advanced, flexible, deployable, interoperable and sustainable”.[1] Its role is to act as a stand alone military force available for rapid deployment by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as a collective defense, crisis management or stabilisation force, or to act as an initial entry force for a subsequent primary deployment. The NRF consists of land, air and sea components provided by NATO members. Contributed forces first train together and then become available for a 6-month period before being replaced by the new force.
     The purpose of the NRF concept is to provide NATO with a robust and credible high readiness capability, which is fully trained and certified as a joint and combined armed force, able to deploy quickly to participate in the full spectrum of NATO missions wherever required. The concept of NRF was first endorsed with a declaration of NATO’s Heads of State at the Prague Summit on 22 November 2002, approved by NATO Defence Ministers in June 2003, and first headquarters created in October 2003 in Italy under command of NATO Joint Force Command in Brunssum, Netherlands, designated NRF 1. Its rotation replacement was designated NRF 2 (2004) at the same time.[1] Although NRF 1 included personnel from 15 nations,
     wikipedia

120. The NRF is the force that has been built since Kosovo to be the European mechanism for joint response. This is what they have to do things, like a NFZ.
     Yeah, I linked to the wikipedia article earlier I think. I didn’t reproduce it, but then I didnt see much point in doing so.
     This appears to me to be an incorrect assertion, one you’ve made several times but not backed up. the NRF is a rapid-reaction force- but that does not make it ‘the thing they have do to things, like an NFZ’. It is the thing they have to do things like an NFZ really fast. Read the bit you quoted about “to act as an initial entry force for a subsequent primary deployment” again, see if it sinks in.
     So now I’ve got two questions instead of just the one you didnt answer:
     1)What does the NRF have to do with the assertion that the EU cannot enforce a NFZ over Libya?
     2)Why do you think that the EU’s other assets- planes, ships, etc- cannot be used for a NFZ operation, that they are limited to their rapid-reaction force to do this?

121. For those who are interested, The Economist‘s Clausewitz blog has some information on the whole subject of the Libyan conflict:
     http://www.economist.com/node/21016450
     Their Charlemagne blog
     http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne
     also has several bits on what the EU and its various components are thinking on the subject.
     Check them out.
     IMHO, The Economist counts as a reliable source. Not perfect, of course, but relatively reliable.

122. wj, nice links, thanks

123. So now I’ve got two questions instead of just the one you didnt answer:
     1)What does the NRF have to do with the assertion that the EU cannot enforce a NFZ over Libya?
     2)Why do you think that the EU’s other assets- planes, ships, etc- cannot be used for a NFZ operation, that they are limited to their rapid-reaction force to do this?
     I believe that the NRF is the height of European integration. It is the best they have, and I do not think it is adequate to the task. The other assets can be added to the NRF. It is designed to be modular, so that it can use available assets.
     I would like it to be adequate, because I don’t want the US dragged into the mess if they go. I just don’t think it is, partly because they do not have political integration to support or sustain an operation, but also because they don’t have the capacity to sustain and support an operation.
     This article is on target for what I think the EU military reality is:
     http://www.time.com/time/world/article
     /0,8599,2057229,00.html
     
     “Most European defense establishments have been overloaded, mistakenly procured and focus on Cold War scenarios,” says Daniel Korski, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “To say that defense cuts will jeopardize any intervention in Libya suggests that everything was fine in the first place.”
     …
     But despite these reforms, European armies still lack the means to operate in difficult theaters. Clara Marina O’Donnell, a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, says European defense capabilities have actually been diminished since they took part in NATO’s 1995 bombing campaign in Bosnia. “Europeans would be not be prepared for any intervention in Libya now. They cannot deliver on action. In fact, Europe could [probably] not do Bosnia again,” she says.
     And besides, says Daniel Keohane, defense expert at the Paris-based European Union Institute for Security Studies, any military intervention in Libya would have to depend on the U.S. “At the moment, Europe can barely deploy 100,000 troops, while the U.S. Marine Corps can deploy 200,000. Europe doesn’t have anything approaching the structure and experiences to develop a military operation on its own,” he says.
     
     As I said, I want to be wrong. I want a strong ally with force projection capability that can take care of issues on the world stage. I don’t think that is the ally we have.

124. I believe that the NRF is the height of European integration. It is the best they have, and I do not think it is adequate to the task.
     It may be the most integrated EU force. It is not the best they have in terms of being some elite force (many, perhaps all EU countries have their own special forces etc that aren’t part of the rapid response force). Alone, it is not adequate to the task because it was not designed to be adequate to this task– as your own quote pointed out, it was intended to serve as the rapid response force while the “subsequent primary development” was prepared for action.
     You really seem to love these long blockquotes, but when they say the opposite of what you’re saying, you just ignore then here and go with “your belief”.
     Would a larger EU mobilization run into communications problems? Sure, just as they have when they’ve operated in conjunction with US forces. Might that lead to losses? Sure.
     Does that mean that a 3rd-world 5th-rate military can hold them off? Not sure why you’d think/hope that that follows.
     At the moment, Europe can barely deploy 100,000 troops
     The UK had about 60k troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. So that seems wrong, unless that’s the UK’s maximum total commitment *and* Italy, Spain, France, Germany etc can only muster 40k. Or there’s something else unsaid here.
     Here’s the thing about quotes; I can probably find a bunch of quotes supporting returning the US to the gold standard. I think that’s a foolish, unsupportable idea. But I can find quotes from people with nice-looking titles that will say that.
     I can also find quotes from well-regarded people who think that this is nuts. There’s no reason to regard either set of quotes as some irrefutable argument.
     So if you want to make a convincing case, you’ll need to do better than just arguing from authority over and over. You’d need to explain, for example, why the hundreds of modern EU fighters couldn’t take part in such an operation successfully. So far, you havent even tried.
     As I said, I want to be wrong.
     I wish you as much success in all of your other endeavors as you’ve found in this one.

125. I can also find quotes from well-regarded people who think that this is nuts.
     Great. Lets see some quotes from well regarded people who think that the EU can support a NFZ in Libya without US aid.

126. Great. Lets see some quotes from well regarded people who think that the EU can support a NFZ in Libya without US aid.
     I have better things to do with my time- that’s not a likely scenario, and I don’t have any military experts on speed-dial. The point is that the argument from authority is limited and can often support multiple sides- ergo, it isn’t reliable.
     I ask you, one more last single time- you said that the EU would need to buy hw from the US to do this. What, specifically, would they need to buy from us to make it work?
     Please, don’t bother responding with another blockquote, your feelings, or other distractions. Im not asking for much here, considering how many elections you’ve used already: tell me what you think they need to buy.

127. I have better things to do with my time
     Apparently you don’t: you have spent an awful lot of time flushing this out with me. Give it a shot. You recognized up thread that it is an issue you have, shooting down other’s thesis without offering your own. Your thesis is that the EU can perform a NFZ on Libya without US aid. Lets see it.

128. It’s unlikely that the EU would support a NFZ without the US, because the political unity that would be demonstrated would immediately have the US want to participate. Sort of a chicken egg thing

129. Apparently you don’t: you have spent an awful lot of time flushing this out with me. Give it a shot. You recognized up thread that it is an issue you have, shooting down other’s thesis without offering your own. Your thesis is that the EU can perform a NFZ on Libya without US aid. Lets see it.
     Think straight- you just accused me of not having a thesis and then stated my thesis. This isn’t debate, it’s a turkey shoot.
     I’ve offered a lot of reasons for thinking that my thesis might be true: number and quality of aircraft including support aircraft, ships, locations of airbases, quality of support systems, pilots, etc. That Libya’s AF strength is probably overestimated by merely looking at aircraft and SAM numbers (likely poor maintenance, training, morale). That the NFZ really only needs to be enforced over or near rebel forces to be mostly effective.
     While I do often tear down without offering much, here I am in fact offering something.
     As I explained already, Im unlikely to find a military expert quote on the subject, just as Im unlikely to find a military expert quote on whether the US could successfully invade Haiti. Because they have better things to do then offering opinions on unlikely events, and even if they did no one would publish them. Does that mean that the US cannot invade Haiti? Or can we look objectively at the military capabilities of the US and Haiti and make a semi-educated guess of our own?
     And I totally might be wrong about this, I am no expert. Im not even a serious war nerd. If Slarti had said, contrary to my thinking, that Harrier IIs would get slaughtered by MIG-25s, Id have said “wow, I had no idea” and moved on, or maybe asked him to explain to I could understand better.
     So now, I ask you again (is this embarrassing for you yet)- what hardware does the EU need to acquire from the US in order to carry out the mission? Once you tell us that, then we’ll be able to move the argument down the road a bit more- we’ll know exactly where you think the deficiencies lie, and I can either successfully or unsuccessfully attempt to address them. Or, even, be convinced by them. But you’ve given me no chance for that so far, since you won’t show your hole card.
     Or, you can say something else irrelevant and hope that (if anyone else is actually still reading!), they don’t notice that you just can’t seem to deliver on your claim. Either way, Im an insomniac, Ill be here all night, try the veal.

130. It’s unlikely that the EU would support a NFZ without the US, because the political unity that would be demonstrated would immediately have the US want to participate.
     I totally concur. The US is generally more interventionalist, the administration would look weak being preempted by Euro-weenies, it would help strengthen the alliance, its unlikely to suffer serious setbacks and so it’s a source of good headlines. I don’t see much downside for Obama unless some Desert One-type debacle.

131. As I explained already, Im unlikely to find a military expert quote on the subject, just as Im unlikely to find a military expert quote on whether the US could successfully invade Haiti.
     And yet, we have an article from Time regarding whether the EU can support an operation in Libya. Which seems to say no. There must be someone, somewhere, that thinks as you do that the EU can handle Libya just fine.

132. And yet, we have an article from Time regarding whether the EU can support an operation in Libya. Which seems to say no. There must be someone, somewhere, that thinks as you do that the EU can handle Libya just fine.
     Another miss. Do you want to share you wittle secret, or keep acting like you’re participating in a debate without actually doing so?

133. Another miss. Do you want to share you wittle secret, or keep acting like you’re participating in a debate without actually doing so?
     
     So far as I can tell, I am the one who has provided ample evidence that the EU has questionable capacity. You have offered nothing to indicate that the EU can conduct a NFZ on its own.

134. You have offered nothing to indicate that the EU can conduct a NFZ on its own.
     They appear to my novice eye to have adequate aircraft, naval forces, support forces etc. I completely admit to being a novice, altho I won’t give up a position that makes sense to me without actual evidence.
     Of course, you know what they don’t have that they need in order to make this work- why don’t you tell us what that is?
     So far as I can tell, I am the one who has provided ample evidence that the EU has questionable capacity.
     Only if you think that “argument from authority” is an instruction manual. It is, in fact, a type of fallacy.
     You said that you knew what the EU needed to buy from the US in order to carry out a NFW operation over Libya. I havent seen that it your voluminous blockquotes, but perhaps Ive missed it. Could you repeat it for me?

135. You said that you knew what the EU needed to buy from the US in order to carry out a NFW operation over Libya.
     I said this?
     I really think it is your turn to provide something to support your novice position.

136. I really think it is your turn to provide something to support your novice position.
     Hey, Ill play by my own rules. Ive said why I think the EU can do this. If there’s something you think is missing from my analysis, for example some piece of hardware that the US could provide or sell to the EU that would make the mission possible, let me know what that is & Ill see if I can figure out if they’ve got it or have a substitute or if it’s necessary etc.

     You said that you knew what the EU needed to buy from the US in order to carry out a NFW operation over Libya.
     I said this?

     You said But I wouldn’t be against selling some hardware to the EU if they find they don’t have the capacity to perform anything useful.
     So, this time for all the marbles, did you have anything in particular in mind? It sounds like you did. Yet you won’t tell us what that something is.

137. For all the marbles, I am aware of the EU general incapacity to project force, as has been amply shown in this thread.
     Can you show otherwise? I would like you to show that they can.

138. Three things:
     1)Ive painted a scenario where they can. There are airbases within striking distance of Libya. The EU has tankers, AWACS, aircraft carriers, anti-aircraft ships, sub- and air-launched cruise missiles, anti-runway missiles, and anti-SAM missiles. I think they’ve got ship-launched cruise missiles, but not sure about that. They’ve got hundreds of 4th-gen fighters and hundreds more attack aircraft.
     They shouldn’t face any serious logistical obstacles- they don’t have large numbers of troops to support or supply. The airbases are in Europe (altho at distance from UK, France, etc) and the ships will be close to friendly ports and under friendly land-based air cover.
     They could have problems with maintaining sortie rate, but they also appear to have excess aircraft to throw around. Dont know about trained pilots and ground crews.
     They could have problems with throughput at the couple of closest airbases. I dont know anything about that, but I do know that they cant buy closer airbases from the US…
     I dont know how long it would take to make this happen. Maybe that’s prohibitive.
     Dispute with any or all of that, but for &$^#’s sake stop acting like a baby and saying I haven’t offered anything for you to dispute. Don’t just repeat that you “just know” the EU can’t do it- pick part of that scenario and tell me why you think it can’t be done.
     2)You claim to be aware of something that you cannot demonstrate. This is called faith. Me, I’ve been up and down saying Im not an expert and that Im open to correction. You, otoh, have persisted in “just knowing” stuff and scoffing at the idea that providing evidence or even a theory is a useful exercise.
     3)You *still* havent told us what the things are that the US could sell to the EU to make this operation possible. You claim to have this knowledge. This knowledge, if true, would really deflate my position.
     I can’t do anything here but conclude that you don’t have this info, and are too embarrassed to admit it. If you had it you presumably would’ve revealed it by now.
     Ill do you a favor and stop asking, I kinda feel like Im kicking a Chihuahua here. Kinda sounds like it, too.

139. Well, Ima get some sleep. If you think of a serious objection to my scenario or if you recall that thing that the EU needs to buy (arf arf), Ill check in tomorrow to see.
     Just so you don’t stay up later waiting for a reply, since it’s been fast & furious here.

140. CW, I think the bigger problem is that while there might be an abstract belief among the European public that helping the Libyan rebels would be good, when it comes to the actual costs and risks of doing it, there isn’t going to be a solid base of public support.
     And I don’t mean to seem callous, but I don’t think they’re wrong. Libya is a relatively poor country of 6 million people in North Africa, and Gaddifi has long since moved from “menace” through “nuisance” to “colorful eccentric”. He appears to be in “brutal crackdown” mode rather than “genocide” mode, and we pretty much set an international standard that the former doesn’t justify international interventions owing to the annoying habit of just about every government of engaging in said “brutal crackdowns” once in a while. Including ours.
     I’m sure the rebels in Libya are better people than Gaddafi, but they seem to have started a war they can’t win. (In large part because the sort of shame/honor non-violent protests that worked in countries where the broader leadership or military has any independence (and maybe a conscience) do not work in countries where a dictator holds control.)
     I wish they could win. But I’m not at all convinced that it serves the cause of peace for the US or NATO to look like it is saying “If you say you’re for democracy, we’ll engage in multi-billion dollar military interventions on your behalf.”
     We’re not International Rescue. It’s not a very good idea to set the precedent that if you want US military assistance against your asshole dictator all you have to do is push this button.

