How Libya changes the diplomatic map

The surprisingly high level of co-operation between France and Britain may be part of a broader readjustment of the old certainties of world politics

IT’S JUST OVER three months since the Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi doused himself in petrol and struck a match, setting in train his country’s revolution and unleashing wider forces that have already reshaped a region. Two of the most entrenched dictators in the Middle East have been forced from office with blinding speed, and across an immense arc, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, the same spirit of youthful liberation has left many other leaders shaken and nervous. Assumptions are being revisited, school syllabuses revised. After 41 years in power Muammar Gadafy finds himself isolated, sheltering from missiles and struggling to hold on in Libya. How these forces will play out may take years to clarify, but already the Arab spring has upended some of the old certainties of international politics and cast a new light over the geopolitical landscape, not least in the West.

Faced with a war-weary public and an overstretched military the US has provided the bulk of the military firepower for the early strikes on Libya, but politically it has been reticent, content to allow France and Britain take the lead. Nicolas Sarkozy finds himself in an unlikely position for a French president, applauded both by Washington neoconservatives and a majority of his own people for taking an unwavering stand against Gadafy. The British prime minister, David Cameron, has found his closest strategic partner in Paris, while Germany has sided not with Britain and France but with Moscow and Beijing on a UN Security Council resolution. With fires raging on its doorstep the European Union appears absent. Arab states are hesitant and Turkey is jittery, while Russia sees its interests served simply by hanging back.

Sarkozy’s reasoning is perhaps easiest to decipher. Wounded by criticism of France’s clumsy handling of the Tunisian revolt, which included an offer from the foreign minister to share French know-how on crowd control with the authoritarian regime in Tunis, Sarkozy aims to restore France’s credibility by taking a firm moral stance on Libya.

“There is also a genuine concern that if we let Gadafy crush the rebellion the way he has tried to, it will send the wrong message around the Arab world,” says Etienne de Durand of the French Institute for International Relations. Of course, harsh repression is just how the rulers of Yemen and Bahrain are dealing with their own protesters, but France does not regard the Gulf as within its “sphere of interest”, de Durand adds.

Sarkozy and Cameron together led the campaign for a UN mandate for military action on Libya, a process that culminated in the adoption – with abstentions from Russia, China and Germany – of a security-council resolution allowing for a no-fly zone and all measures short of a ground invasion to protect civilians. For Paris and London the marriage of interests over Libya came just months after the two countries had signed a 50-year defence treaty that allowed for nuclear-missile co-operation and the joint use of aircraft carriers. This week’s military co-ordination would have been possible without that treaty, but Ben Jones, a defence consultant who recently published a paper on the treaty for the Paris-based Institute for Security Studies, says the deepening high-level military and bureaucratic ties have made it easier for them to work together.

“What surprised me was how quickly they were both singing from the same hymn sheet,” says Jones. “On the question of intervention they seemed to be solidly together from day one. The treaty is founded on the idea that the two countries are so strategically close to each other now that they can base military action on a common view . . . This proves right a lot of the things they had been saying.”

The promise of French and British leadership of a broad-based coalition helped secure US support for the intervention, the early stages of which needed American military firepower topound command posts and air defences. Without unified command, the Libyan mission in its first week was co-ordinated by American forces in Naples, Italy, and Ramstein, Germany, but with the intensive initial bombing campaign now over, Washington is keen to hand over military control and take a political back seat.

Aside from its heavy debt, other military demands and war fatigue, the US has less at stake in Libya than does Europe, which relies heavily on oil from the north African state and worries about illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. But Etienne de Durand does not see in US reticence the signs of a long-term policy shift.

“Let’s remember that, at the end of the 1980s, everyone was betting on the decline of the US and the rise to primacy of Germany and Japan,” de Durand says. “The more apt comparison would be after Vietnam, when there was a kind of retraction of US power, and certainly much more prudence about getting the US to commit. That lasted, broadly speaking, until the Gulf War .”

Similarly, a botched mission in Somalia was fresh in American minds when the Clinton White House refused to intervene in Rwanda in the mid 1990s.

But the US’s desire not to take the lead role has left a question that Europe has been struggling to answer: who takes Washington’s place? The Americans’ preference, supported by Britain, Italy, Norway and other participating states, is for Nato to assume overall command of the coalition’s operations, and there were firm signs yesterday that Nato was moving into a leadership position. France, while conceding this week that the Atlantic alliance’s structures should be used, had been opposed to wider Nato involvement because it believes a prominent Nato (read western) badge would damage the coalition’s credibility in the Arab world.

