Interesting to see someone else posting a similar take on Libya
There is nothing like an international crisis to make pundits think they are foreign policy experts; to the actual experts, each sloppy op-ed is like someone pushing to the floor a trolley full of brass instruments. As the uprising in Libya has turned to armed rebellion, I have had to cover my ears to avoid [...]
Libya, The Spectator and the limits of punditry
Aaron Ellis
Sun, 13 Mar 2011 11:56:49 GMT
Yes, its is a tragedy to see but we must really have the courage to say that there is very little strategic interest for the UK in Libya.
Thinking twice before committing service personnel and puffing out our chest is something we should be doing more of.
If the pro government forces prevail what will the other lot do, flee to Egypt or carry on an insurgency. Although the Gaddafi forces will not be hindered by western style rules of engagement and media coverage will be sparse, there is no doubt they are not equipped or trained for a protracted counter insurgency operation.
The Arab League has now called for a no fly zone.
Questions; Who will enforce it? Is it ow to late to have any real effect?
Your thoughts gents?
Sorry second question should read “Is it now too late to have any real effect?”
The ThinkStrat piece is quite right. It’s very easy for Cameron to talk. It’s very easy for France to talk. It’s very easy for British journalists to talk. The elephant in the room is that if anything happens, it’s the Americans who are going to have to do the heavy lifting. European governments are mouthing off without taking any responsibility. Speaking as a Briton, I’m fed up of hearing British pundits attack the Americans for being mealy mouthed and overly cautious when we as a country have rendered ourselves incapable of stepping up to bat ourselves. It’s incredibly patronising and irresponsible.
As for the Arab League, as far as I can tell they should certainly have the military power to take this task on themselves if they feel it is extremely important. But, yet again, the unspoken assumption seems to be that the Americans should come riding to the rescue and do the killing (which will doubtless be denounced in the Arab press as soon as a JDAM goes through the roof of somebody’s house) and the dying.
On the issue of British interests in Libya, I’d argue we have a few, though some of them are a couple of steps removed from us directly.
1) to keep the oil flowing.
2) To ensure that the Libyan oil contracts remain in the hands of companies that pay tax in the UK.
3) To prevent a mass refugee flight into southern Europe.
4) To try to ensure that any regime in Tripoli will be at least marginally willing to do business with the UK.
For me, any argument in favour of intervention needs to make a pretty convincing case that these interests will be advanced by getting involved.
I for one would rather see British resources helping out the Japanese at this point.
See also this piece by Daniel Korski:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6778388/the-coming-war-with-libya.thtml
Korski is a very clever person. But there’s yet another massive elephant in the room here. This is a good analysis that fails to emphasise its overall logical conclusion – namely that the British government has blundered badly. We have turned Gadaffi from an uneasy collaborator to an enemy, without having the diplomatic nouse or the military poke to have any impact on what’s going on. The most likely outcome is that Gadaffi will remain in power but with a newly antagonistic stance toward the UK. It’s all very well having a go at Blair (rightly or wrongly), but what the government seems likely to have done is to have pissed the gains achieved by Blair (grubby though they may have been) up the wall without actually managing to have any positive impact on events on the ground.
In other words, we can go on about the PM’s guts all we like, but actually we’ve probably screwed up our own interests while doing nothing to help the Libyan man on the street. Worst of both worlds.
All depends on the nature of the no fly zone. If it includes:
– stopping the use of all helicopters (tactical lift as well
as attack)
– an aerial blockade (stop arms and reinforcements for
Gaddafi entering the country)
– halts all use of military fast air (fighter, ground
attack, tac recce)
Then it might slow down what looks like an inevitability – that the better organised and equipped side is going to win…
What about the African Union (AU)? I’m sure the northern countries are within their sphere of influence and membership, any comment from them?
Gadhafi put a lot of effort into influencing the AU, which is probably paying off for him right now.
Interestingly, eastern Libya was apparently a big provider of suicide bombers to the Iraqi insurgents. Winning might be the worst decision he ever makes.
Gaddafi spent a lot trying to gain favour and influence with the sub-Saharan african nations after his same attempts with the Arabs failed, so the AU’s reaction will be interesting.