141. If Slarti had said, contrary to my thinking, that Harrier IIs would get slaughtered by MIG-25s, Id have said “wow, I had no idea” and moved on, or maybe asked him to explain to I could understand better.

     I’d advise caution in regarding me as any kind of authority in aerial warfare. My expertise is actually advanced algorithms, and any knowledge I might have about aircraft capabilities is either related to how they affect algorithm performance, or purely incidental. Understanding aircraft avionics is part of that. There’s a whole area of avionics that I haven’t even seen, because of the level of classification. I’d guess that area gives us even more of an edge over an opposing force whose equipment is decades out of date.
     It’s not just us that has this; it’s also some NATO countries. Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, and Belgium together have over 200 F-16s, and quite a few of those have advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground targeting systems. Every one, of course, has GPS-aided navigation, which I rather doubt the Libyan Air Force equipment has.
     And of course quite a lot of the rest of the EU has other, perfectly serviceable equipment, each of which offers certain performance advantages over the Libyan air fleet.
     But again: I think that if we did anything at all, it would be to destroy as much of their aircraft on the ground as possible, as well as their ability to maintain and refuel said aircraft. They only have about a dozen military airfields, and I’d expect that their ability to maintain and repair their aging (mostly Soviet) fleet at non-military fields would be extremely limited.
     But I don’t have much in the way of preference over what (if any) involvement the US has, or NATO has, or the UN has. I doubt many longtime commenters have forgotten that I believed Iraq had WMDs (not necessarily, chem/bio weapons), or at least the ability to assemble WMDs on short notice. I myself have not forgotten that, and hope that I can learn some caution out of regard for how much of what I think I know is wrong.
     Hypotheticals, on the other hand, are interesting and have little in the way of unpleasant consequences.

142. “At the moment, Europe can barely deploy 100,000 troops, while the U.S. Marine Corps can deploy 200,000. Europe doesn’t have anything approaching the structure and experiences to develop a military operation on its own,”
     Others have alluded to Europe’s military tradition and this quote implies other key missing ingredients: (1) unified command and control (who gets to direct the NFZ and what staffing/administrative apparatus is in place for the participating countries? Answers: who knows and they’d have to build it from scratch) (2) zero tradition/experience in European-only mass force projection–even if all of the elements are in place, who will bring it all together into a single, cohesive unit and conduct operations of a kind never before conducted? European armies, navies and air arms are built around a continental conflict in which air superiority over and on either side of the confrontation line(s) coupled with maintaining supply by sea (from the US) are the missions. That is, their structure, training, doctrine, etc are all geared to a mission that is the polar opposite of over-the-horizon force projection. The US, OTOH, doesn’t do domestic continental defense with its army and Marines; rather, it is specifically designed to go to someone else’s continent and perform a variety of missions, including continental defense. Within the US bag of tricks is quickly achieving air superiority over a much smaller and less equipped opponent. Even then, we do this with close proximity land bases, support in depth and, preferably, allies who bring something to the table.
     Shorter version: even if many of the elements are present for a European-only NFZ, many more are missing.
     There are airbases within striking distance of Libya. The EU has tankers, AWACS, aircraft carriers, anti-aircraft ships, sub- and air-launched cruise missiles, anti-runway missiles, and anti-SAM missiles. I think they’ve got ship-launched cruise missiles, but not sure about that. They’ve got hundreds of 4th-gen fighters and hundreds more attack aircraft.
     If this is merely an NFZ being described here, it is one on heavy steroids. And it still leaves open the question of who will knit all of this together into a single, viable military endeavor.

143. CW, I think the bigger problem is that while there might be an abstract belief among the European public that helping the Libyan rebels would be good, when it comes to the actual costs and risks of doing it, there isn’t going to be a solid base of public support.
     That seems very likely to me. At this point Im just disputing whether they could, not whether they want to or are going to. I said before, I doubt that they would, and if they did the US would almost certainly want to get involved anyway.

144. it still leaves open the question of who will knit all of this together into a single, viable military endeavor.

     Who is open to debate. Whether such cooperation has been done in practice before is just a matter of history.

145. I’d advise caution in regarding me as any kind of authority in aerial warfare.
     Well, Id trust you to have a good idea of something that would be common knowledge among experts, to openly state the limits of your knowledge, and to differentiate your own opinions from more conclusive statements of general expert belief. You know a lot more about this than I do, so if you think Im wrong out of hand, my first thought is that I need to check my work. 🙂
     (not that even experts are always good at stating the limits of their knowledge or differentiating their opinions from industry consensus, but I get the sense that you are- which, to circle back to an earlier point, is one of the reasons that arguing from authority is a bad idea).

146. unified command and control (who gets to direct the NFZ and what staffing/administrative apparatus is in place for the participating countries? Answers: who knows and they’d have to build it from scratch)
     My understanding is that this is typically handled by dividing responsibilities eg spatially, and being extra-cautious where those responsibilities overlap. Yeah, I imagine that this would be a serious handicap. We could easily see some operational mishap where a destroyer takes out a couple of F-16s with friendly fire, or conflicts & confusion on the ground reducing sortie rate.
     But does that degrade their effectiveness to the point of losing to old, badly-maintained, pooly-flown, poorly-supported MIG-25s? That seems like quite a stretch.
     That is, their structure, training, doctrine, etc are all geared to a mission that is the polar opposite of over-the-horizon force projection.
     The UK did a pretty good job in the Falklands projecting force. They lost some assets, but they didn’t fall apart from incompetence.
     At a low level, the mission is about controlling airspace several of hundred miles from an airbase- partrolling, destroying enemy assets. For the navy, it’s about combat air ops, patrol, and maybe SAR. That is not such a foreign mission to their air forces or navies I think- sure they’ve trained a lot on ASW but ship-to-ship and ship-to-air have got to be pretty common training scenarios. Again, will they be perfect at it? Maybe not. Maybe lack of training with tankers will lead to a mid-air collision. Maybe lack of training with their AWACS will lead to an ambush or a failure to track some enemy craft. Will that turn the tide of the battle?
     Don’t get me wrong, those are all factors that would hamper effectiveness. Would they hamper effectiveness to the point that the EU couldn’t maintain a NFZ over Libya? I still don’t see the story that makes this happen. I see the story where they’re not as effective as they could be, where their overwhelming advantage in numbers, quality of aircraft, and support is slightly less overwhelming.
     I mean, what would it take for the mission to fail? Failure after multiple attempts to put down old SAM sites? Frequently failing to keep even a half-a-dozen modern aircraft at a time on patrol? Losing multiple dogfights to MIG-25s? All of those things?
     That’s where I see this diverging. It’s a pro boxer- not the best pro boxer, but a pro boxer- with bronchitis and a sprained ankle, versus a 60-year-old grandma. You say “He can barely walk, let alone move around the ring” and I say “yeah, but it’s someone’s grandma!”
     The way you tell it, they couldnt enforce a NFZ over Monaco, or over a Libya flying Spitfires and using WWII anti-aircraft guns. Until you can tell a story that includes the Libyan assets and how they’re going to achieve victory rather than just a list of potential issues with the EU force, Im personally probably not going to find it convincing. Not that you have to convince me or anything.

147. Whether such cooperation has been done in practice before is just a matter of history.
     Slarti, Red Flag is neither a force projection exercise, which was the context of my comment, nor was it a European-only operation. And that kind of thing is planned out carefully months in advance by units that have worked together almost exclusively with the US as the major player.
     I mean, what would it take for the mission to fail?
     The loss or significant damage to one carrier.
     The way you tell it, they couldnt enforce a NFZ over Monaco, or over a Libya flying Spitfires and using WWII anti-aircraft guns.
     I think I’ve said they could do it, in theory, but a skilled execution is another thing entirely. And if they take 10% casualties, and if K hangs on, it will have been very counter productive. K gets to declare ‘victory’ over NATO.

148. I mean, what would it take for the mission to fail?
     The loss or significant damage to one carrier.

     And other than friendly fire or an accident, how is that going to happen? Once again, Libyan capabilities are important in the equation.
     Furthermore, as unlikely as that seems to me, how would that prevent the EU from continuing to carry out the mission? Serious damage to a US carrier engaging in NFZ operations would be a blow, but would we stop the operation? Does the minuscule risk of such an incident mean that the US “couldn’t” impose a NFZ on Libya?
     And if they take 10% casualties, and if K hangs on, it will have been very counter productive. K gets to declare ‘victory’ over NATO.
     Several probls with this:
     1)You’re bringing political questions back into it and going beyond the scope of the NFZ. If the EU successfully imposes a NFZ at the cost of some assets, and K still wins, then the EU will have successfully imposed a NFZ. That is what I am saying that they can do. Im not saying it’s wise. Im not saying it will produce victory for the rebels, or how it will affect K’s reputation.
     2)How do they lose- what- 30 aircraft here? Friendly fire + dogfight losses to MIGs + SAMs? Tell me the story. I dont see more than a couple of losses to friendly fire or accident being plausible. I don’t see more than a couple of losses to MIGs. So I guess you’re predicting great success on the part of Libya’s AA network?
     Im asking how do they lose, not “what would you consider to be losses serious enough to call the entire operation into question.” If you’re not telling me how they lose aircraft carriers and dozens of modern fighters, then you’re not convincing me that those events are likely or even more than hypothetically possible.

149. And other than friendly fire or an accident, how is that going to happen?
     Missile, nap of the earth suicide mission, bad luck.
     how would that prevent the EU from continuing to carry out the mission?
     Spain pulled out of Iraq after terrorist bombing of some trains. An individual country’s staying power, particularly after a major hit of this nature, is a fair matter of concern. Plus, taking out a carrier AND staying in power would be huge for K. Not so much for Europe who would have accomplished nothing, other than losing a carrier.
     Friendly fire + dogfight losses to MIGs + SAMs? Tell me the story.
     Those and: operational error (e.g. mid air collision), mechanical breakdown, underestimating SAM and Libyan capability, mismatch between VTOL and Mig-25 turns out to be greater than anticipated, ground fire.
     Im asking how do they lose,
     Well, you are positing a massive effort by NATO and asking, if NATO does all of this, can they be militarily defeated? If that’s the question, I turn over my king. No, Libya cannot defeat NATO under any set of circumstances imaginable. But, NATO could certainly fail in its efforts and, for many people, failure = defeat.

150. Red Flag is neither a force projection exercise, which was the context of my comment, nor was it a European-only operation. And that kind of thing is planned out carefully months in advance by units that have worked together almost exclusively with the US as the major player.

     Sure. Here’s the thing, though: the EU nations that have a great deal of experience working together are NATO, mostly, unless I’m completely misinformed. We’re part of NATO. Conducting operations over Libya without strong NATO participation and coordination is probably unwise.
     I think this last bit is related to the point you’re trying to make in this thread.
     Likewise, it’s difficult to imagine pulling off a NATO NFZ-enforcement without some US participation. Not saying it couldn’t be done, just that it would be oddly exclusive.
     Lastly, Red Flag is conducted in the US, on US test ranges, to a large degree because we’ve got the elbow room. Edwards and Nellis are vast; apparently the JPARC range in Alaska is many times larger. Furthermore, our pilots and pilots from the rest of NATO frequently mix it up on these ranges even outside the auspices of Red Flag.
     So, I’d propose that coordinated European attempts to police Libyan airspace, if such a thing were to happen, just might have to include and possibly even revolve around NATO.

151. Missile, nap of the earth suicide mission, bad luck.
     This is why I enjoy these conversations. What kind of antiship missiles does Libya have? I had no idea- turns out, they’ve got some 1977 mk.1 Italian Otomats afaict. 60km range. Sayth Wikipedia: Weakness are the need for a helicopter for mid-course guidance and a quite difficult uplink in the TESEO system (at least in the original model), big dimensions (affecting radar cross section RCS and IR signature), the lack of complex manoeuvres (synchronization of attacks, re-engagement capabilities, ECCM capability not up to current standards and never publicized). It comes in straight. But packs a punch similar to modern antiship missles.
     How dangerous are those to eg the British navy? Im not sure. Obviously they’ve got some anti-missile countermeasures, and if 40-year-old missiles have a good chance of getting through then something is seriously wrong. The short range of the older missiles is probably the biggest problem with this scenario though.
     Suicide mission? Yeah, maybe. Id be more likely to buy that from a religious state such as Iran- K’s pilots are defecting, not going on suicide missions. But possible.
     Bad luck? That’s not an attack vector, is it? Unless you mean that they’re so incompetent that they run aground or accidentally blow up a bunch of munitions or fuel.
     But then, any of those could damage a US carrier- lucky strike from a 40-year-old antiship missile, kamikaze pilot, operational accident. And that would be a win for K. So, again, by your logic, the US is also at serious risk of “losing” a NFZ engagement with Libya.
     An individual country’s staying power, particularly after a major hit of this nature, is a fair matter of concern…
     Well, you are positing a massive effort by NATO and asking, if NATO does all of this, can they be militarily defeated? If that’s the question, I turn over my king. No, Libya cannot defeat NATO under any set of circumstances imaginable. But, NATO could certainly fail in its efforts and, for many people, failure = defeat.
     I know Ive said that the EU probably wouldn’t do this, almost certainly wouldn’t be alone if they did, and Ill add that if those two things were true it’s entirely possible that they’d not commit the resources to get the job done or that they’d end the mission after the first setback or something.
     All along here I’ve been trying to debate exactly the point you said, though- jrudkis said that the Europeans couldn’t do it. Not that they wouldn’t want to- that they couldn’t do it if they tried, that they lack the military resources to make it happen.
     Spain pulled out of Iraq after terrorist bombing of some trains.
     That’s misleading- the attack was blamed on ETA by the party in power, and they were subsequently discredited and lost the election. The incoming left-wing government withdrew from Iraq, but I believe that this was always their position. So the attack may have been causal, but you say it like they ran away because they suffered losses, which is- as I said- misleading. In an alternate reality where the conservative government didn’t attempt to lie about and capitalize on a national tragedy, maybe things would’ve been different.