The unstated reason for France’s misgivings about Nato, de Durand suggests, is that two of the largest members of the Atlantic alliance, Turkey and Germany, are opposed to the intervention and could act as a brake on military plans. Indeed Turkey, one of the most vocal opponents of action in Libya this week, has a difficult relationship with France, not least because Sarkozy is firmly against its ambition to join the EU one day.

A major Muslim country with pretensions to regional leadership, Turkey also has domestic reasons to feel wary about the Libyan intervention. One of the possible outcomes in Libya is some form of partition, says Jean-Pierre Maulny, deputy director of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations in Paris, and this is a prospect that worries Turkey deeply.

“Since Turkey confronts a possible secession by the Kurds, they’re always extremely cautious on interference in the internal affairs of a country when there’s a question of civil war or struggle between two factions in a country,” Maulny says.

This caution reflects a wider concern: apart from Egypt, Oman and the Maghreb states colonised by France, no Middle Eastern Arab state existed with its current borders before the first World War. So while many Arab leaders despise Gadafy, the break-up of Libya would horrify them.

Farther north, meanwhile, Russia wins in the diplomatic game through a form of diplomatic ambiguity. Unrest in the Middle East has pushed oil prices to about €80 a barrel, which has given a major boost to Russia’s economy.This may partly explain why, despite strong criticism of the coalition’s actions by the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, Moscow chose to abstain on the UN resolution.

And so what of Europe? Relations between Sarkozy and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have been strained for a number of reasons in the past year, but Maulny believes Berlin’s abstention on the UN resolution was a “disaster” that will take a long time to mend. The failure of Paris and Berlin to agree on Libya made concerted EU action impossible, reminding us, suggests de Durand, that “the EU is not a political actor”.

“It’s as simple as that,” he says. “We’ve had operations in Congo, in Chad. The French have tried, but the reality is that there is no common will to have a common security policy at European level.”

But could Britain’s closer relationship with France on military matters end up aligning it more closely with the idea of a European defence identity?

“I think it will potentially align Britain more closely with France . . . but the reason I’m more sceptical now about it developing into something classically European is the reaction of Germany,” says Jones.

Ultimately the stakes are high for everyone. The UN resolution was secured so quickly that crucial questions about the leadership, direction and goals of the mission have yet to be answered. If the stated objective is a ceasefire and the protection of civilians, the unstated one is clearly Gadafy’s removal. But what if Gadafy sticks it out and a stalemate ensues? Will the coalition commit to ground troops in the event of civil war? What if the rebels started to kill civilians loyal to the Gadafy regime? What is the West’s view on the prospect of partition? The questions go on, and the implications get more far-reaching.

“I’d say we’re in a political situation where the solution we choose is always the least worst,” Maulny says. “There’s no good solution.”

High-stakes manoeuvres over Libya Main players in the diplomatic game

The US

Washington provided the bulk of military firepower in the early stages of the Libyan campaign, including more than 100 cruise missiles used to smash Col Gadafy’s air-defence systems and command posts. But now that the no-fly zone has been established, Washington is keen to relinquish leadership of the mission.

Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron

With a knack for cajoling allies, the French president joined the British prime minister in pushing for a UN Security Council resolution. That they managed it, despite misgivings in the EU and the G8, was seen as a personal victory for both men. Polls show that two-thirds of French voters approve of Sarkozy’s efforts on Libya, more than double the number who approve of his presidency in general.

Germany

Berlin lobbied against intervention in Libya and abstained in the UN Security Council vote on the resolution. “Our hearts are heavy. It is no easy decision, but one has to consider what will happen in the end,” said the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

NATO/the EU

The EU has imposed sanctions on Gadafy’s regime, and Nato has introduced an arms embargo, but despite these actions both organisations are internally divided on military action. The US, Britain and other states want Nato to take overall command of the operation, but France has been wary of Nato leadership.

Qatar

A call from the Arab League for a no-fly zone over Libya was crucial in securing support for the UN resolution, and the involvement of Arab states is deemed vital to the legitimacy of military action. Qatar has taken the strongest line among the Gulf states by sending jets and other military support to the coalition. The United Arab Emirates has offered support, and Kuwait and Jordan have agreed to make logistical contributions to protect civilians.