To me, perhaps the biggest question for American to achieve the positive results that we say we want is whether or not we have a serious capacity for learning. With news today of fighting by the so-called Libyan National Army of General Haftar, supported by various alleged allies of the United States, in an assault on Tripoli seeking to displace by force the internationally recognized government there, I want to quote from a post from the early stages of U.S. intervention through NATO in the Libyan civil war in 2011:
In the meantime, one of the most telling things I have read about how our actions in participating in the Libyan mission are viewed by others is from Bruce Reidel at Brookings:
The Indians are puzzled that some in the West who had embraced Qaddafi less than a hundred days ago are now so shocked by his cruelty. Qaddafi did not change in 2011. Some former Indian diplomats are quick to suggest that the Libyan war shows America’s “unreliability” and a tendency to over react to the last news broadcast. Who are the rebels in Benghazi, they ask, that are now your allies? Why do you rush to help them, and not the shia protesters in Manama?
As one Indian observer put it, “the U.S. is both promiscuous and flighty” with its relationships.
These observations on the Indian view were published almost a month ago. If the NATO effort in Libya bogs down, we may find ourselves asking more rigorously, “why exactly did we decide to do this?” and “what specifically were we trying to accomplish originally and what specifically are we trying to accomplish now?”. Those same questions that eventually became “known unknowns” in Iraq.
In the meantime, The Hill caries a piece by Paul O’Brian of OxFam America on potentially critical budget cuts for the Millennium Challenge Corporation. No one at the MCC could afford to make the comparison politically I am sure, but let me make it for them: look at the cost of the Libya action versus the cost of the MCC. The MCC would seem to have bipartisan support if any area of development can. A George W. Bush initiative originally, but very compatible with Democratic “soft power” thinking and led by Obama appointees now. A relatively small staff and bureaucratic footprint.
In geopolitics, and in longer term development, we need to pay some real attention to states, but if this is a humanitarian effort don’t we need to look also at the numbers of people involved: is this worth the cost relative to the cost of other “kinetic” or “non-kinetic” endeavors? Ivory Coast, for instance, is a much more populous country.