152. So, I’d propose that coordinated European attempts to police Libyan airspace, if such a thing were to happen, just might have to include and possibly even revolve around NATO.
     Here is where I get unclear about some things. For example, there are like 18 AWACS technically in the Luxeomburg AF. Id been assuming that assets like that could be used for an operation like this one. But NATO is a defensive treaty, so could NATO assets be used in an offensive or peacekeeping mission? I don’t even know the history here eg if NATO infrastructure was used in the Iraq wars or other peacekeeping missions.
     This does address some other things eg Malta is in the EU, but not in NATO, and no one has discussed using their bases for this mission bc they are not likely to be available. So me saying “EU this” and “EU that” is not quite accurate.

153. Oh, that may be a good point, Carleton.
     I’m not sure that there is any such thing as “NATO assets”, though. I think each country owns its equipment outright. If NATO constrains members from doing something like NFZ enforcement over Libya, then most of EU could not participate, because most of EU are NATO members.

154. What kind of antiship missiles does Libya have? I had no idea- turns out, they’ve got some 1977 mk.1 Italian Otomats afaict.
     This strikes me as very very wrong. One of the primary problems that the US Navy sees right now is the (relatively) easy availability of cheap anti-ship missiles that are enormously destructive. They’re cheap enough that you won’t necessarily find their purchase and transfer reported on Wikipedia. Missiles like the C-802 are just not comparable to some ancient thing from the 1970s.
     To put it another way: during the 2006 Lebanon war when Hezbollah took out an Israeli corvette, there was no indication on Wikipedia that Hezbollah had missiles capable of doing such a thing. And yet they did. Because those missiles are cheap. Is there any reason to believe that Libya, which has much much more cash, will be less capable than Hezbollah in this regard?
     This is precisely the sort of mistake that Gary tried to warn you away from in his (admittedly long) comments.

155. To put it another way: during the 2006 Lebanon war when Hezbollah took out an Israeli corvette, there was no indication on Wikipedia that Hezbollah had missiles capable of doing such a thing. And yet they did. Because those missiles are cheap. Is there any reason to believe that Libya, which has much much more cash, will be less capable than Hezbollah in this regard?
     1)The Israeli ship reportedly had its antimissile equipment turned off, precisely because they didn’t anticipate such an attack. Presumably EU (and US) ships would have their anti-missile systems online and at high readiness.
     2)Sure, a missile strike is a possibility on either EU or US forces. They may have better missiles than they’re known to have.
     Are Chinese and Iranian antiship missiles the trump card that cannot be effectively countered by modern anti-missile systems? I hope not, if they are then our ability to project force in the face of even 3rd-world opposition would be constrained.
     Missiles like the C-802 are just not comparable to some ancient thing from the 1970s.
     Well, the C-802 was introduced in 1989. So maybe it’s ten-odd years ahead. But it is also late-80s Chinese tech, as opposed to 70s European tech. Again, Im not able to weigh those, but I don’t think it’s a common sense call that that one is orders of magnitude more dangerous than the other.

156. This is precisely the sort of mistake that Gary tried to warn you away from in his (admittedly long) comments.
     I’ll gladly defer to (and ask a lot of questions of) anyone with real expertise. Im not going to defer to another armchair warrior. Sure, I might not know stuff, and Ive said about ten times that my conclusions are tentative and just based on speculation and readily available information.
     Should I not speculate? If I shouldn’t, should you speculate about what missiles Libya might or might not have acquired?

157. CW, first, I appreciate you making the argument here, because this argument is going to play out again as soon as we stop being distracted by reactors, and while I disagree with you, I suspect that the media consensus is going to look more like what you’re saying. Newspapermen love their splendid little wars.
     With that in mind:
     CW: lucky strike from a 40-year-old antiship missile
     HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet missile in 1982. New British destroyers are currently running $10bn apiece. (About the same unit cost as a US Ford-class carrier – speaking of how European countries pay more for less capable weapons systems.)
     That is a rather expensive risk to take, and the embarrassment for the government that ordered the operation would be gigantic.

158. Presumably EU (and US) ships would have their anti-missile systems online and at high readiness.
     Well, if we get to presume that the EU military won’t be making any mistakes and will never suffer broken equipment, then yeah, they should have no problems.
     Are Chinese and Iranian antiship missiles the trump card that cannot be effectively countered by modern anti-missile systems?
     The US Navy is extremely worried about cheap anti-ship missiles. As Galrahn wrote in the post I linked to earlier:

     The U.S. Navy cited before Congress in testimony that the anti-ship missile threat from Hezbollah was so credible that greater AAW capability in the U.S. Navy was needed, and the result at the time was the U.S. Navy truncating the DDG-1000. The same ASM threat by Hezbollah has been cited to suggest the U.S. Navy cannot get closer than 25 miles of shore to offload Marines.

     Should I not speculate? If I shouldn’t, should you speculate about what missiles Libya might or might not have acquired?
     As long as the Navy is going before Congress and screaming that cheap missiles are an extremely serious threat, I’d say that my claims that cheap missiles are an extremely serious are not speculation. On the other hand, your claims that Libya’s anti-ship missile capabilities are limited to 40 year old missiles because you read it on Wikipedia seems to have far less support. I think your arguments on this point make a lot of sense if we lived in a world where asymmetric warfare didn’t exist.

159. So, I’d propose that coordinated European attempts to police Libyan airspace, if such a thing were to happen, just might have to include and possibly even revolve around NATO.
     With US support and participation, an NFZ becomes considerably more likely to succeed in its limited mission profile.
     Bad luck? That’s not an attack vector, is it?
     Bad luck is 30 planes flying nap of the earth coming in from across 120 degrees of angle and one of them getting through and scoring a hit.
     But then, any of those could damage a US carrier- lucky strike from a 40-year-old antiship missile, kamikaze pilot, operational accident.
     And they have. There is somewhat famous footage of McCain as a young pilot barely getting out of his jet as his carrier was experiencing fairly extensive on deck multiple explosions. I can’t remember what caused the problem, but it wasn’t direct hostile fire.
     That’s misleading- the attack was blamed on ETA by the party in power, and they were subsequently discredited and lost the election. The incoming left-wing government withdrew from Iraq, but I believe that this was always their position.
     Actually, I believe the sequence was: conservatives ahead in the polls, socialists campaigning on getting out of Iraq, trains explode, AQ declares attacks are punishment for Spanish involvement in Iraq, Socialists reiterate their intent to withdraw, Socialists pull ahead in the polls and win the election.
     Are Chinese and Iranian antiship missiles the trump card that cannot be effectively countered by modern anti-missile systems? I hope not, if they are then our ability to project force in the face of even 3rd-world opposition would be constrained.
     In a general conventional exchange with the PRC, we would end up with less carriers, planes, pilots, ships, etc. than we began with. Some carriers that survive would sustain significant damage. Our WWII and subsequent accident experience let’s us build ships that can take multiple hits and continue to fight. Our carriers sail with multiple escorts, many of whose prime mission is to stop incoming missile attacks.
     But, you concerns that in a general conventional exchange with a modern power, that we would take casualties are entirely valid.
     should you speculate about what missiles Libya might or might not have acquired?
     Absolutely. It would be the height of planning incompetence and irresponsibility to go into an operation not assuming your opponent has managed to acquire one or more spoiler type systems that you need to be very much on the lookout for.

160. if they are then our ability to project force in the face of even 3rd-world opposition would be constrained
     Nobody, not even the US, has the ability to project force without taking casualties and risking costly losses. The Serbians shot down an F-117 when the US was bombing them. The Argentinians sank several British warships, shot down planes, and killed a lot of people fighting a force with clear technological superiority.
     This stuff costs money, and lives, and not small amounts of money either, but billions and billions of dollars. I wish the Libyans the very best, but there are probably places I would rather spend several billion dollars than on beating up Gaddafi.

161. Well, if we get to presume that the EU military won’t be making any mistakes and will never suffer broken equipment, then yeah, they should have no problems.
     I didnt say a successful missile strike was impossible, or anything *remotely* like that. I was merely pointing out that, unlike the Israeli incident, the missile strike would not be a total surprise attack. So the anti-missile defenses come into play. How well do those defenses protect against these kinds of missile attacks?
     Im not sure. But if it’s really hard to protect against a few older missiles, then our force-projection model is in trouble. Unless our plan is to hit the launchers before they launch.
     [btw, if the Israeli ship was hit by a Kowsar, from wikipedia that has a 15-20km range; again, that could be a serious limiting factor to anything other than a surprise attack or operations very close to shore].
     The US Navy is extremely worried about cheap anti-ship missiles.
     Ok, there’s an assumption in my thesis that I havent really discussed, and it goes back to the original debate ie whether the EU could undertake this operation alone or if they’d need US help.
     Ive been assuming that this would be relatively straightforward for the US to do, with perhaps a few losses (and, as always, the small chance of a bigger disaster). A lot of that assumption comes from my relatively ignorance of the details of this sort of thing- having a ‘measuring stick’ like the US lets me say “Ok, if the US can do this and the EU can’t, what is the difference”.
     But Im not equipped to even speculate, really, about what threat level cheap anti-ship missiles pose to the current navy of the UK, France, the US, etc. (I do know that, at funding time, it’s not beyond the military to point out how serious the threats that we face are and how they need much more stuff).
     As long as the Navy is going before Congress and screaming that cheap missiles are an extremely serious threat, I’d say that my claims that cheap missiles are an extremely serious are not speculation.
     It’s a claim. It’s not quantified- does “serious threat” mean “we can’t operate in waters with this threat without high risk of loss” or “we need to take this seriously and get some money behind it before it starts to pose an operational threat”.
     If you want to make the case that the US can’t implement a NFZ over Libya because of anti-ship missiles, go for it. I don’t know enough to say that it’s wrong. I hope it’s wrong, and it would surprise me if it was correct.
     I mean, IEDs are a serious threat. But there’s a world of difference between that kind of serious threat and a “navies don’t work anymore” trump card.
     And yes, going from “the navy said they’re a serious problem to Congress” to “the EU’s navy can’t operate off of Libya” is absolutely amateur speculation. Own it, buddy.
     On the other hand, your claims that Libya’s anti-ship missile capabilities are limited to 40 year old missiles because you read it on Wikipedia seems to have far less support.
     I didn’t claim that at all. I said- hey, I looked at Wikipedia, and this is what I found. I honestly can’t get much further away from a absolute factual claim than that. I certainly didnt make anything remotely resembling a claim that this is the only missile Libya has or could have.
     If you feel the need to continuously misunderstand what Im saying, step away and find something useful to do. Having to continually correct your misunderstandings is pretty dull work.
     I think your arguments on this point make a lot of sense if we lived in a world where asymmetric warfare didn’t exist.
     Well, I say banana honeypot burgertime. Since we’re engaging in complete non sequiturs.

162. I say banana honeypot burgertime.
     I say “early cocktail time”. Adios.

163. Nobody, not even the US, has the ability to project force without taking casualties and risking costly losses.
     Of course. That’s part of what Im trying to say here: of course the EU would face the risk of losing assets, even the risk of a serious loss like a carrier. That’s part and parcel of an operation such as this, for anyone.
     So that, in and of itself, isn’t a reason that they are operationally incapable of doing so. It might stop them (or us) politically; but Ive been debating whether the EU is capable of the mission, whether their armed forces are up to the job.
     So I view the whole “it’s possible they could lose a ship” position to be something of a red herring. otoh, if Libya can use cheap missiles to deny entry to their waters or make entering them extremely costly, that would be a big factor. But it wouldn’t just be able the EU and Libya then, it’d be a larger statement about the survivability of modern naval forces in the face of even moderate 3rd-world missile inventories. If that’s the case, then people ought to own up to that thesis. Or say why Libya can control their waters with these weapons but the general application of that thesis (3rd-world missile trumps modern naval craft) isn’t the case.

164. But then, any of those could damage a US carrier- lucky strike from a 40-year-old antiship missile, kamikaze pilot, operational accident.
     And they have. There is somewhat famous footage of McCain as a young pilot barely getting out of his jet as his carrier was experiencing fairly extensive on deck multiple explosions. I can’t remember what caused the problem, but it wasn’t direct hostile fire.

     Sure. And the chances of an accident etc go up under combat conditions. Is the EU immune to accident? Not at all. Are they particularly accident-prone? Don’t think so, but they don’t have the operational experience of the US so maybe.
     But if that’s the risk that Libya poses- that there might be a serious accident under combat operational conditions- that’s not the biggest threat in the world. They face a smaller, but similar, threat whenever they do intensive military exercises.
     Actually, I believe the sequence was: conservatives ahead in the polls, socialists campaigning on getting out of Iraq, trains explode, AQ declares attacks are punishment for Spanish involvement in Iraq, Socialists reiterate their intent to withdraw, Socialists pull ahead in the polls and win the election.
     If that’s your understanding of the sequence of events, it is badly flawed. It does not include the accusation made against the ETA, which was a huge deal at the time. I don’t believe that there was any claim of responsibility at the time- arrests were made the day before the election of suspects unconnected with ETA (but possibly connected with Islamic extremists), which appeared to exonerate the ETA.
     link.

     I hope not, if they are then our ability to project force in the face of even 3rd-world opposition would be constrained.
     In a general conventional exchange with the PRC, we would end up with less carriers, planes, pilots, ships, etc. than we began with…. But, you concerns that in a general conventional exchange with a modern power, that we would take casualties are entirely valid.

     I wasn’t thinking about China here; obviously an exchange with China in Chinese waters would be very ugly. I mean, if cheap anti-ship missiles are a trump against our navy, can we effectively fight against Iran, which definitely has quite a few missiles?
     I think that we could- perhaps with some losses- but that’s based more on faith that our military has been spending and planning carefully than some expert-level insight into naval operations.

     should you speculate about what missiles Libya might or might not have acquired?
     Absolutely. It would be the height of planning incompetence and irresponsibility to go into an operation not assuming your opponent has managed to acquire one or more spoiler type systems that you need to be very much on the lookout for.

     Well, yeah. First, Im not saying the US military shouldn’t speculate. we were talking about whether Turb, Gary, or I should be speculating since we’re amateurs working off of publicly-available info in our spare time.
     Second, I do think that we should. It’s interesting. I learn stuff. Turb thinks that we shouldn’t. Or, rather, that I shouldn’t. And Im wondering why I shouldn’t, but he should.

165. Off topic, though it does involve bombing some Middle Eastern country and who was for it (the government of the country being bombed, apparently)–
     another wikileaks revelation, this one about Lebanon

166. I didnt say a successful missile strike was impossible, or anything *remotely* like that.
     No, but you did accept at face value the Israeli claim that the only reason they were vulnerable was because they didn’t turn their anti-missile systems on. If we’re going to uncritically accept Israeli military explanations for why they’re vulnerable (because the Israeli military has no reason to lie and has an awesome record of truth telling), I don’t think you can claim that US Navy testimony before Congress is full of lies.
     Also, you neglected to mention the other reason that Israel claimed they turned off their anti-missile systems: because they knew that Israeli aircraft would be flying close by. If anti-missile systems can’t be used in areas where there are lots of friendly air traffic (like, I don’t know, maybe a NFZ), I think that’s pretty relevant to the discussion, don’t you?
     (I do know that, at funding time, it’s not beyond the military to point out how serious the threats that we face are and how they need much more stuff).
     Do you realize how absurd this is? You’re suggesting that the US Navy, in a desperate attempt to get more dollars from Congress, lied to Congress by trumping up a threat and then asked Congress to kill a new destroyer program because of the severity of that threat. I mean, the DDG-1000 project has been decades in the making and you think the Navy truncated that program to get more money? Because losing a new destroyer program that Congress was dying to fund gives them more money?
     I’m sorry, but this is too absurd for me to deal with.