It heavily depends on how you look at it. I personally think Europe has got a massive interest in making sure it has a hold over what happens in Libya.
If it hadn’t in the early days, it has NOW, after turning Gaddafi into THE enemy, and betting so heavily on what is turning out to be, obviously, the loser horse.
If we allow Gaddafi to stay in power, we are soon all going to find out what exactly our interests were.
Don’t expect things to be the same after Gaddafi wins. Europe will never again do business with Libya, and this is far worse than people thinks.
And there’s no telling how vindicative Gaddafi may be.
Lockerbie and Ustica all over again…?
Perhaps.
It would not surprise me.
Well said Tony.
Aarons writing is always worth peoples time to read.
Cheers Admin
Quick(ish) note: The Spectator actually carries one of the best pieces I’ve read on Libya (certainly by somebody without a background in defence/military issues), in the form of a blog post by Alex Massie. It consists in very large part of questions, which is probably how it should be:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6779064/the-case-for-a-libyan-nofly-zone-is-at-least-in-part-based-on-aesthetics.thtml
I’d just like to slightly moderate my earlier comments, which perhaps sounded more emphatically anti-intervention than I really feel. To be clear, I think it’s entirely possible that once Gadaffi is back in harness, we will all end up looking back upon our non-intervention and repenting at leisure. But the point is that the bar for intervention must be set high, not least when our defence establishment is cut to the bone, our treasury is bare and we are already limping along with one war that we are still fighting as much because we can’t bring ourselves to get out as anything else.
Interesting article about US Leadership, or lack thereof;
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8177/the-new-rules-obama-abdicating-u-s-leadership-in-libya
Tony:
I liked your comment re the British Government blundering badly. Indeed they have. As all on here know, Britain lost the capability to unilaterally enforce an NFZ a long time ago. Therefore, if he was intent on having one, the least Cameron should have done was conduct a few SECRET talks with allies about their willingness to participate in such an operation, before he opened his big mouth. Unfortunately, the chance to strut around on the world stage sounding “right on”, proved too tempting.
And am I the only one sickened that the UK Government only starts moralising about Gadaffi when his victims are fellow Lbyans? If oil deals do trump morality, what about the murder of Yvonne Fletcher and the victims of Lockerbie? Yeah, I know Cameron didn’t make those deals, but he didn’t exactly cut ties with Gadaffi upon entering Downing Street, did he?
Gabriele
“Don’t expect things to be the same after Gaddafi wins. Europe will never again do business with Libya, and this is far worse than people thinks.
And there’s no telling how vindicative Gaddafi may be.
Lockerbie and Ustica all over again…?
Perhaps.
It would not surprise me.”
I think you might be over egging the pudding here.
The UK doesnt need the rebellion to knock Gadaffi for six. Maintaining a no fly zone would be difficult, bombing stuff is easy.
Half a dozen Tornados, a couple of Tankers, a few hundred storm shadows.
He’d be begging for mercy after the first 5 minutes.
Its 1150 miles from Cyprus to Tripoli.
400mile range on storm shadow.
750 Miles.
It can probably do that with Two Storm Shadow and drop tanks unrefuelled.
There might be a chilling of relations, but he isnt stupid enough to pick a fight over it, because we’d just knock him senseless.
@DominicJ
Storm Shadow of 400 miles range…? It is actually 250 km, a lot less than 400 miles. A lot.
And the whole RAF arsenal is, at the very best, around 850 or so missiles, if not less. Storm Shadow is precious and expensive, and it is kind of a “silver bullet” used with prudence.
And anyway, even assuming it was so easy (the US failed in several attempts at killing Gaddafi in the past, it is not so easy as it seems) could the UK do it…? Moreover, would it be WILLING to do so…?
A terrorist attack is Deniable. “We didn’t do it! Really, we are actually very sorry!”
And there goes the legitimation of your attack.
Moreover, if that’s what we want to do, THIS is the best moment for doing it, while establishing a friendship with the rebels to help them shape a Libya with which, hopefully, better and stabled relations could then be established.
We’ve got the valid reason to present.
