FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Friday, February 25, 2011

"Abu's Doctrine" or "Lyons in Libya?"

Regime Change in Libya by ADM (RET) Lyons gave me pause for alarm due to the fervor with which the author subscribes to US intervention in Libya.  (DISCLAIMER: ADM Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, so he possesses infinitely more Naval Street Cred than I do)  Before I get into what I disagree with him on, let me first say that he makes a number of great points:
- One of the worst despots in the world is the mercurial Moammar Gadhafi of Libya.
- Incidentally, Libya having a seat on the Human Rights Council illustrates the need for restructuring of the U.N. and its bylaws.
- We should recall that when Saddam Hussein was about to be forced out of Kuwait he torched the Kuwaiti oil fields. We should anticipate that Col. Gadhafi, as unbalanced as he seems to be, might take similar action as one of his last desperate acts of defiance.

Now on to our differences:
"As a first order of business, we should reposition an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The USS Enterprise and the USS Kearsarge, both in the Red Sea, and perhaps the USS Ponce as well, should be turned around to re-transit the Suez Canal and take a position off the coast of Libya. The Enterprise is to relieve the USS Carl Vinson, which currently is in the Gulf of Aden. This relief could take place in the Mediterranean, which would result in two carriers off the coast of Libya. U.S. Air Force B-2 strike bombers also should be repositioned in the region."  While Qaddafi's actions are despicable and evil, he does not pose an immediate and overwhelming threat to the United States itself.  Yes, his actions will affect us economically (by the way, what would the cost be of ADM Lyons plan) and yes, there are American lives at risk in Libya.  However, repositioning two aircraft carriers and multiple B-2 strike bombers?!  This seems a bit of an overkill.  Instead, I would offer that this is a great chance for our European allies to step forward.   The US is not the only country with aircraft carriers and a Navy.  This appears to be a perfect opportunity for Italy to step forward, along with Spain, France LOL if (!) outside intervention is needed.  And if military defections continue, they may not need anyone's help.  Finally, the Washington Times propensity for providing a nauseating amount of hyperlinks is tiring.

"As part of the next demonstration, we should use the opportunity to implement our strategic strike plan to destroy Iran‘s key nuclear infrastructure and other military facilities."  This seems a vastly overly ambitious plan (and almost a non sequitur), n'est-ce pas?  We still have (essentially) two wars going on.  There are plenty of other evil, ruthless dictators that don't like the US, but I am not sure now if the time for us to go all Grand Theft Auto on the bad guys of the world. 

I'd like to close by pointing readers to something I'll call the Abu Doctrine (and yes, I know it doesn't work from a literal translation aspect but the Abu Muqawama doctrine doesn't have quite the same ring to it).  He points to 4 important questions we should ask ourselves before we intervene abroad.

(http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/02/libya.html)

1. Will an international intervention make things better, or worse?
2. If worse, do nothing. If better, who should be a part of this intervention?
3. Should the United States lead the intervention?
4. If so, what should we do?
All too often in humanitarian emergencies or conflicts, we skip ahead to Question 4 without first answering the first three questions. Let us not make that mistake this time. (Because I don't myself even know the answer to Question 1.)

I would add a 5th question (we can call is the FUUO corollary):
5.  What is our exit strategy?  What is the end state we seek to achieve?  In other words what will be the tripwires that cause our departure?  The last thing the US needs to get caught in the middle of is a creation of a new government, constitution (i.e. nation building) in Libya.  We should not act until we (the intervening actors) have examined and answered these five questions. 

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