167. No, but you did accept at face value the Israeli claim that the only reason they were vulnerable was because they didn’t turn their anti-missile systems on.
     Did I? I said The Israeli ship reportedly had its antimissile equipment turned off. “Reportedly”, as in that’s a claim that’s been made. It’s plausibly true, but not in any way definitive.
     Your reading comprehension skills are poor, though. Definitively so.
     I don’t think you can claim that US Navy testimony before Congress is full of lies
     I said, not take at face value. Again, reading comprehension. You are seeing what you want to see, not what Im actually saying.
     Also, you neglected to mention the other reason that Israel claimed they turned off their anti-missile systems: because they knew that Israeli aircraft would be flying close by. If anti-missile systems can’t be used in areas where there are lots of friendly air traffic (like, I don’t know, maybe a NFZ), I think that’s pretty relevant to the discussion, don’t you?
     I ‘neglected’ that because I didnt know it, actually. But it makes a lot of sense- you might turn off an anti-missile system if you thought there was no missile threat to avoid an accident. Whereas if you thought or knew that there was a missile threat, you might choose to leave it on and take that risk.
     That doesn’t mean that anti-missile defences are useless around friendly air operations. You are making huge, unsupportable leaps of speculation. And if anti-missile systems are useless around friendly aircraft we have other problems- eg can the US impose a NFZ? Apparently not wo exposing their carriers to missile attacks while their defenses are down.
     Do you realize how absurd this is? You’re suggesting that the US Navy, in a desperate attempt to get more dollars from Congress, lied to Congress by trumping up a threat..
     I didn’t say that they lied, or even misled anyone. Talking up a real threat isn’t a lie. Also, I pointed out that “serious threat” and “threat that makes naval operations very risky or impossible” are two entirely different things.
     I’m sorry, but this is too absurd for me to deal with.
     Then you can stop anytime. It wouldn’t bother me to not have to refute another boatload of your poor reasoning and reading skills.

168. CW: “It wouldn’t bother me to not have to refute another boatload of your poor reasoning and reading skills.”
     Please dial it back a bit, applies to all parties. This is an interesting discussion in itself. If you’re too frustrated to keep it civil, take a break.
     CW: “it’d be a larger statement about the survivability of modern naval forces in the face of even moderate 3rd-world missile inventories… people ought to own up to that thesis.”
     I’ve been saying that over and over again. And from what I have come across in recreational reading, the fear of cheap anti-shipping missiles is huge, just huge, among modern navies.
     There are no guaranteed cheap, easy interventions against even moderately well-organized 3rd-world armies. There can certainly be successful ones if the will to persist is there. But whether the will actually is there is a whole other question – it wasn’t in Beirut or Somalia, for instance.
     There’s no question (for me) about the ability of the US or NATO or EU nations to prevail in all plausible conflicts they might get involved in, if the need to do so exists. That is not at all the same as saying they have the ability to exercise their nominal capabilities at will, at no cost or risk, or that they will meet with immediate success when they do so. And so, for those and many other good reasons, they are very reluctant to do so.

169. I’ve been saying that over and over again. And from what I have come across in recreational reading, the fear of cheap anti-shipping missiles is huge, just huge, among modern navies.
     If the US cannot (with risk and perhaps some losses) enforce a NFZ over Libya because of their anti-ship missiles, then the world is a different place than I thought that it was. Or open the Strait of Hormuz in the face of Iranian missiles.
     It wouldnt be the first time changes in technology and/or doctrine caught major powers with their eggs in the old-doctrine basket though.

170. What drives me nuts is this: we Americans spend horrendous amounts of money on expensive ships and planes, and then keep worrying about how vulnerable they are to cheap missiles.
     I’m not taking a position on Qaddafi (except that he should eat sh*t and die), or the Libyan rebels (except that if they win, I don’t worry about them invading America next), or the NFZ.
     I just want to know why we keep funding the Pentagon like we do.
     –TP

171. CW: US cannot (with risk and perhaps some losses) enforce a NFZ over Libya
     I don’t think anyone’s questioning whether it is technically possible for the US, although I think there are reasonable doubts as to whether EU forces could get it together.
     I think they are questioning whether what is gained could even approach the potential costs of such an operation.
     That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. (See also: Iraq.) But it’s the way to bet.
     When you say “some losses” you are talking about aircraft that cost 50-100 million dollars and ships that cost 5-10 billion dollars.
     TP: we Americans spend horrendous amounts of money on expensive ships and planes, and then keep worrying about how vulnerable they are to cheap missiles
     I’d be more concerned if we didn’t worry about that. Believing that you have some kind of unstoppable naval superweapon has historically ended up with said superweapons lying in pieces on the ocean floor somewhere.
     The main purpose of the large US standing force is to deter an attempt to attack the US or US allies by ensuring that in the event of such an attack, the US can immediately bring an overwhelming force to bear, even if it suffers potentially grave losses in doing so.
     You may or may not think that’s a good thing to aspire to, but it’s not the same thing as being ready to casually commit US forces to combat over things of no particular consequence to the US without fear of casualties or losses.

172. I just want to know why we keep funding the Pentagon like we do.
     Eric is going to tell us. One of these days . . .

173. Hezbollah took out an Israeli corvette

     For certain values of “took out”, possibly. The vessel is still in service:

     on the morning of Friday, July 14, 2006, one of the branch heads of naval intelligence, Lieutenant-Colonel Y. briefed the head of naval intelligence, Colonel Ram Rothberg, telling him that “ships enforcing Israel’s naval blockade on Hezbollah should take into account the possibility of a C-802 missile being fired on them.” The assessment, however, did not result in a warning. If such a warning had been issued, Israeli ships would have moved further away from the shore and activated their anti-missile systems.[7]
     As a result of the incident, two navy officers, two junior officers and the commander of the ship have been formally reprimanded and repositioned to non-commanding positions on land. One of the junior officers had shut down the central radar and parts of the defence system without notifying the commander, in the belief that the ship was not under threat.[8]
     Repairs occurred over many months and the ship was said to be “recently put back into operation” according to a late 2007 report.[9] The ship was repaired and returned to service.

174. For certain values of “took out”, possibly. The vessel is still in service:
     Yes, I know. if you can disable a vessel so seriously that it must cease military operations and spend months getting repaired, then it has been “taken out” of the conflict. I trust this phrasing is familiar to you.

175. Yes it is, as are other possible meanings of “took out”. Thanks for clarifying.

176. “Tell me how it ends”
     It never ends.
     Three wars now?
     I’m told, unrepresented me, by filth who don’t represent me, that we’re broke.
     Domestically, the poor and the uninsured are going to be murdered because we’re “broke”.
     But more of my money is going to be stolen from me by those who define taxes as theft.
     Or, rather, more money is going to be borrowed so that I’m not given a choice about whether I’m taxed or not to pay for this new war, because we are not permitted to ever effing raise taxes again for the duration of the Republic.
     Do you know what I do to people who steal from me? Or borrow money in my name without me co-signing? Or approving of the murder of poor Americans?
     I end Republics. I burn them down.

177. Well this is interesting. UN authorizes a “No fly” zone, Qaddafi declares a cease fire, which presumably means there will be no airplanes that need to be made non-flyable.
     Assuming there is in fact a cease fire, now what? Mission accomplished? I’m particulary interested in how the MBFs running the republican party react.

178. I hope Eric can post. It reminds me of how I deal with students who I feel are taking advantage of other circumstances to try and pull a fast one, in that I come down a lot harder on them. Qaddifi seems to think he can take advantage of attention to the tsunami. That the UN statement of a NFZ has resulted in the regime declaring a ceasefire suggests that this post really should be updated and reconsidered.

179. I’m particulary interested in how the MBFs running the republican party react.
     i’m betting on “…with breathtaking hypocrisy.”

180. This is the way (fingers crossed, of course) things are supposed to work. Diplomacy, UN agreement, international resolve: this seems like such good news – I hope it continues to be so.

181. i’m betting on “…with breathtaking hypocrisy.”
     I’m betting on just like the Bush Administration did when Saddam let the weapons inspectors back in and they didn’t find anything: invade/bomb anyway.

182. Atrocities against civilians…
     – Libya yes
     – Sudan yes
     Major oil reserves…
     – Libya yes
     – Sudan no
     U.S. Intervention…
     – Libya yes
     – Sudan no
     Any correlation here?
     Probably not! We just like to provide humanitarian assistance to people struggling for freedom when they have oil we want.

183. SadOldVet:
     Major oil reserves…
     – Libya yes
     – Sudan no
     Actually, Sudan has quite a lot of oil.

184. “It never ends.
     Three wars now?”
     I am almost PO’d about this.
     We are, of course already spending money moving people around, gearing up, positioning carriers, planes and troops. It would be such a waste not to be able to go ahead and fly a few missions now that they are there.
     Holy crud, maybe a ceasefire announcement will save us from ourselves. Besides, it would look really bad if the French fought a war and we just let them.
     Because I certainly believe that both sides of that conflict are determined to lay down their weapons and talk things out.
     It does provide Moammar whats-his-name a few days to better position and resupply his troops though.

185. Libya has 8 times as many proven oil reserves as Sudan, and twice as many as the U.S., which has four times as many as Sudan.

186. Libya also produces a lot more oil than Sudan, which figures in as well as how much is in the ground.

187. Ugh, are you suggesting we invade the U.S.?

188. Or:
     Tune in next week to Survivor:North Africa see if Moammar gets off Redemption Island or if somehow he can form a last minute alliance with Bahrain to get the Saudi’s to pull their support for the banning, leaving Yemen needing to win the amnesty charm to stave off elimination. Text your vote to…..
     Or, in not so crass and unempathetic terms, we just picked a side in a civil war because everyone agrees on which side is the bad guys?
     Which means our real sin in Iraq was that we were ten years too late? Because I don’t see a lot less tribal feuding in Libya after we free them from the tyrant, do you?
     Whats the plan for when he is gone? The military seems to be tribally segregated, will they just form little countries?
     Did I miss this discussion/decision?

189. This isn’t a unilateral move by the United States. The security council vote was 10-0, with five countries abstaining. Nobody vetoed. This is how the world is supposed to behave. Obviously nations are motivated by their own interests, but where there is a despot was threatening to slaughter his own people and the world is behind the effort to stop it, I support it. I hope if military action is taken, it is well-executed and effective.
     Sure, it would be great if the UN always did the right thing. But I believe that it is doing the right thing in this case.
     And, yes, we still rely on oil.

190. Whats the plan for when he is gone?
     democracy, followed by whisky, then sexy.

191. Ugh, are you suggesting we invade the U.S.?
     Of course. I mean, most of its military is focused on chasing ghosts around the world, leaving the homeland relatively undefended. It has hundreds if not thousands of miles of undefended coastlines and other borders, plenty of open land to seize, and a relatively well educated populace that could be put to good use.
     The bombing begins in five minutes.

192. “Whats the plan for when he is gone?”
     “democracy, followed by whisky, then sexy.”
     Who says he’s going to be gone?

193. Whats the plan for when he is gone?
     For that matter, what’s the plan if he stays?
     BTW, if Libya today is analogous to Iraq, it’s analogous to 1991 Iraq, not 2003 Iraq. I have no definite position on whether it was a “sin” to interfere with Iraq’s internal fights in 1991, or whether the “sin” was not interfering enough. But one thing is clear: of the three situations, 2003 Iraq was the one that wasn’t like the other two, in terms of urgency.
     –TP

194. TP – Thus, “10 years too late”(so 12). I agree,2003 not like the others.
     I think this:

     “to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.”

     (bold mine)
     probably authorizes enough to ensure he is gone, although it could also allow for some division of east and west under a permanent cease fire?
     I don’t know enough to understand if there is enough for him to settle for without Benghazi.

195. Where is the UN resolution approving the imposition of a “no-fly” zone over Yemen? Or Bahrain?

196. And now President Obama says it out loud, yes that was his out loud voice:

     A cease-fire must be implemented immediately, and Gadhafi’s troops must be pulled back from several cities, he said. Power and water must be restored to those cities, he declared.
     “These terms are not negotiable,” Obama said.

     or what, we implement a no-fly zone? This sounds like war to me.

197. “The United States is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya and we are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal, specifically the protection of civilians in Libya,” Obama said…. “Our decisions have been driven by Gaddafi’s refusal to respect the rights of his people and the potential for mass murder of innocent civilians.”
     IOW, the mass murder of innocent civilians is so bad that we’re happy to bomb the sh!t out of your country as long as there’s no real risk to Americans. But, hey, if it might require ground troops then, well, mass murder-away. Cheers.
     Also AFAICT his statement is not limited to a “no-fly” zone (hence my use of scare quotes here and above).
     We apologize to those innocent Libyan civilians killed in our attempt to protect innocent Libyan civilians.
     Feh.

198. And nevermind the CIA behind the curtain.
     At least we have a chance to stop this when Obama asks Congress to declare war so he can commence this operation in accordance with the Constitution. There will be a congressional vote right? Right? Hellllllllooooooooooo? Bueller?
     You know what, if we’re going to do this let’s do it right. Institute a draft, build up the U.S. army to a several million infantry members, land them on the northwest coast of Africa with orders to March east and not to stop until they reach India. The sh1t we got going on now is for pikers.

199. Ugh, I’m not sure if either Yemen and Bahrain have enough of an air force to think about a NFZ. The other thing is that the rulers of Yemen and Bahrain didn’t do TV interviews. Moral of story, if you are going to murder your people, don’t do the interview circuit.

200. Another big difference is that Gadaffi is murdering his people by besieging cities, using tanks, heavy artillery and air craft, all of which are reasonable targets for a foreign air force to attack. The rulers of Yemen and Bahrain are murdering their people with foot soldiers firing into crowds, a situation in which it would be completely insane for a foreign air force to try to intervene.
     There is actually a decent chance that an air attack by British, French and Qatari planes (with refueling and AWAK support from the US) will be able to prevent the Libyan government from conquering Benghazi (and a lesser chance that they will be able to prevent the destruction of Misrata). There is no way I can imagine that the anyone’s air force could prevent Yemeni troops from firing into crowds of protesters (other than ways that would involve huge numbers of casualties among both troops and protesters).
     It is true that the governments of Bahrain and Yemen, being US clients, could probably wage tank warfare against their own major cities and no UN resolutions would be forthcoming. I don’t find that a particularly compelling argument against intervention in Libya.