It is justifiable, and its justification is self-evident, while very hardly a terrorist attack will ever figure as a solid-enough proof.
Afghanistan was invaded after the Twin Towers attack. And we all know how much the legitimation of that act is questioned.
No, i’m sorry, but things aren’t nearly as easy as you make them sound. I’m afraid that kind of plan simply would not work.
Little addition:
After the SAS seized catches of rockets and weapons being smuggled to the Talibans from Iran, with the same logic, we should already have seen HMS Talent firing Tomahawks over Teheran. But this is of course not the case.
Yeah not sure where 400 miles came from.
Even so, You could tanker in a flight of Tornados and lob a dozen Storm Shadows from well beyond any range Libyas airforce could hit back.
I think you estimate its cost though.
Its under a million pounds all in. Even including the cost of the flying hours to deliver it, hitting a tank or SPG is cost effective.
We could throw 100 of them at Libya for £250mn easy.
Chicken feed.
Killing ghadaffi would be a bonus, but the main effect is one of punishment, you blow up a bus, we level an oil port.
He isnt actualy insane, and if he does start considering that a good trade, his own side will slot him long before we can.
Terrorist attacks are deniable, the Taliban change position every few days, from being the guilty party, to having struck the greatest blow against the US.
In all honesty, who the **** cares?
A few beared lib dem whackos over here, and a few bearded child mnolester worshipers over there might, but since they’re angry anyway?
We might not do so, but we cou;ld kill every man, woman and child in Libya in a few months if we felt like it.
We dealt with the barberry pirates in much the same manner, you steal a ship, we destroy a port.
They gave up first.
Sheesh @DJ, you’re actually going for elected office?
you blow up a bus, we level an oil port.
Try :
You level an oil port, we do Lockerbie. Times 10.
Or :
You level an oil port, we torpedo any LNG tankers in the central Med. That not only knackers BG’s multi-£bn Egyptian LNG business, but means that the 20% of our gas coming from Qatar has to go via the Cape, and there just isn’t the fleet to cope with that longer journey. Let alone the effect on eg Italian LNG imports.
And ignore the fact that levelling an oil port hurts the global economy – aside from the direct loss of oil supplies, there’s the wider implication that the West would be prepared to bomb oil facilities of anyone they didn’t like – and we just don’t have that much spare capacity in the global oil supply network.
And that’s what this is all about. The nitty gritty of Benghazi or wherever isn’t that important compared to the bigger picture, which is all about not upsetting the applecart in Saudi (and to a lesser extent, Arab countries with the right sort of dictator). The world economy just can’t sustain the $200 or $300 oil prices associated with a revolution in Saudi – and given the tight correlation between petrol prices and the popularity of governments, not many Western governments would survive either. So the people in power should be very attuned to the need for stability in Saudi, and keen not to set precedents in Libya – that’s why the US and French are not shooting their mouths off unlike some other governments and members of the media. Their – and our – interests are at stake in Libya, but those interests may well lie on the side of the people who are bombing and killing civilians. Noone said this government thing was easy…
El Sid
Indeed, frank honesty is often viewed as a failing, although it usualy gets surprisingly good results.
“you blow up a bus, we level an oil port.
Try :
You level an oil port, we do Lockerbie. Times 10.
”
We nuke Tripoli.
I’m sorry, but if you believe Libya has the ability to escalate a conflict higher than the UK, you have taken leave of your senses.
The UK does fear Ghadafi, us throwing our support ball deep into the rebellion was a mistake, but the UK does not need ghadafis support to avoid planes falling from the sky and sarin being released on the subway.
“there’s the wider implication that the West would be prepared to bomb oil facilities of anyone they didn’t like – and we just don’t have that much spare capacity in the global oil supply network. ”
Erm, we do….
We spent an unreasonable amount of resources destroying German oil supplies in the second world war. Standard targets for storm shadows ARE fuel dumps.
The US air campaign in the first gulf war was directed at the Iraqi economy as much as the Iraqi military. And they produced rather more than Libya.
“Their – and our – interests are at stake in Libya, but those interests may well lie on the side of the people who are bombing and killing civilians. Noone said this government thing was easy…”
El Sid, I can only conclude you have wildly misunderstood my position.
