There is something ever so appealing about regime change, particularly by means of revolution. The hope for democracy galvanises the entirety of a long-suppressed population, rising from the ashes of an authoritarian regime. It has a nice ring to it. Time and time again, it has also presented global powers with a window of opportunity to stick their hands into the chaos and grab a piece of the pie. Whether this is for economic fulfilment, encouraging favourable regimes, or merely the result of international obligations, it is, however, essential to remain alert to the pitfalls of such an approach. The dark side of toppling a longstanding regime is that there is seldom a consensus regarding the question: What comes next? The inadvertent answer tends to be a protracted, messy power vacuum. A sordid cluster of warring factions and a population stranded in the crossfire, with no semblance of stability in their political environment. The case in question, Libya.
The story is a familiar one. Muammar Gaddafi had ruled Libya with an iron fist for around 42 years, having meticulously built up a systemically deep-rooted support network that held his throne together. The wealth of oil facilitated Gaddafi’s tight control over most aspects of life in Libya. This remained the case throughout his diplomatic ups and downs with other countries, as Gaddafi’s house of cards seemed glued together in perpetuity. Everything changed on February 17, 2011, when Libya became the latest leg of the Arab spring. As protests raged on in Benghazi, subsequently sweeping through the eastern parts of Libya, their dictator resorted to violent suppression in a bid to keep power. The harsh clampdown on the rebels attracted international attention soon enough, with the UN quick to raise concerns about human rights violations. Sanction after sanction failed to deter Gaddafi, eventually leading to the infamous Security Council Resolution 1973, which invoked the Responsibility to protect. NATO would take this up with tenacity, moving troops into Libya with unprecedented speed. Here is where things get iffy, though. The UNSC resolution had explicitly been for the protection of civilians, meaning that any intervening nations would be obliged to fulfil this goal proportionately. What it did not mandate, was a fervent push for regime change, facilitated by proxies of the international powers. The single-mindedness of the dismantling of the Gaddafi regime, culminating in his death at the hands of rebel groups, was a stark contrast to the supposed humanitarian tint behind the intervention. It reeked of a pragmatic prioritisation of self-interested states, intent on ensuring ideologically compatible allies in an oil-rich region.
What the interventionists had failed to account for was the fact that Gaddafi had managed to keep power for a really long time due to specific reasons. He had built up a vast network of patronage, facilitated by wealth accumulated from Libya’s vast oil reserves. This was also a key part of implementing his specific ideological aspirations, tinged with socialism and Islamization, as underlined in the notorious Green Book. In doing so, Gaddafi had ensured that state authority emanated through him, not from any administrative or governmental institutions. Being intrinsically tied to him, the state would have an uphill task of surviving the dictator. Completely disintegrating this network was never going to be easy. The institutional apparatus slated to replace Gaddafi was the National Transitional Council. It was seeped with foreign influence, prominently France and Qatar, whilst also being composed of a diverse range of rebel groups. The NTC evidently lacked the foresight to facilitate a seamless post-Gaddafi transition and was slow to bring about any real change. The net result was a gaping insufficiency of centralised authority, resulting in a chaotic grab for power among different interest groups.
By 2014, there were a whopping 1,600 militia groups operating in the country. This unsurprisingly coincided with the disillusionment of the population with the democratic experiment, evident in the meagre 18% voter turnout for the 2014 elections. The political reflection of this uncertainty was marked by a struggle for power between the UN-backed Government of National Accord and the locally popular Tobruk administration, eventually culminating in a full-blown civil war.
Lurking in the shadows, poised to exploit the mass dissatisfaction persisting among the people across various pockets of Libya, lay another important actor. The Islamic State (IS) grew with tenacity, parasitically grasping any ally they could. Their strategy of appealing specifically to tribes, militias, and smugglers by specifically appealing to their localised discrepancies against the new forms of government allowed significant expansion. In particular, they were able to dig roots into regions such as Sirte, where people had been largely opposed to the ousting of Gaddafi. While collective securitization efforts were eventually able to diminish the grip of IS over these areas, they remained a thorn in Libya’s political reconciliation efforts over the years.
Today, Libya remains marred by a political split that keeps dragging on, while citizens remain desperate for a glimmer of hope. Oil fields are shut down from time to time as a result of protests by dissatisfied masses demanding fair elections and social reforms. They feel let down by their leaders, but even more so by the international community that got involved with big promises, only to inadvertently implant a never-ending situation of turmoil.
This tale boils down to one simple point. Intervention is a slippery slope that, in recent history, has tended to ignore long-term probabilities. While the principle of Responsibility to Protect does constitute an important part of the present-day international system, it is by no means a green light for hurried, extreme actions that disregard consequences for the local population. If anything, the last two decades have demonstrated how such concepts serve as pseudo-moral justifications that merely serve as a smokescreen for economic conquest on many levels. In the absence of such consideration, has the international community really moved on from colonial mindsets of socio-political superiority? More specifically, where does one draw the line between humanitarian intervention and outright foreign destabilisation? In a world where states are not afraid to stick their noses in each other’s affairs, that is a question that desperately needs answering.