201. For days and days now I have heard and read talk about a “no-fly” zone, which presumably meant we would shoot down any Libyan jets flying around that country, and possibly helicopters (I suppose it would apply to blimps and hot air balloons too).
     Now, in the past couple days, we all of a sudden shift to allowing all manner of military action in Libya to protect civilians, up to an including the use of ground forces so long as they don’t constitute an occupation force.
     Mission creep, it’s what’s for breakfast.
     The rulers of Yemen and Bahrain are murdering their people with foot soldiers firing into crowds, a situation in which it would be completely insane for a foreign air force to try to intervene.
     I am glad that the decision to intervene to protect civilians from massacre depends on the instrumentality of the massacre. Future dictators of the world take note.
     I don’t find that a particularly compelling argument against intervention in Libya.
     And I don’t find any of the arguments for intervention in Libya to be particularly compelling, or at a minimum that don’t also apply to many other countries around the world where we have apparently decided that mass massacres are fine.

202. Sh*t. That is all.

203. Qaddafy is a really bad guy, and deserves what is coming to him. I’d guess that some of the rebels are bad guys as well.

204. They are NOT rebels, every one of them is a civilian. The Libyan military is not allowed to approach Benghazi because all that is there is civilians.
     Ignore the rebels, sorry civilians, with guns, tanks and armored ships off the coast.
     Ignore the retired military guys from Egypt helping them plan strategy.
     Ignore Mustafa Gheriani of the opposition transitional council, 54 years old and lived in the US 30 of them. (probably not too relevant but I thought it was very interesting in what has been portrayed as a very tribal culture)
     None of those those people are putting civilians at risk by just being in Behghazi.
     They are all just civilians waiting for our help. Except 9 days ago they put up billboards all over Benghazi telling us they could do it themselves. They were certain that Gaddafi would never be able to get to Benghazi. They thought they had the revolution in hand. They are armed rebels.
     If we are going to take a side just because he is a “bad” guy just say so. We took a side in a civil war.
     Hilary came pretty close today. She said he is right between Egypt and Tunisia who are trying to be Democracies and we don’t want him to screw that up, obviously paraphrased.
     Besides Afghanistan isn’t going so great so maybe we can get a quick win. Famous last words.
     It’s good for the Tomahawk makers so far.

205. Apart from what I or anyone think of the UN action and the U.S.’s role in it, it’s important to note for the record that Congress has not authorized this military action. Bush did not view the 2002 Congressional vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq as a legal necessity, just as an advisory expression (and a political weapon). Obama’s action shows he views it as entirely within his power to authorize military action as well.
     The Congress has ceded the war powers for good, it appears.

206. CCDG,
     Thanks for that link, the discussion has been remarkably link free. I haven’t been able to keep up at all, unfortunately, so this comment will also be free of dose demon links…
     It seems to me that Gaddafi (I adopt whatever spelling is in the comment above, because I can see it) called a cease-fire and then struck at Benghazi in order to project force. If he was not in control in Benghazi and he wanted to attack it, he would have a hard time moving up forces. I suppose it is an argument against declaring the NFZ, because it seems to have resulted in the calculation that Gaddafi made, so it is a poker game and the resulting escalation is the next step. You and others can say we told you so, or can complain that we aren’t doing anything in Yemen and Bahrain. They are both interesting cases, Bahrain was controlled by Portugal (and Portugese colonies such as Indonesia, Malacca and perhaps Sri Lanka seem to suggest that these places are often prone to these problems, though I think it is because the Portugese were the first in the colonial game and so chose areas that are now highly sought after) Yemen was part of the Ottoman empire, FWIW. With Libya, a former colony of France, you would expect France to lead and I look forward to a history that describes the steps that lead to all this. I suspect that this was pushed forward by Sarkozy, who summoned European support and the US joined in because, as I mentioned above, they are not going to be left out of an exercise of force. But that’s just my speculation and I’d be interested in other’s viewpoints.

207. “Hilary came pretty close today. She said he is right between Egypt and Tunisia who are trying to be Democracies and we don’t want him to screw that up, obviously paraphrased.”
     Hmmm…..and what about the people – civilians – in Saudi and Bahrain and Yemen that are also trying to rebel and become a….ummmm er…democracy? They are getting shot down too.
     I’ll bet your bottom dollar we don’t intervene in Saudi Arabia.
     And then what about that one little democracy over in that region that voted in the Hamas platform? Haven’t we tried to stamp them out? If not directly then via our 51st state?
     That word “democracy”, I don’t think it means what you think it does.
     “Sh*t. That is all.”……..yep.

208. Nell,
     that’s a good point, but I imagine that the fact that the French led the attack, NATO agreements will be invoked. This is not to disagree that this is crappy, but suspect that is how it will be dealt with if the question is raised.

209. “It’s good for the Tomahawk makers so far.”
     We could combine the theories of 1) government spending, financed by taxation or borrowing in the capital markets, creates jobs …. with the recently conceived notion that, 2) government spending, borrowing, and taxation destroys jobs and cutting spending creates jobs and voila, solve all of our problems by taking out NPR, the EPA, community health clinics, public schools, and Planned Parenthood with Tomahawk missiles.
     Also, apparently Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for Barack Obama’s father’s death in Africa.
     I don’t have a cite for that, but someone at FOX will in about a week, and that will explain everything.
     This adventure in Libya, regardless of outcome, makes every political domestic, fiscal, and foreign policy position held and uttered by every American politician and pundit of all political pursuasions over the past ten (I underestimate) years pure shite.
     We’re a rancid collection of opinionated, rubes, marks and clowns with small floppy shoes ruled by malign government and corporate clowns with big floppy shoes.
     Cuts in defense spending for our police state are a chimera.
     A single dead Bahraini or Egyptian or Tunisian protester has more guts and character than any collection of one million ordinary (we are ordinary in every way) Americans who swallow the notion that we’re broke as we fling ordnance at other countries and murder the poor at home and lower the wages of the middle class.
     We’re cowards. We’re undertaxed, whining curs.
     Mubarak and the King of Bahrain wish to God their populations were as docile and weak as ours is.
     The streets are peaceful, but try to pay a street cleaner a decent wage and pension and corporate America will finance a street demonstration full of low-wage rubes to fight over the effing shekels.

210. Nell, Congress ceded its war powers a long time ago. Whether it did so “for good” is for the future to tell. The War Powers Resolution was, of course, an important step, although the idea that a President could use military force to enforce a UN resolution has been around since the Korean “conflict.”
     Nell, of course, you are abstaining as to what you “think” of the US actions. Some of the organizations which (I think) you support (although perhaps I’m confusing your comments with those of Donald Johnson) – ones which work tirelessly against torture and brutality around the world, such as Human Rights Watch, seem to be supporting the UN Resolution (and presumably its enforcement). Don’t know whose side your on when there’s an apparent conflict between these organizations and Glenn Greenwald.
     As to Ugh’s and avedis’s worries that Obama hasn’t decided to intervene against all evil dictators, I would suggest that the reason might be a combination of 1) national interest, 2) opportunity for success, 3) international consensus, 4) timing, 5) imminent massive slaughter of innocents.
     In any case, the situation is clearly not one where Obama was beating the drum for war, and acting unilaterally. He was obviously skeptical, then was persuaded that intervention was the appropriate course, then proceeded under international law to obtain the imprimatur of the international community. There is certainly precedent for him to proceed to implement a UN directive, and under the War Powers Resolution.

211. lj: …the French led the attack, NATO agreements will be invoked. … suspect that is how it will be dealt with if the question is raised.
     The question has already been raised, by Sen. Lugar, and will probably come up again on his Face the Nation appearance tomorrow. It will be interesting to see whether and how his objection is dealt with.

212. Senator Lugar is in the gun sights of the corporate Tea Party, who claim we’re broke and can’t afford to give Gaddafi what he deserves.
     Dave C., all seriousness aside, you can’t afford to give Gaddafi what he deserves.
     Who cares what a dead man like Lugar has to say?

213. “Some of the organizations which (I think) you support (although perhaps I’m confusing your comments with those of Donald Johnson) – ones which work tirelessly against torture and brutality around the world, such as Human Rights Watch, seem to be supporting the UN Resolution (and presumably its enforcement).”
     I haven’t checked what HRW is saying about Libya and what to do about it, but HRW is sometimes criticized as being a little too close to the US government. I cite their human rights reporting, which doesn’t commit me to supporting everything they recommend doing. I haven’t read enough or thought enough about the current situation to have a firm opinion beyond skepticism about us going in once again for ostensibly noble reasons to save innocent people from being slaughtered while standing next to oil fields. That the US is hypocritical on human rights issues should go without saying, of course. Anyone who read HRW reports on various topics would know that.
     “”Don’t know whose side your on when there’s an apparent conflict between these organizations and Glenn Greenwald.”
     That was for Nell, but my name was mentioned. It is indeed a quandry. I feel much like someone living the Cretan liar paradox, or like those medieval scholastics who allegedly spent time wondering if God could make a stone too heavy for Him to lift. Or like those automatons in Star Trek which would commit suicide when Kirk confronted them with an apparent contradiction. Happened more than once. I feel my circuits overheating.

214. If the goal is to protect innocent civilians, doesn’t that mean NATO remains engaged until K has lost?
     If not, are there any reliable indications that this can end less ambiguously than, say, our time spent in Afghanistan?

215. Also, apparently Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for Barack Obama’s father’s death in Africa.
     IMO it will emerge that Muammar Gaddafi actually *is* Obama’s father, which gives our current actions there a kind of “Luke, I am your father” vibe.
     Also, too, echoes of W’s Oedipal drama in Iraq.
     It’ll be on Beck next week, Fox the day after, then the Washington Post op-ed page a few days after that.
     I have no idea what the right thing to do is in Libya. More specifically, what the right thing *for us* to do is in Libya. Our relationship to the Middle East overall is so full of hypocrisy and convenient contradictions that almost anything we do will be equally problematic.
     I’m not sure that “first, do no harm” is even an option. Too late for that.
     Events drive themselves these days. Maybe there is something to this karma concept.

216. “I have no idea what the right thing to do is in Libya. More specifically, what the right thing *for us* to do is in Libya. Our relationship to the Middle East overall is so full of hypocrisy and convenient contradictions that almost anything we do will be equally problematic.”
     First, Libya seems to be in North Africa 🙂
     Second, I commend this as a perfect DG comment.

217. So, just so we’re clear, the american President can launch a long and sustained bombing campaign against a foreign country without congressional authorization in the absence of any actual, imminent, pending or theoretical threat to the United States or its national security. And not only does this not even cause an uproar, but AFAICT barely a whimper of protest from Congress, the “people’s branch” of the Constitution.
     Fun times.
     Maybe this is just the same as Kosovo and Panama, but somehow it doesn’t feel like (I’d be happy to hear better informed commenters on the latter two situations, IIRC Clinton justified Kosovo w/o an explicit authorization from Congress on the theory that since they voted for the $$$ for the operation they had voted for the operation).
     I would suggest that the reason might be a combination of 1) national interest, 2) opportunity for success, 3) international consensus, 4) timing, 5) imminent massive slaughter of innocents.
     1) I do like how merely “national interest,” as opposed to national security or some sort of real threat, is now a for the U.S. to launch a military campaign, maybe we can start bombing Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands for enabling the stripping of the U.S. tax base thus starving the gov’t of necessary funds; 2) “success” at what? Stopping the current killing of civilians, sure, we might be successful at that, and then what? Permanent “no-fly” zone over Libya until Qaddafi kicks off? 3) is everyone contributing militarily to this “consensus” or are they free riding on the U.S. and Europe and voting for this costs them basicall nothing? 4) it seems to me the best time for this was at least a week ago; 5) can I use this one as a reason to invade the United States?

218. I tend to think that these decisions emerge for personal reasons, reasons related to the people who push for them, the people who push against them, and other considerations that shouldn’t really be there, but are unavoidable nonetheless.
     The NYTimes opened and others followed, suggesting that Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power were strongly pro-intervention, and convinced Obama to do so, over the objections of Gates and the NSC. While Clinton has always taken a relatively interventionist stance (which is one reason she isn’t president), I imagine her meeting with Sarkozy gave her the compelling reason to push Obama to sign on as I tend to think that the French were willing to go alone (the initial French air attack occurred before the US cruise missiles went to suppress the Libya air defenses) and basically said so.
     Given Sarkozy is facing low opinion polls, his push for action can be seen as self-serving, but Sarkozy’s desire for action made it difficult for the US to not follow. The Guardian article points to the previous problems with France’s ineffectual response to Tunisia and Egypt, and that area is traditionally a sphere of French influence, so that also must have also been a consideration.
     And as evidence that old fissures don’t disappear, they just get covered over, the glee in this Telegraph article about Sarkozy’s hypocrisy, while not deceptive, seems to be supported by those differences. Note the last paragraph, and consider that the Telegraph’s nickname is the Torygraph, and realize that they only made a passing shot at Tony Blair to see this dynamic in action.

219. IMO it will emerge that Muammar Gaddafi actually *is* Obama’s father

     Luke! I am not your father.
     

220. So, just so we’re clear, the american President can launch a long and sustained bombing campaign against a foreign country without congressional authorization in the absence of any actual, imminent, pending or theoretical threat to the United States or its national security. And not only does this not even cause an uproar, but AFAICT barely a whimper of protest from Congress, the “people’s branch” of the Constitution.

     Probably they haven’t received their talking points from Rush, yet.

221. Democrats too?

222. You’d be surprised at how influential Rush is. He’s practically driving the whole bus.

223. The French government already recognized the rebel leadership as the legitimate government of Libya back on march 10.
     It’s a bit hard for me to imagine a campaign that will end with Gaddafi in still power.

224. It’s bad enough that Obama is doing this, but thank God we didn’t elect John Kerry, eh?

225. I can’t tell what’s more glib and substanceless today, Slarti or the retarded blog post he just linked to. Does anyone have a meter I can borrow?

226. Ugh, there’s a specific UN resolution supporting our actions. I have to thank a commenter at Balloon Juice for pointing out the longstanding Congressional authority for the President to order military action in aid of enforcing certain UN resolutions. See this.
     If we are going to be active and reliable participants in the world community, having responsibilities to other countries on the basis of votes taken in the UN, it probably was wise for Congress to give that authority to the President so that he wouldn’t have to wrestle with John Bohner and Rand Paul in order to meet our obligations. Not being a hater of the UN, but realizing how difficult it is to obtain a consensus for action there, I think it’s important that we respond.
     As to “national interest,” no that’s not a good enough reason to go to war. It’s just a reason we might choose some humanitarian battles over others. That was the point of my post. If a situation seems like we’d be inextricably involved in civil war, and we’d be rolling the dice as to our success, with nothing at all to gain in terms of our “national interest,” it’s less likely that we’d make that move as opposed to a situation where we or our allies might actually get something out of it. I don’t necessarily approve of that, but certainly understand why it works that way – simple cost/benefit analysis.