I have little interest in supporting the rebels.
I was merely challenging Gabrieles assertion that in six weeks time, Ghadafi will be able to blow up planes over London with impunity.
He wont, because he’s as much a part of the bigger picture as we are. And we certainly wont protect “the bigger picture” when a 747 a day is coming down on an apartment building, he certainly wont jeapordise the same big picture for a few badly chosen words.
“The UK does fear *NOT* Ghadafi, us throwing our support ball deep into the rebellion was a mistake, but the UK does not need ghadafis support to avoid planes falling from the sky and sarin being released on the subway
After watching the tv last night and witnessing a ‘rebel’ wielding a MANPADS, SA-7 Grail or something similar I believe, my concern is following the dissolution of order and the pillaging of military stores how many man portable anti-aircraft missiles are now circulating North Africa in the hands of potential terrorists?
It might sound truly awful to say but the only person capable of clearing up this mess and recovering all of these weapons is Col Ghadaffi. If a boatload of Tunisians can sneak across the Med, moving a few boxes of MANPADS around shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Imagine what problems that will create for both military and Civil Aviation.
RE “how many man portable anti-aircraft missiles are now circulating North Africa in the hands of potential terrorists?”
- fewer than what CIA left behind in A-stan
- we have given them so many military targets that only one has turned up in Heathrow, one in Kenya and one in Sierra Leone… the French airliner shot down over Sahara was so high up that it must have been by a more “manly” missile, on loan from Gaddafi
if you believe Libya has the ability to escalate a conflict higher than the UK, you have taken leave of your senses.
Ditto if you think we would ever nuke Tripoli (but what then, they get their mates in Russia to nuke London?). I’m not arguing that Libya can make a bigger bang than we can, merely that they can escalate the game to a level where a capitalist democracy can no longer afford to play. Disrupting LNG supply is probably that point.
Your point about German oil dumps is irrelevant – this isn’t about small “oil dumps” supplying the Libyan military, but their oil export facilities. Which are a part of the network that supplies oil to industrialised countries – while we don’t import much Libyan oil directly, the fungibility of oil means that any cut in supply soon feeds in to us paying higher prices to secure supplies (and if the usual correlation applies, to a reduction in support for the governing party). One of the main determinants of the oil price is the amount of spare capacity in the system – you can regard the massive increases in the oil price during the Noughties as a reflection of the reduction in spare capacity shown here : http://www.eia.gov/steo/gifs/Fig11.gif
Now thanks to the recession in the West, there’s a bit more spare capacity than usual at the moment, about 4 million barrels a day, forecast to go down to 3Mb/d next year. So yes, we could survive the complete loss of Libya’s 1.6-1.7Mb/d (as an aside, Iraq is about 2.4Mb/d, so not that much more – the excitement about Iraqi oil is the potential rather than the current production). But it would leave us pushed to survive any further disruption, and that uncertainty in itself would probably put $30 or more onto oil prices. It’s also debatable just how much of that spare capacity is instantly on tap – much of it is mothballed and would take several months to come onstream.
But as I say – Libya is a sideshow. This stuff is all about keeping Saudi stable. Not only is Saudi the world’s second biggest producer (currently around 9Mb/d) but they have almost all the spare capacity – Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE have about 0.9Mb/d spare, but the rest is Saudi. Again, we don’t import much from Saudi directly, but losing any significant amount of Saudi production would make oil prices go ballistic and completely knacker the world economy.
RE “But as I say – Libya is a sideshow. This stuff is all about keeping Saudi stable. Not only is Saudi the world’s second biggest producer (currently around 9Mb/d) but they have almost all the spare capacity – Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE have about 0.9Mb/d spare, but the rest is Saudi. Again, we don’t import much from Saudi directly, but losing any significant amount of Saudi production would make oil prices go ballistic and completely knacker the world economy.”
- the reason why Americans started back pedalling on Libya, almost immediately after Obama’s initial rhetoric?
… only took one Joint Chiefs meeting in between, is my guess
ACC, good point. Although the French airliner was actually a bomb.
