Libya's Post-Qaddafi Transition: the Nation-Building Challenge
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This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non- commercial use only. Unauthorized posting of RAND electronic documents to a non-RAND website is prohibited. RAND electronic documents are protected under copyright law. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please see RAND Permissions. This report is part of the RAND Corporation research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity. C O R P O R A T I O N Libya’s Post-Qaddafi Transition The Nation-Building Challenge Christopher S. Chivvis, Keith Crane, Peter Mandaville, Jeffrey Martini n October of 2011, Libya’s civil war came to an end. Dictator Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was captured and killed while try- Key Issues ing to escape from his hideout in the Libyan town of Sirte, and • A year after Qaddafi’s death, the light-footprint a few days later, Libya’s transitional government declared the approach adopted for Libya’s postwar transition is Icountry liberated. The NATO military operation that had helped facing its most serious test. topple Qaddafi, Operation Unified Protector, came to an end, • The security situation requires immediate attention and and after eight months of war, Libyans were free from their dicta- could still worsen. Until the militias are brought under tor but faced the massive challenge of building a new country for state control, progress on other fronts will be very diffi- themselves. cult to achieve. In most cases, the appropriate approach is a combination of incentives and broad-based negotia- The Light-Footprint Strategy tion between Tripoli and militia leaders. Only in extreme The military intervention in Libya was unique in many respects, cases should the use of force be considered. but the most important was the fact that international actors • Libya and international actors deserve credit for the did not deploy postconflict peacekeeping forces. Instead, they successful elections in July, but the political challenges adopted a much lighter postwar footprint than in the interven- remain significant. Libya still needs to write a constitu- tions in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This contrast was tion. In doing so, it must determine the degree to which especially sharp for the United States, which had limited its mili- power is centralized in Tripoli and how to ensure inclu- tary contributions during the NATO air campaign to providing sive yet stable governing institutions. those capabilities that the U.S. military “uniquely” possessed and • Despite its role in helping topple Qaddafi, NATO is that would enable other allies to take the lead. Since the conclu- absent from Libya today. A greater role for the alliance sion of the war, the United States has maintained this low-profile is worth exploring, for example training Libyan security approach. Another important difference with the 2003 Iraq War officials and forces and providing technical assistance is the fact that in Libya, the United States sought to orchestrate for security-sector reform. an intervention with broad international—including, crucially, • Libya needs to begin rethinking the management of its Arab—support. economy, and especially of its energy resources, in order The foreign powers that intervened in Libya had good to maximize the benefit to its citizens, reduce corruption, reasons to limit their role during the conflict and afterward. and enable private enterprise to flourish in other areas, Foremost among these after the war was the fact that the new such as tourism. Libyan authorities were deeply concerned about their own • The countries that helped Libya oust Qaddafi must com- fragile legitimacy and therefore expressly requested minimal mit to helping Libya through its transition, lest that transi- foreign involvement. Immediate postwar Libya, in contrast with tion run off the rails. An international Friends of Libya Afghanistan, Iraq, other postwar situations in Africa, and even conference on assistance to Libya is warranted. the Balkans, was also relatively wealthy on account of its energy • Post-conflict transitions normally span years, and Libya’s resources and so less desperate for financial assistance from the will be no different. Nevertheless, if current challenges international community. The immediate postwar situation was are handled adroitly, Libya could still become a positive also much calmer than in many historical cases, so the deploy- force for democratic stability in North Africa and a valu- ment of peacekeeping forces seemed unnecessary, while the able partner against al-Qaeda. experience of Iraq suggested that foreign boots on the ground – 2 – might erode the goodwill that had been won among the Libyan These positive factors and the relative calm of the postwar population by the military operation. An additional argument for situation do not by any means justify excessive optimism about the light footprint was that deploying a large number of foreign Libya’s post-conflict chances. Post-conflict situations are histori- advisors might have overwhelmed the governmental capacities of cally very fragile and all too often return to war. A number of the fragile new Libyan state. major challenges still loom. This lighter-footprint approach has made Libya a test case for a new post-Iraq and Afghanistan model of nation-building. Electoral Success . but Security Failures Not only has the overall international role remained relatively The war was fought by a loose grouping of local militias rather limited, but so has the role of the United States, which so often than a unified single army, and postwar security remained in drove postwar operations in the past. This has necessitated a new the hands of these local forces. Because the postwar provisional division of labor on the ground, with a small United Nations government lacked legitimacy, it was unable to take concrete mission spearheading the international efforts and the Libyans action to rein in the power of the militias or to integrate them themselves in the lead overall. This arrangement made sense at into a single national force under the control of the government the time it was devised, but now may require some adjustment as in Tripoli. The government was recognized as the only author- Libya struggles to gain control of its security situation, elaborate ity in the country, but, as an umbrella organization that mostly a constitution, build institutions, and grow its economy—tasks hailed from eastern Libya, it lacked true national appeal. As the that are all pressing and on which progress has mostly been slow months progressed, it struggled to keep the country on track as it over the course of the last year. prepared for elections that would bring in a new, more legitimate national government, one that could execute with greater vigor Libya’s Strengths and Weaknesses the many tasks Libya needed to tackle. By comparison with many other post-conflict situations, Libya The main bright spot of the last year was the successful has had a number of factors working in its favor. The victory of elections of July 2012, which produced a relatively moderate the rebel forces appeared total and had the support of the vast parliament from which a more legitimate government might be majority of the population. The regional geopolitical situation formed. Elections, however, hardly guarantee peace, and some was relatively conducive to a stable transition, with peaceful scholars have argued they can even increase the probability of a revolutions in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt that created an return to conflict.3 environment supportive of Libya’s own transition. Meanwhile, efforts to bring the many militias that roamed Libyans also did not fight against one another in a long or the country under centralized control were halting. Old and new violent ethnic war; though regional, tribal, and other cleavages tensions were beginning to come to the fore and the security situ- clearly existed, during the war, Libya’s diverse groups fought ation was deteriorating. The tragic attacks on the U.S. Consulate together against Qaddafi rather than against each other as had in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, which resulted in the death groups, for example, in Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Libya’s of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, put a punctuation mark on a energy