227. Ugh,

     I would suggest that the reason might be a combination of 1) national interest, 2) opportunity for success, 3) international consensus, 4) timing, 5) imminent massive slaughter of innocents.
     1) I do like how merely “national interest,” as opposed to national security or some sort of real threat, is now a for the U.S. to launch a military campaign, maybe we can start bombing Bermuda, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands for enabling the stripping of the U.S. tax base thus starving the gov’t of necessary funds; 2) “success” at what? Stopping the current killing of civilians, sure, we might be successful at that, and then what? Permanent “no-fly” zone over Libya until Qaddafi kicks off? 3) is everyone contributing militarily to this “consensus” or are they free riding on the U.S. and Europe and voting for this costs them basicall nothing? 4) it seems to me the best time for this was at least a week ago; 5) can I use this one as a reason to invade the United States?

     I don’t think the argument is that you have to meet only one of those criteria, but that you have to meet all of them.
     So if you were an alien hyper-power, you probably would have been justified in invading the US back in 2003 (you’d need to be powerful enough to defeat the US military relatively quickly, which no one on Earth is, thus aliens), but I don’t think you personally would be justified in invading the US right now (for one thing, your chance of success would be quite small, for another I don’t think there is an immanent threat of mass civilian slaughter in the US), and I don’t think the US would be justified in invading the Cayman Islands (as national interest, and chance of success are not sufficient).
     If you could drive the US from Afghanistan without inflicting comparable civilian casualties to what the US is inflicting there, you might be justified in doing so.
     National security is a different situation. These five criteria are for humanitarian military interventions. National security was not at risk in Bosnia or Kosovo, nor Somalia in the 90’s, nor the NFZ in Iraq in the 90s, all previous US military actions that were justified by humanitarian reasons.
     I agree that a week ago would have been better on the timing front, but it looks as though now is still good enough to prevent the bombardment of Benghazi.

228. I can’t tell what’s more glib and substanceless today

     I think you’re making a pretty fair run for it, Phil!
     But you could torpedo your chances and elaborate. I know you can do it.

229. “I agree that a week ago would have been better on the timing front, but it looks as though now is still good enough to prevent the bombardment of Benghazi.”
     However, Behghazi is now a rebel stronghold. They are massing weapons, importing fighters and advisors, forming a rebel government that has been recognized by France.
     So protecting Benghazi is more than protecting civilians. If the rebels move to take Tripoli are the UN forces going to bomb their convoys also?

230. CCDG: “So protecting Benghazi is more than protecting civilians. If the rebels move to take Tripoli are the UN forces going to bomb their convoys also?”
     Not really. Armed civilians are still civilians (or it would really be a surprise to the Second Amendment folks here that they are now considered a military). France has recognized a rebel government, but they don’t have an organized army. So the answer is: No.

231. I haven’t seen any evidence that the rebel capture of cities so far has involved mass slaughter. It certainly hasn’t involved the indiscriminate slaughter inherent in the use of artillery and bombing against foot troops in a city (since the rebels have been taking cities using lightly armed foot soldiers).
     If the rebels arm up with heavy artillery and bombers and lay siege to Tripoli, I certainly hope that the UN uses all available methods to end that siege.
     However:
     (a) I think the chance of the rebels getting and using heavy artillery or bombers any time soon is highly unlikely.
     (b) I think the rebels would be very likely to be responsive to methods of persuasion other than bombing.
     (c) Preventing a slaughter of civilians once does not require you to prevent a different slaughter of civilians later. Preventing the slaughter of civilians is a good thing even if you are unreliable or unfair in doing so.
     Point (c) is greatly weakened in this case, since the imagined future siege of Tripoli would never have happened if Benghazi had been allowed to fall, so yes, I think the UN alliance has a strong moral responsibility to prevent a siege by heavy artillery of Tripoli from happening. I don’t know if they have a strong moral responsibility to prevent small units of lightly armed foot soldiers from moving on Tripoli, as I don’t have any real sense whether the resulting battle would be likely to involve mass civilian death.

232. Not really. Armed civilians are still civilians (or it would really be a surprise to the Second Amendment folks here that they are now considered a military).
     No. Combatants are not civilians. There’s an enormous difference between a guy who keeps a weapon to go duck hunting and a rebel armed with anti-tank weapons participating in an insurrection against his government.

233. Turbulence, true. I’ll defer to Charles S, whose response was more thoughtful.

234. CS,
     Perhaps you missed the report yesterday where the rebels mistakenly shot down their own fighter plane over Benghazi? They may have a tank or two to go with their fighter planes.

235. First, Libya seems to be in North Africa
     True dat.
     I tend to think about the Maghreb as if it were some kind of “greater Arabia”, but that’s likely very wrong.
     And not only does this not even cause an uproar, but AFAICT barely a whimper of protest from Congress, the “people’s branch” of the Constitution.
     Steve Lynch, D-Southie, and Mike Capuano, D-People’s Republic of Greater Boston, are both agin’ it.
     No doubt there are some others.

236. And thrown in at the end of this CNN report talking about people in Behghazi describing the damage to Gadhafis forces:

     Residents of the city, which was reported to be calm late Sunday, believe they can now take the offensive against loyalist troops.

     those civilians with guns trudging toward Tripoli……

237. “those civilians with guns trudging toward Tripoli……”
     And good for them.

238. I hadn’t seen that. They do actually have a few tanks to go with their (now 1 less) fighter planes, I’ve seen that mentioned (if I implied otherwise, I didn’t mean to).
     They have not used them against any of they cities they have captured, and I certainly hope that the French et al are pushing very hard diplomatically to ensure that they don’t start using them (at the very least that they don’t use them to besiege towns or cities, using them as glorified APCs doesn’t seem morally unacceptable). I do believe that they have far fewer heavy weapons than the loyalist forces do, but I don’t think anyone has anything like exact numbers.
     The attacks against black African civilian emigres by the rebel forces in towns that they have captured (and the murder of black African POWs) have been reprehensible, and the rebel leadership has a clear moral responsibility to ensure that that stops, and that it doesn’t happen if and when Tripoli falls. But slaughter of civilians, either in battle or in the aftermath, has not been reported in the cities the rebels have captured, as far as I can see.
     It is certainly possible that a horrible humanitarian disaster will follow from the UN backed intervention, and I think everyone involved, the rebel provisional government, the rebel troops, and the intervening nations, have a clear duty to work to prevent that from happening.

239. CCDG was mentioning the question of who the rebels are, this stratfor analysis attempts to answer that question.

240. Thanks for the link lj

241. So, what do we known about the people whose side we’ve just taken?
     We know lots and lots about them, amirite? I mean, surely we wouldn’t throw down on one side of a civil war w/o deep knowledge of the country, its people, the origins and nature of the current conflict, the goals of our newest friends…
     Right?

242. Hah. Just noticed the stratfor link from lj. LOL @ me, I suppose.

243. I’d also make another observation, the lead time we have for identifying leaders has become remarkably compressed. This is not simply for countries like Libya or Yemen, it’s true for us here. Think about Sarah Palin’s ascension to VP candidate, and you realize that this isn’t a idiosyncrasy of Libya, it’s what the world has become. In some ways, it sucks, but you have to live with it.
     Along those same lines, I tend to think that what has happened is the way things are (unfortunately) supposed to work. As long as we have a notion of national sovereignty as a barrier to intervening, what you will get is a much higher level of impetus or force in order to overcome that barrier, such that the effort will be as violent as we see it. I realize this is an unprovable hypothetical, but if the Western nations had set up a no-fly zone a week earlier, would we have seen the French Mirage fighters striking tank columns? I’m not sure we would have.
     This is also an interesting look at what is part of a NFZ.

244. This is not simply for countries like Libya or Yemen, it’s true for us here. Think about Sarah Palin’s ascension to VP candidate, and you realize that this isn’t a idiosyncrasy of Libya, it’s what the world has become.
     Besides Palin, is there any evidence to support this assertion?
     Instead of there being some general trend, it might just be the case that John McCain is a man of little intelligence who makes poor decisions.

245. Well, did we know the leaders of Tiananmen Square? Outside of Aung San Suu Kyi, could we identify folks in Myanmar? Who would we be supporting in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain. You have a good knowledge of Egypt, so was there an identifiable leader and movement there in the opposition?
     It is said that a leader is someone who finds out which way the crowd is going, takes a short cut and gets to the front and pretends they’ve been there the whole time. And I’m not saying that John McCain is of some superior intelligence, but in some ways, he was forced to pick Palin because the ‘regular’ candidates brought so much baggage with them that they would have, in the electoral calculus, provoked negatives in the people who were most active (and reactionary). Countme-in’s identifying of the walking Republican dead underlines how this dynamic is not a blip, but a trend.

246. LJ, I was asking for evidence to support your assertion about picking politicians in the US: “it’s true for us here”. If the only thing backing up this claim is Palin, that’s fine.

247. Sorry, I misunderstood. So, when I think of people like Christine O’Donnell, Michele Bachmann, any number of politicians who seem to be totally unprepared for the jobs they are campaigning for and sometimes getting, I feel like Palin was the natural extension of that trend. I realize there have been stupid politicians since the beginning of the Republic, so maybe I’m overthinking this.
     Thinking about it, it may be a more deeper feature of US politics rather than something about Republican politics because Obama’s rise, Clinton and Carter were successful, but the notion of becoming president as the capstone of a career (think Dole, Mondale, even McCain) is fast becoming like the notion of an 8-track.
     I’m also thinking of something Valclav Havel said, which was that in a situation where there is a lot of central control, changes often happen much faster than one would think. He was specifically referring to the fall of the Soviet Union, but I think the general observation is true.

248. sapient: If a situation seems like we’d be inextricably involved in civil war, and we’d be rolling the dice as to our success, with nothing at all to gain in terms of our “national interest,” it’s less likely that we’d make that move as opposed to a situation where we or our allies might actually get something out of it.
     Civil war, rolling the dice, nothing to gain, sounds like what we’re doing in Libya to me.
     Charles S: I don’t think the argument is that you have to meet only one of those criteria, but that you have to meet all of them.
     I guess I should have anticipated this response. I would say that a threat to the United States or its national security is a necessary condition for us to spin up the bombing campaign, etc. (it may sometimes also be sufficient).
     As to the other factors, we’re late on the timing, it seems the Arab League has decided it doesn’t like our bombing campaign so we’ve lost our consensus, and I’m still not sure what “success” would look like six months down the road.

249. ‘success’ must include a dead or exiled QKGaddafy, followed by a democratic-ish election. 6 months, tops.

250. A Friedman unit, IIRC. Surely, just one. Maybe two. Tops!

251. Ugh: “I guess I should have anticipated this response. I would say that a threat to the United States or its national security is a necessary condition for us to spin up the bombing campaign, etc. (it may sometimes also be sufficient).”
     Then you need to get with the Republican Party of Texas and suggest that the United States withdraw from the UN.

252. UN membership implies that member states will join in military actions regardless of whether they have any national interest at stake?
     That’s an interesting interpretation. If that was the case, then yes, we surely should withdraw from the UN, because it would be a deranged institution.

253. Success in Libya will look like America looks right now with Gaddafy defeated, but resurrected and given his own talk show by Libya CNN/FOX to discuss dismantling democracy, taxes and health care for all Libyans with policy heavyweights Gene Simmons, Sarah Death Palin, and an assortment of ex-SNL failures whose careers are one rotation above Gary Busey’s from disappearing down the toilet bowl.
     Maybe Gaddafy could do a quick remake (shore up his budget-cutting and tax elimination creds, take on Planned Parenthood) and mount a Tea Party primary run for Lugar’s Senate seat in 2012.
     I’d give him an even chance. After all, you can say this about Muammar. He’s truthful about being born in Africa, and by God, that shows integrity.
     Rush Limbaugh would take one look and throw his weight behind Muammar. Dobie Gillis, being the open-minded sort would weigh his options on these very pages (yes, yes, there were the killings, but tax simplification and reduction has its merits; let’s not be hasty in blaming the messenger) and Slart would cast aspersions upon Rush’s influence. Rush who?
     In other words, success in Libya will be what’s left of American civilization — a foamy excrescence of dumbsh*t Charlie Sheen pre-cum banality and Moe Lane punk smugness.
     Signifying nothing, as Ben Franklin surmised.

254. Josh Rogin re: Western forces distinguishing between genuine civilians and rebel forces while enforcing SCR1973:

     “We do not provide close air support for the opposition forces. We protect civilians,” Gen. Carter Ham, the top military official in charge of the operation, told reporters in a conference call on Monday. The problem is, there is no official communication with the rebel forces on the ground and there is no good way to distinguish the rebel fighters engaged against the government forces from civilians fighting to protect themselves, he said.
     “Many in the opposition truly are civilians…trying to protect their civilian business, lives, and families,” said Ham. “There are also those in the opposition that have armored vehicles and heavy weapons. Those parts of the opposition are no longer covered under that ‘protect civilians’ clause” of the U.N. Security Council resolution that authorized military intervention.
     […]
     So how are pilots in the air supposed to tell the difference? If the opposition groups seem to be organized and fighting, the airplanes imposing the no-fly zone are instructed not to help them.
     “Where they see a clear situation where civilians are threatened, they have… intervened,” said Ham. “When it’s unclear that it’s civilians that are being attacked, the air crews are instructed to be very cautious.”
     “We have no authority and no mission to support the opposition forces in what they might do,” he added.
     What’s more, the coalition forces won’t attack Qaddafi’s forces if they are battling rebel groups, only if they are attacking “civilians,” Ham explained. If the Qaddafi forces seem to be preparing to attack civilians, they can be attacked; but if they seem to be backing away, they won’t be targeted.
     “What we look for, to the degree that we can, is to discern intent,” said Ham. “There’s no simple answer.”

     Yep. Clear as f*cking mud.

255. “UN membership implies that member states will join in military actions regardless of whether they have any national interest at stake?”
     Don’t you think that, when we sit on the Security Council, when we have veto power, and when we vote for a resolution that requires military action, and when we have armed forces capable of helping to make that action successful, we should help to enforce it?

256. “Yep. Clear as f*cking mud.”
     What he said.

257. We have a clear set of well defined and public rules of engagement. How do those rules get applied? Who the fnck knows!