Although, actual figures are higher, this is worth a read. I’m sure there have been more since 2004 when the presentation was written.
http://www.ifri.org/files/CFE/CFEbolkcom.pdf
This article nicely sums up my position;
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/8192/a-missed-opportunity-in-libya
“Ditto if you think we would ever nuke Tripoli (but what then, they get their mates in Russia to nuke London?). ”
Yes, because Russias going to start a nuclear war over Libya, just like it did over Iraq….
The US actualy had nuclear weapons on stand by to be used if Sadam went chemical on invading troops.
Unlikely, but the threat was there.
“I’m not arguing that Libya can make a bigger bang than we can, merely that they can escalate the game to a level where a capitalist democracy can no longer afford to play. Disrupting LNG supply is probably that point.”
If the government ignored planes being bombed out of the sky on a daily basis the government will be toppled and replaced with one prepared to act.
Again, I can only repeat, gadafi is not going to start raining exploding 747s on London once the rebels have been beaten.
He just isnt.
If your arguement is that the UK government cares more about gas prices than hundreds being killed by terrorist attacks every day, your arguement is wrong
“Your point about German oil dumps is irrelevant – this isn’t about small “oil dumps” supplying the Libyan military, but their oil export facilities.”
Nope, I simply wasnt clear.
Bomber Command spent a lot of effort trying to destroy Romanian Oil Fields.
Seperatly
Storm Shadow is deigned to destroy any stockpiles of the same
Seperatly
The first Iraq war saw the almost complete destruction of Iraqs oil industry, along with electricity generating capability and such.
Yes Gareth,
Not commenting on the whole article, but the punch line at the end is bang on:
” having now firmly rejected unilateral action, with all the salutary effects that implies for the global order, the U.S. will yet again reverse course and take unilateral action if events outrun the U.N. Security Council’s willingness to intervene. If so, I would suggest that in future Obama’s advisers keep him away from corners or paint, or both.”
@DJ
Why would Russia go nuclear over Iraq? They were the biggest single winners of GW2.
Even if Saddam had gone chemical, the fact remains that it is still pretty unlikely that the US would have gone nuclear – and the odds of the UK going nuclear in Libya are orders of magnitude less.
Forget this straw man of “planes being bombed out of the sky on a daily basis” – it ain’t going to happen, at least we can agree there. Gaddaffi would be more subtle than that – hence my suggestion of going after LNG ships in the Med. Even accepting your straw man – how many Lockerbies would it take for the UK to retaliate? Our only data point is that one Lockerbie is not enough to hit back – and one suspects that popular support for military adventures overseas is probably at an all-time low. Our only data point for bombing Libya also suggests that it wasn’t enough to stop Gaddaffi killing Western civilians.
You’re still utterly missing the point about oil supply. The Romanian oilfields were effectively a domestic supply for the Wehrmacht. Bombing them had no effect whatsoever on the availability of oil to the UK and US. Ditto “oil dumps” or “stockpiles”, which are trivial in size compared to the amount of oil being produced by these countries on a monthly or annual basis. For comparison, Buncefield is one of the biggest “oil dumps” in the UK – but its capacity is about 1.7 million barrels, or about 17 hours production by Iraq.
Unlike bombing Romania in 1943, bombing the Libyan or Iraqi oilfields does have a direct effect on world prices, and hence on the price we pay for oil, and hence on whether we go back into recession. In 1990, it was judged an acceptable risk given that the aim was not to depose Saddam completely – but I would note that UK GDP went negative in Q3 1990 and stayed there for three years. And that was despite the fact that there was a fair amount of spare capacity around at the time, and prices had been reasonably weak – and Iraq’s oil industry was not “completely destroyed”, they still managed about 0.6Mb/d even after the war.
You could also compare the US’ desperation to preserve Iraqi oil infrastructure in GW2, against a background of very tight capacity and rising prices.
You also ignore my main point, that this is really about sending signals to Saudi rather than dealing with Libya per se.
El Sid
“Why would Russia go nuclear over Iraq? They were the biggest single winners of GW2″
Pre invasion, it was common knowledge amongst the deluded lefties, that if the US invaded Iraq, Russia and China would nuke it (seriously…)
“and the odds of the UK going nuclear in Libya are orders of magnitude less.”