258. I guess I’d go further than Ugh in saying that US or universal interests may justify US involvement. So I would say that if neither one of those applies the US should abstain, and your situation would not obtain.
     I don’t think that membership of the UN creates a moral or legal requirement for member states to act as a UN police force, even if they have the means.
     Now, I do believe that both US and universal interests are at stake in Libya. What I am not sure about is whether we have the capability to make the situation better. As it is, we are taking sides in a for-real civil war where “our side” on the ground is fundamentally outmatched by an intact, well-armed state military. The rag-tag band of rebels that defeat the heavily-armed government forces only happens in the movies.
     Even without heavy armor, the side with trained soldiers and real logistics is likely to win.
     Also, we have no promise and no real reason to believe that “our side” would refrain from murder and mayhem even if it prevailed in combat. Wars do not make nice people out of those who fight them. Maybe in Libya that won’t be the case, but it was in Afghanistan. And while Gaddafi’s men might have murdered civilians they wouldn’t be doing it with an implicit US stamp of approval.

259. Don’t you think that, when we sit on the Security Council, when we have veto power, and when we vote for a resolution that requires military action, and when we have armed forces capable of helping to make that action successful, we should help to enforce it?

     That sort of presumes that we ought to have done everything that preceded the part where explosions began to happen.
     I’m still undecided on that part, myself. I mean, where we decided to take action. I do think that if we decided that it was well worth UN involvement, it’d be kind of silly to say: well, we think it should be done, but we really don’t want to dirty our hands with it.

260. “I mean, where we decided to take action. I do think that if we decided that it was well worth UN involvement, it’d be kind of silly to say: well, we think it should be done, but we really don’t want to dirty our hands with it.”
     I agree, except that I don’t think it would be silly; I think it would be a dereliction of duty. And, it’s true – before the resolution, I had very mixed feelings about what we should do. But I don’t think once we supported the resolution we were in a position to stand aside.
     The international community took the high ground, and did so through a legitimate resolution of the UN, stating that it would not tolerate dictators committing massive atrocities on its people – that’s exactly what the UN is for. By supporting the action through our military we not only support the content of the resolution, but deny a victory to those who scorn the UN as impotent.
     So, if we lose? That would be horrible. It would have been really horrible to have lost WWII. But some things are worth fighting for. And part of what makes this worth fighting for is that the international community rose to the occasion through a United Nations resolution to condemn atrocities and to authorize action to stop it. The UN doesn’t always do its duty, that’s true. But this time it did.
     I sympathize and agree with everyone here that there are huge worries about the execution of this effort. I hope (obviously) for the best outcome.

261. Obama’s letter to Congress.

262. Who are the rebels we are now supporting?
     On the one hand I detect the stink of the CIA among the rebel camp. Which is how I know there is a high probability of this ending baddly.
     Once upon a time in long forgotton days of old there was this guy named Usama Bin Laden. He was fighting the Russians (aka “The Evil Empire”). he was a rebel and a freedom fighter. He was likened unto George Washington. The CIA supported his efforts because he was such a gloriously good man.
     A few years later, but still way back long ago in times long forgotten, this very same Usama Bin Laden declared war on the US. In addition to backing terrorist attacks that resulted in the destruction of two US embassies, a damaged US Navy destroyer (all including loss of life and injury to US citizens) he implemented his spectactular magnum opus which killed thousand right here in “The Homeland” when airplanes crashed and buildings fell, etc.
     Round about this same time, Usama issued a statement in which he described a plan to suck the stupid and prideful US into endless wars in the Muslim world which would 1. Reveal, once and for all, the US to be the imperial crusader dogs that they have always been. 2. Bring the muslim community together against the imperial dogs and their proxy apostate disctators 3. and this is most imporatant, Bankrupt an already financially troubled US.
     I don’t though. This happened so long ago that it’s like history or something and can’t possibly relevant to today’s events.

263. On the one hand I detect the stink of the CIA among the rebel camp.
     Among the things that worry me, a lot, about our intervention in Libya is how little we know or understand about what the hell is going on.
     IMO it’s actually hard to say whether events in Libya present a meaningful threat to us or our interests, or whether whatever actions we are taking will further our interests, or not.
     We don’t know.
     The list of world events in, say, the last generation that have blindsided our foreign policy makers is disturbingly long.
     The eruption of popular political action in the middle east and the maghreb is just the most recent example.
     The intelligence agencies in this country absorb an astounding amount of money and resources. They operate, in many cases, with a amazingly free hand. To a degree that basically either freaks me out or pisses me the hell off, depending on my mood, they are unaccountable to the public.
     I would really like them to stop screwing around with the rest of the world like a bunch of cowboys on meth and actually, you know, gather and analyze intelligence. Enough so that policy makers who are actually responsible to the public can make good decisions.
     If the Directorate of Operations were to close its doors tomorrow, I’m not sure the net loss to the nation would be that great.
     Just another comment from the peanut gallery.

264. sapient: “it would not tolerate dictators committing massive atrocities on its people”
     1) Is there evidence that massive atrocities were occurring or imminent?
     2) If we ignore that standard with regards to any number of other dictators at similar levels of atrocity-ness, what does that say about us?
     There may be an answer to 1) that is worthwhile, and an adequate answer to 2) may be “You can’t fix everything at once”. But I’m not sure given available evidence that it is so obvious.
     I’m not sure I’m exactly opposed to the Libya action. I’m not sure I’m exactly in support of it either. Of course it would be pretty easy to wait and see how it turns out to express a firm opinion (then I could go back and say that I said that all along).
     I don’t intend to do that. But I don’t mind saying I don’t know enough to have an opinion. I hope it turns out okay is about all I can say.

265. avedis, I’d really like to see some evidence of CIA involvement. A link, a paper, anything at all.
     Jacob, I feel pretty much the same as you, but in an attempt to address some of your points.
     Location and history matters. It may be like the old joke about the drunk looking for his keys over by the streetlamp, not because it is where he lost the keys, but because the light is better, but that’s the bummer about being allied with NATO, it is remarkably difficult to ignore what your allies are doing.
     Gadhaffi’s public statements matter. If you have a tank column rolling down the road to Benghazi, and you place that on the background of statements like fighting to the last drop of blood, that carries some weight. In fact, when you get the kind of paranoid comments that Gadhaffi was making, I think that is something that puts a bit thumb on the balance.
     Again, I’m not sure about this as well, but I’m not going to start invoking CIA plots, unless I see some proof.
     This Time article/a> has some of the administration background on the decision, though I’m not sure how good the sources are (it seems to be a melange of the other reporting with no acknowledgements)
     This McClatchy article reports that the Arab league is hesitant to let NATO take over, but I’m not sure why the US, UK and France have a better reputation than NATO. There is also a very interesting final paragraph that I put below
     Meanwhile, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin blasted the military action in Libya, saying that the Security Council resolution authorizing military force in Libya “resembles medieval calls for crusades,” Reuters reported from Gorki, Russia.
     However, Putin’s comments brought an unusual rebuke from Russia’s president and one-time Putin protege Dmitry Medvedev.

266. “1) Is there evidence that massive atrocities were occurring or imminent?”
     They’re probably lying, and I don’t trust the media either, but:
     this and
     this and
     this and
     this
     this
     Miscellaneous post from Juan Cole
     I mean, I don’t know how many bodies have to be counted. What kind of evidence do you require? Piles of corpses and skeletons a la Auschwitz

267. So, it may all be a CIA plot, or a media propaganda blitz, or maybe Obama is dying for another war in the Middle East. I am cynical enough to believe that we may find out that one of those things are true. But I’m just not cynical enough to think that we should be paralyzed (in advance) by those kinds of suspicions.

268. From those accounts, I see only “A witness in the oil port said he had seen dozens of dead bodies in the residential part of the town” and “It is reported that between 1,000 and 2,000 civilian protesters have been killed” that refer to civilian casualties.
     Killing armed men in combat who are engaged in a violent attempt to overthrow the government of their country is not an atrocity.
     Imprisoning people attempting to overthrow the government (AKA “treason”) is not an atrocity.
     Killing civilians by accident while recapturing territory from rebels is not an atrocity.
     Being a brutal dictator who disappears people and uses torture might be an atrocity, but that’s a rather hard thing to prove in an international court, and it’s also the same kind of thing that many US allies get up to all the time.
     Now: I absolutely sympathize with the rebels, I think their government sucks and fully deserves to be overthrown. I would like very much for them to prevail.
     I also appreciate that it is difficult to get evidence of crimes against humanity out of government-controlled parts of Libya right now. And it may be that such crimes have taken place.
     But when you ask “What kind of evidence do you require? Piles of corpses and skeletons?” the answer is “Well, yes”. Rumors are worth investigating, but they are not evidence. A belief that an atrocity is to take place is not evidence. A statement of intent to “fight to the last drop of blood” is not evidence (and how reliable is that translation?)
     Like I say, maybe those things do add up to sufficient cause for a precautionary action. Maybe Obama knows something we don’t. (But then why can’t we know it?) Maybe, quite possibly, there have in fact been atrocities committed. But if there is real evidence for them I have not seen it.
     I don’t want to sound equivocal on who I support, I was glad to see the tanks manned by Gaddafi’s loyalist thugs and mercenaries destroyed. But will that prevent Gaddafi from retaking the country? It’s not clear. Will the massive escalation in violence represented by cruise missile attacks and large scale bombing have consequences in the way Gaddafi’s forces treat them?
     If rebels hold the east, will there be a full-scale, drawn-out civil war? If the outcome of that is massive civilian casualties, refugees, and a substantial risk that Gaddafi will end up retaining control anyway, how will we feel then?
     As I say my sympathies are very much with the rebels and against Gaddafi, but it is not practical or wise to extend “sympathy” as far as “multi-billion dollar military intervention” in every such case, and I think it’s fair to be suspicious of the fact that this particular intervention is happening in another major oil-exporter where Western oil companies have been kept out of exploration and production – a characteristic it has in common with Iraq and Iran.

269. There’s also this:

     The behavior of the fledgling rebel government in Benghazi so far offers few clues to the rebels’ true nature. Their governing council is composed of secular-minded professionals — lawyers, academics, businesspeople — who talk about democracy, transparency, human rights and the rule of law. But their commitment to those principles is just now being tested as they confront the specter of potential Qaddafi spies in their midst, either with rough tribal justice or a more measured legal process.
     Like the Qaddafi government, the operation around the rebel council is rife with family ties. And like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.

270. Oh and:
     Human Rights Watch and this.
     Amnesty International
     Medicins San Frontiers
     Save the Children
     So, we wait until the piles of corpses are available. (How many corpses? Seems that there had already been hundreds in early March.)
     For people who are so willing to accuse Obama of the “torture” of Bradley Manning (whose father visited him and says that he seems okay) insisting on piles of corpses (thousands? tens of thousands? since hundreds aren’t enoug?) seems like a pretty high threshold.

271. From Obama’s letter to Congress:
     “United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster. Accordingly, U.S. forces have targeted the Qadhafi regime’s air defense systems, command and control structures, and other capabilities of Qadhafi’s armed forces used to attack civilians and civilian populated areas. We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize the objectives of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973.”
     He did not say he was supporting questionable rebels.

272. “He did not say he was supporting questionable rebels.”
     Perhaps you missed the point, for me at least, that he is doing one thing and saying another.

273. Like I said, I’m of the same mind of you, Jacob and I’m not going to wait till things finish up and then say ‘yeah, I thought so’. I think sapient is taking the opportunity to get in a few shots, and that’s fine, I’ve mentioned that I’ve been sympathetic to some points he’s made earlier, so how the US deals with a SC resolution is a something to think about, though I think it would be far better to make that point without implying that folks on the other side require such a massive burden of proof that almost flirts with Godwin. I thought this by Juan Cole was more to the point:
     That the world community has intervened in Libya but not in say, Yemen and Bahrain, has raised cries of hypocrisy. These charges are largely deserved. It is worth noting, however, that nowhere else in the Arab world where there have been widespread protests has the regime consistently responded with such massive brutality as in Libya. Yemen, with the sniper massacre of crowds on Friday, is moving in that direction, but Qaddafi has likely killed thousands since February 17, not just dozens.
     From February 17, a peaceful protest movement broke out throughout Libya. Civilian crowds gathered without violence downtown, in Benghazi, Tobruk, Dirna, Zawiya, Zuara and even in the outskirts of Tripoli as in the working class town of Tajoura. City notables and military men in the east of the country formed a provisional government. Many diplomats declared for the provisional government, as did many officers and even cabinet members.
     The Qaddafi regime responded with brutal violence to these non-violent protests. Early on, live fire was used against protesters in Tripoli itself. Last week, convoys of tanks rolled into Zawiya, supported by heavy artillery, firing on civilian crowds and on civilian apartment buildings. The tanks occupied the city center, and there are reports of a mass grave of the protesters. They were just protesters. They were easily defeated because they did not know, and most of them still do not know, how to handle a weapon. There were large numbers of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the rebel ranks.
     As far as translation, I have no Arabic, but it’s not like it was an isolated comment, what he’s said about youth taking pills provided by AQ and things like that is pretty out there. In looking for some of the rhetoric, there was this Juan Cole blog post about Gadhaffi’s son. In that post, there is this.
     Muammar Qaddafi even said there were no protests in the streets of his country, drawing a charge from US envoy to the UN Susan Rice that the old dictator is ‘delusional.’
     It is also to be noted that Saif was supposedly the one pushing for Western rapprochment.
     Another thing that bears mentioning is that Egypt just underwent some sort of governmental overthrow (though it looked like a popular revolt, the fact that Suleiman stepped up makes me wonder a bit) and seems to be supporting the rebels in some fashion. I’m not sure how to factor this in, but imagining a Libya-Egypt conflict might be another factor in making sure Gadhaffi is out.

274. I think it’s fair to be suspicious of the fact that this particular intervention is happening in another major oil-exporter where Western oil companies have been kept out of exploration and production
     Imagine that.
     For people who are so willing to accuse Obama of the “torture” of Bradley Manning (whose father visited him and says that he seems okay) insisting on piles of corpses (thousands? tens of thousands? since hundreds aren’t enoug?) seems like a pretty high threshold.
     It’s very weird to me that the discussion about whether we should intervene in Libya or not seems to be turning into a discussion of how bad a guy Qadaffi is.
     Stipulated: Qaddafi is an evil murderous pr**k. Not only that, he’s an evil murderous pr**k who has specifically targeted American citizens in acts of terrorism.
     A personal note. A very good friend of mine was supposed to be on the Lockerbie flight. He didn’t go, a co-worker went instead. Co-worker is dead, blown to tiny bits by a bomb sponsored by Qaddafi.
     So really, if Qaddafi ends up as a pile of bones picked over by cockroaches and crows, I’m OK with it. Karma, y’all. What goes around, etc.
     But if “evil murderous pr**k” is the bar for American military intervention, we are going to have our hands full.
     For one thing, we are going to lose a significant number of “friends” and clients.
     Why aren’t we intervening with overwhelming military force in Zimbabwe? In Burma? In North Korea? In any of the other dozens of places in the world where people are oppressed, in great numbers, by their governments?
     I’m not sure Mighty Mouse foreign policy (“Here I am to save the day!”) is really working for us.