Only because the odds of Libya launching a sustained nerve gas campaign are so, well, nil,
“Forget this straw man of “planes being bombed out of the sky on a daily basis” – it ain’t going to happen,”
But thats exactly my point.
Ghadafi isnt going to start a campaign of terrorism because we said, “stop bombing civies old chap”.
“but I would note that UK GDP went negative in Q3 1990 and stayed there for three years”
Which had a lot less to do with oil than it did with ERM…
“You also ignore my main point, that this is really about sending signals to Saudi rather than dealing with Libya per se.”
I wasnt so much ignoring it as, well, I suppose I was ignoring it, I dont have an opinion.
Once again, I can only reiterate.
I commented merely to point out that in a weeks time, this will all be forgotten.
Ghaddafi isnt going to start a campaign of blowing up airliners.
He has just as much to lose from a souring of relations as we do.
My predictions are;
Internationaly, nothing will be said in public, except perhaps Ghadafi given faint praise for avoiding civillian casualties.
In the UK, if people keep trying to make hay of Camerons band wagon jumping, it will be pointed out that Cameron said “stop bombing civies or I’ll dlow up your airforce, and Ghadafi complied. Cameron will not be drawn on the subject.
Privately, Ghadafi/Libya will be thrown a bone by the countries that went over the other way.
No one will do any bombing.
We wont, because we have little reason to topple Ghadafi.
Ghadafi wont, because that would be a reason for us to topple him.
Possibly of interest. The US Middle Eastern expert Marc Lynch has been touring the Middle East over the last couple of days and has had contact with both US government officials and Arab officials. Libya a major point of discussion. Couple of hours ago he tweeted that David Cameron’s name hasn’t come up in conversation once. Sarkozy and the French, yes. Cameron, no.
Furthermore, a friend of mine in the USA I was in touch with last night commented that from his side of the Atlantic the vigour of the debate over Britain’s role seemed pretty at odds with the actual (lack of) prominence of the UK in a lot of the real world international discussions of what’s going on.
So there you go. We’re discussing whether or not Cameron is right or wrong, but perhaps we ought to be asking a broader question – namely whether anybody outside of the UK is actually listening. I don’t know what’s more depressing, the fact that our policy may be worryingly half-baked or the fact that, good or bad, it may well be a moot point.
Hi Tony,
RE” asking a broader question – namely whether anybody outside of the UK is actually listening”
- jaw-jaw vs. war-war has so many shades between it, I wish the gvnmnt had Portiilos/ Rifkinds & the likes in it;
- they do come across a bit rosy cheeked?
Tony
We arent exactly in favour with the current US Executive though….
Its easy to draw the conclusion that Cameron is being ignored as irrelevent, but it could equaly be his screw up has been buried by Sarkos bigger one….
As I’ve been saying all along, its not our problem, we have no reason to get seriously involved and no capability to get seriously involved in any event.
Why would anyone massivly over react to vague comments that bombing civillians may result in a no fly zone being imposed?
If, in 1982, China had said it was considering a no fly zone over The Falklands, I get the odd impression we wouldnt have been keeping two Vanguards at sea over it…
TD’s side bar carries the link to this interesting piece:
“Free Libyan Air Force” (never heard of it before today) has attacked the Libyan Navy off Ajdabiya, and 2 Libyan warships are on fire – sinking, while a third warship is said to have been damaged.”
If this report by the rebel opposition turns out to be true, this is a very interesting development in the Libyan civil war. I think I speak for many of us when saying I am very curious who this “Free Libyan Air Force” is.
I would not be surprised to learn it is not Libyan at all, or not only Libyan.”
- so now we have a “Kondor Legion”, an arms embargo and lots of warships sitting off the coast
- I wonder which “legion” will turn up next?
Stormshadow is designed to take out hardened targets, not just fuel dumps. It could be used to crater runways.
Reaper drones could stop stop his artilery.
Hi SD,
RE “It could be used to crater runways” – a very expensive way to move earth
- did we use up all the specially developed munitions in the GW?
JP233 and the like count as cluster munitions and as landmines, so were banned on two counts. It was intended that Storm Shadow would have a JP233-like bomblet version, but that obviously never happened.
It seems the rebels captured several AF airfields at an early stage, it’s interesting that they’ve only now suddenly acquired the ability to fly things.
Another interesting suggestion – rather than a no-fly zone, have a no-drive zone between east and west.
ACC
The Storm Shadow should acualy work quite well at damaging runways, if not as well as a cluster munition.
It has a breaching charge that would cut the run way surface, the main charge them passes under the runway and detonates.
Not only creating a decent sized hole, but damaging the sub surface and foundations for some distance around it.
We called them Earthquake Bombs in the second world war, might effective, if expensive, weapons.
The more I see of the media coverage of the back and fro of Rebels/Gaddafi forces, the more I’m reminded of the Desert campaigns of WW2; the rebels went rushing off down the coastal road after finding little opposition, stretching their supply lines. Gaddafi counter-attacked, sending them just as quickly back up the road. Now it seems the military elements of the rebels have been spending their time training the once civvies and securing their base of operations. Does Gaddafi have the logistics as well as the manpower to take the city, or will his attack be repulsed and its back down the road again?
Hi El Sid,
Oh dear, “so were banned on two counts” were we that naughty?
RE “Another interesting suggestion – rather than a no-fly zone, have a no-drive zone between east and west” I hinted at this one earlier, but by now the oil terminals will be left on the “wrong” side.
Hi DJ,
RE “effective, if expensive, weapons”
- had no doubts on the former
- on the latter account, it is 800.000 a pop ($ or £, don’t remember)
But… El sid already shot down my budget version (on account of double murder)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12769993
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8214/on-libya-the-do-something-crowd-is-back
and this – http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/8215/world-citizen-saudi-arabia-and-iran-face-off-in-bahrain
Bad time to be cutting our Armed Forces?
ACC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallboy_bomb
“When dropped from 20,000 ft (6,100 m) it made a crater 80 feet deep (24 m) and 100 feet (30 m) across and could go through 16 feet (5 m) of concrete.”
Admitadly, thats a 2500kg warhead, Broach is 450kg, but if its just a 5th as effective, it digs 4 metres down and 6 metres across and blows out 1000t of earth.
Thats going to require a lot more to repair than a bag of self leveling compound from B&Q.
The second world war versions were stunningly effective, not sure if a smaller storm shadow mount would get the job done.
And yes, expensive, compared to a pint of beer, but not really in a war. They cost less than a T72.
El Sid
Well we know the rebel sympathising pilots buggered off to Malta, perhaps they’ve only just got back and rounded up some rebellious fitters?
GJ
If the rebels have managed to get their own heavy stuff operable, they might hold, but it wont take much for Gadafists to dig in around Bregda or Ras Lanuf.
Or for the rebels to realise they dont like each other very much and start killing each other.
@DJ – big bombs are notoriously ineffective against runways, you only need a few hours with basic earthmoving equipment to get them up and running again. Hence things like JP233, which made lots of small holes and (more importantly) turned the runway into a minefield to hinder the deployment of bulldozers. The predecessor to Storm Shadow, Apache had 10x 50kg warheads to make lots of smaller holes rather than one big one, but presumably got past the cluster bomb rules. (like the French would ever care)
@ACC – come now, we can’t have the RAF murdering people! Just think of the paperwork – risk assessments, health and safety, surveys to make sure they were murdering an equal share of ethnic minorities, it would just be a nightmare.
el sid
they said the same about tall boy.
A subsurface explosion is a lot more effective than a surface one.
I really doubt a 4m deep crater is ‘easy’ to fill and build a runway on top off.
But i could be wrong.
Now we know, from the ambassadors to the UN talking to each other that two out of the 5 Arab nations giving more than moral support to Libya are… UAE and Qatar
-add Egypt (just guessing) for the use of bases
- leaves two more, at least… who could they be
- Morocco, for manning a demarcatiion line; I think having the neighbouring states present on the ground might be too much?
- so, one more, at least? Lebanon? They tabled the request