275. Co-worker is dead, blown to tiny bits by a bomb sponsored by Qaddafi.
     It seems unlikely that Libya was responsible for the Pan Am 103 bombing. The LRB explains in detail here. The leading theory is that Iran blew up the plane in retribution for the savage American assault on an Iranian air flight that killed several hundred people.

276. I’m not sure Mighty Mouse foreign policy (“Here I am to save the day!”) is really working for us.
     I agree that the United States as Mighty Mouse is a very bad concept. The UN as Mighty Mouse is a very good concept.

277. The LRB explains in detail here.
     Turb, thanks, I will take a look at it. Net/net, Qaddafi is still a very bad actor.
     The UN as Mighty Mouse is a very good concept.
     I agree that “UN as Mighty Mouse” is much better than “US as Mighty Mouse”, because it requires some kind of deliberation about who the “bad guys” are.
     The basic question stands – why Qaddafi and not any of the other tinhorns?

278. “The basic question stands – why Qaddafi and not any of the other tinhorns?”
     Well, as I’ve said before, when there’s an international consensus about who the “bad guys” are, there’s going to be some attention paid to various countries’ interests, and oil is, no doubt, a factor. But other factors exist as well here: a strong popular uprising, an opportunity for limited airborne intervention, an early enough understanding of the threat to civilians that a rapid, contained response can actually be effective (although it is a little later than would have been optimal).
     It would be wonderful if the UN could act similarly against every malevolent dictator. As I said, a huge reason I support this action is that it is a step in building that kind of confidence in the moral force of the UN. The possibility that the UN might someday take on that role more seriously is something that I am too jaded to seriously believe will happen, but it’s something that I sincerely hope for. The UN is still a young institution – people need to keep making the leap of faith that it is something that we can make work.

279. Here I come to save the day!
     So far, I’m with sapient on this one. Given what I would term an alignment of factors of interest, both domestic and international, in the situation in Libya, I’d say the basic question is whether going after Qaddafi is right or wrong, and not “what about all the other bad guys?”
     We can’t go after all of them. We shouldn’t go after any of them without international support, unless there’s a clear and direct threat to our security (in which case we’d likely have international support, anyway).
     Whether or not we’re going about this properly from a tactical and strategic standpoint, I have no idea.

280. It seems unlikely that Libya was responsible for the Pan Am 103 bombing. The LRB explains in detail here.
     Turb, is it strange that this theory hasn’t gotten more play, that so many hold Libya and K responsible? One quote from a quick read of you link tells me that the author is not as deeply grounded in the facts as would need to be the case:
     In July 1988 a US battleship, the Vincennes, shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in the Persian Gulf, with 290 passengers, many of them pilgrims en route to Mecca. There were no survivors.
     The never was a “US battleship” on station off Iran named the Vincennes. The Vincennes was and is an Aegis class guided missile cruiser. Here’s a link that offers an alternative view of the “savage American assault”, including a timeline that can be objectively verified: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-422-human-supervisory-control-of-automated-systems-spring-2004/projects/vincennes.pdf.
     “UN as Mighty Mouse” is much better than “US as Mighty Mouse”, because it requires some kind of deliberation about who the “bad guys” are.
     Perhaps, but since deliberating on who the bad guys are involves the PRC and Russia signing off, my guess is that “deliberation” is probably not the right word and a lot of “bad guys” are likely to escape notice. The implication here is that the PRC and China offer a more balanced and insightful view of who is good and who is bad than the US, the UK and France. Personally, I’d go with liberal democracies pretty much every time.
     As I said, a huge reason I support this action is that it is a step in building that kind of confidence in the moral force of the UN.
     Is Libya still sitting on the UN Human Rights Committee? With respect, the UN resolution is a fig leaf, with virtually no moral force whatsoever behind it: the Libyan incursion’s objective morality does not turn on the UN’s imprimatur.
     And, the incursion is not the mere imposition of a NFZ. It is war less an actual ground invasion.
     Why K and not someone else? K is, relatively speaking, low hanging fruit–close by, easy and politically popular target for a relatively quick and easy operation (made so by US involvement).

281. Your deadlink is dead, McKinney. I think Gary has published the instructions, and actually linked instructions for how to do in-comment linking, that no one has any excuses for not doing so. Learn. Quit making us copy and paste, only to find the copy-and-paste doesn’t work. You’re swapping your inconvenience for ours.

     The never was a “US battleship” on station off Iran named the Vincennes.

     This, though correct, is a nit. It is, literally, immaterial to the claim, or the discussion of what really happened. The Vincennes is a ship of battle, and it’s kind of beside the point that someone writing about the shooting down of a commercial airliner might not sharpen his pencil as regards the terminology of US warships.

282. Oh. Cut-and-paste error. So: not totally dead, McK, but please make them clickable.
     Thanks!

283. This, though correct, is a nit. It is, literally, immaterial to the claim, or the discussion of what really happened.
     If I was going to make a claim of the nature asserted by the author, I might take the time to know what kind of ship actually shot down Iranian Flight 655. My point was, that on a quick read, as opposed to an in depth unpacking, this error popped up pretty quickly. I suspect there are good deal of other contestable assertions and mistakes of fact.
     On the techno side, how do I find GF’s instructions? My intent was not to make things more difficult for anyone.

284. I’m not dismissing the LRB article, but it is linked with a lot of speculation about Major ‘Tiny’ McKee and some sort of CIA drug ring. Google McKee + Lockerbie and you’ll find some and they were prominent enough to get an article in Time. There are some points that don’t jibe (read the reply by Inigo Thomas to see some of them) but I’m not able to judge them. Unfortunately, when you have something like this, Google is not longer your friend, cause you look and you are swamped by reams of webpages and since Peirce doesn’t give any links, it’s really hard to sort it out. This is a blog I found that devotes itself to the Lockerbie case, but I can’t vouch for it.

285. “I’d say the basic question is whether going after Qaddafi is right or wrong, and not “what about all the other bad guys?”
     We can’t go after all of them.”
     I’d like to point out that there are some right here in the good ole USA we could go after. It hurts my pride as an American to see people constantly focus on the bad guys elsewhere in the world. That’s a separate question from whether we are the lesser of two evils in Libya, of course.

286. “As I said, a huge reason I support this action is that it is a step in building that kind of confidence in the moral force of the UN.”
     Gaddafi has managed to leave himself without friends–that’s all that is going on here. Nasrallah gave a speech against him recently. (Nasrallah goes on to warn the Libyans about US motives, which is good advice coming from anyone.) You’d have a real change if governments were condemned for their human rights violations no matter who their allies were, but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

287. Nasrallah’s speech link
     It takes some doing to get Hezbollah and the US on the same side.

288. Well, I’m not going to drive any traffic to those places, but there is a meme emerging in the fever swamp about how this whole thing is because Obama is supporting Al-Qaeda. Seriously. google al-qaeda + Libya.

289. There is a link I’ve seen (did someone provide it here?) that says a fair number of the foreign fighters in Iraq came from eastern Libya. Of course Gaddafi also claims he is fighting Al Qaeda. But I don’t have time to look.
     But is that Obama’s motive? Um, not even us Greenwald readers think anything like that. Leave it to the far right.

290. Btw. I haven’t noticed much of this in the US press, but here in Germany there were some stories mentioning Gaddafi’s mustard gas stockpile and how some states are supposedly “concerned” about it, totally in line with the Iraq playbook. My local newspaper ran a story today quoting a Libyan doctor living here. He said “the gas could be used any minute” but of course there was no way he could tell what this was based on.

291. Donald, that’s Andrew Exum who has been talking about that, I think.
     I’m afraid that the shape of Libya as an issue (should we have intervened, is it constitutional, etc etc) is going to be similar to questions of nuclear power in that you are going to have people who are against military intervention in general (like Kucinich) are going to be joined by people who are reflexively against anything that Obama is proposing. With nuclear, you are going to have people who are truly concerned about the deployment of nuclear power and they are going to be joined by people who are advocating fossil fuels for their own gain.

292. I’d like to point out that there are some right here in the good ole USA we could go after.
     NFZ over Wisconson?

293. Donald, that link is in this post.

294. On one hand, we have this argument, which I admit I’m partial to:
     On July 4 1821 Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, referring to the conflict, told Congress:
     “She [the United States of America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
     On the other hand, we have the R2P argument (never again!), which while I don’t support it I have sympathy for. After all, who actually likes standing by impotently while some a-hole dictator slaughters people?
     I think, for many reasons, that Mr. Adams had it right. That said, I can understand if we basically got sucked into this because two close allies were pushing hard for it(UK & France, though it seems to me that of those two, it’s the UK that really has a marker to call in w/us, since they followed us into Iraq). I can understand the impulse to *do something* to stop the madness. And yet… I doubt this will end well and I don’t think this represents coherent policy.
     UN as Mighty Mouse is, if you squint and don’t think too much about it, really appealing. But then I get to thinking about it and I see problems. First, of course, is that “The UN” really means The UN Security Council. Second, the UNSC and the UN GA both contain autocratic states, some of which do all manner of nasty things (and, as readers of this blog will be aware, our sainted democratic selves do nasty things too). Thus, Might Mouse ends up deployed at the whim of the Security Council, with the 5 members holding vetoes being key. I dunno about ya’ll, but I’m not much happier about that than I am about unilateral or near-unilateral US interventions.

295. on a quick read, as opposed to an in depth unpacking, this error popped up pretty quickly. I suspect there are good deal of other contestable assertions and mistakes of fact.

     Again: if you’d noted any contestable assertions that went contrary to the laying-out of a wrongdoing by the US military, I’d be more open to those.
     HTML link-embedding instructions here.
     Sorry if I’m irritable. Our house is currently undergoing some remodeling, and my fuse is relatively short due to unavailability of my kitchen, seasonal respiratory ailment aggravated by plethora of airborne dust, etc.

296. Note, McKTx, that the link you posted in essence says a) [someone: the entire USN, the whole military-industrial complex, the captain of the Vincennes, or some other choice; take your pick] screwed up, and b) here’s how and why. It doesn’t attempt to justify what happened. That’s how I read it, anyway.
     Now, I don’t particularly like it that one of our warships shot down an airliner laden with civilians, but neither do I want to deny it once it’s manifestly obvious that’s what in fact happened. And I’d like to think that everything possible has been done to minimize the possibility of such a thing ever happening again.

297. Note, McKTx, that the link you posted in essence says a) [someone: the entire USN, the whole military-industrial complex, the captain of the Vincennes, or some other choice; take your pick] screwed up, and b) here’s how and why. It doesn’t attempt to justify what happened. That’s how I read it, anyway.
     I never said otherwise. Anytime a civilian airliner is shot down, it’s a mistake (at a minimum) absent something truly bizarre such as shooting down an airliner being used as a bomb.
     Thanks for the imbedded instructions, which I have now saved.
     Coincidentally, we are undergoing a remodel too. I recommend alcohol. Which I pretty much recommend in or out of adversity. Like tax cuts: good when the economy’s booming, good when it’s receding.

298. [In discussion of UN approval for action being superior to US approval]
     McKT: …since deliberating on who the bad guys are involves the PRC and Russia signing off, my guess is that “deliberation” is probably not the right word and a lot of “bad guys” are likely to escape notice. The implication here is that the PRC and China offer a more balanced and insightful view of who is good and who is bad than the US, the UK and France.
     The purpose of getting UN Security Council sign-off is not to make an objective moral determination.
     The purpose of getting UN Security Council sign-off is to ensure that none of the world’s major powers does something that unexpectedly pisses off one of the other major powers to the point of using military force to stop it.
     That’s basically all it’s for. It lets Russia and China veto anything that would really piss them off, and it lets the United States and Britain and France veto anything that would really piss them off, and the result is that a lot of resolutions don’t go anywhere but we also haven’t had another world war. So I would say it works pretty well.

299. What’s the over/under on foreign troops on the ground in Libya? I’m going to say sometime this weekend.

300. Already happened. Two pilots on the ground after a crash, recovery team (who shot a bunch of friendly civilians) on the ground, plus mysterious people in a civilian vehicle who recovered the second pilot in Benghazi from a hospital.
     I could imagine ground forces being sent into Misurata in the near future to try to break that siege, but I doubt it will happen and doubt it would be a good idea.

301. I recommend alcohol.

     Completely coincidentally, I was just thinking about letting the former contents of that Smuttynose Robust Porter be accompanied by another.

     recovery team (who shot a bunch of friendly civilians) on the ground

     Erm, link? I hadn’t heard anything about a recovery team being on the ground for any more time that it takes to recover (long past having been accomplished) or anything specific about accompanying violence.

302. Sorry, should have linked to the NYTimes Lede.
     No, the rescue team wasn’t on the ground longer than necessary for a rescue. I have no idea who recovered the second pilot, who had already been taken to the hospital (different snippet in today’s lede).

303. This is the problem with humnanitarian rescue missions, apparently we cannot rescue people without having to shoot them in order to rescue ourselves.
     At least there was no report of any fatalities, but someone did lose “part of one leg” and, of course, there will be many more casualties to come.
     BTW, since threads usually die when I make a comment, this might be a good time to start a new one on this topic.

304. “BTW, since threads usually die when I make a comment, this might be a good time to start a new one on this topic.”
     I’d surely like to, but I have more engagements tomorrow, so no promises. So many topics, so little time. Even in the Middle East, so many developments in Bahrain, Yemen, Israel, Palestine, on and on, so many aspect, but, yes, a little old war: hey, we’ll get back to it and you!
     Don’t worry, it’ll still be going on for a few days yet.
     Promise.

305. But here is an appetizer.

306. This is a “dead link.” It’s the URL most folks know how to cut and paste. It’s not clickble: http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html
     This is the active link version:
     Barebones Guide To HTML and Tags.
     How To Link:
     http://werbach.com/barebones/barebones.html#links
     Link tags.
     TEXT
     < >
     <A HREF=”URL”>TEXT</a>
     < A HREF="URL" > TEXT < /A >
     OR:
     left angle bracket A HREF =”URL”right angle bracket
     left angle bracket TEXT /A right angle bracket
     [A HREF=”URL”]TEXT[/A]
     Substitute pointy bracket for rectangular bracket
     Special characters = Special Characters, including pointy brackets.
     < < > >

307. I’d really like to take care of the “Morgan Warstler” troll, but have to wait for Eric or Slart to do so.

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