Libya in Transition
By Riley Madrian Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar began his military career by taking part in the 1969 coup that overthrew King Idris and established Muammar Qaddafi as the head of the Libyan state. Shortly thereafter, Haftar became Qaddafi’s chief of staff of the armed forces and was given control over…
North African Militancy – by Michael Godfrey
North Africa will be an area of primary concern for U.S. national security over the next twelve months. Since late 2010, this region has experienced sweeping protest movements, collectively referred to as the Arab Spring, that have caused widespread instability and severe shocks to the dynamics of the region. These shocks include the deposing of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Most important to U.S. national security are stability issues caused by the ouster of Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi in August 2011. The legacy of this revolution has been chaos in Libya, massive weapon proliferation, and a power vacuum in the region that has allowed al-Qaeda and its affiliates to have greater freedom of movement in Libya and neighboring areas such as Mali. Although U.S. security interests in North Africa also include Egypt, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan, policy makers should make issues in Libya and Mali their primary focus.
Important Developments in North Africa
In recent weeks, Mali, a democratic West African nation, experienced two events that threaten the stability of the country: a military coup and a rebellion that took over a significant portion of the country. Although this may not seem like such an abnormal event, given the seeming regularity of coups…
Against Reductionism
Recently there has been a deluge of calls for action to topple the Al-Assad regime in Syria in order to stop its bloody crackdown against the opposition movement. Many ideas have been thrown out into the open, the most prominent of which center around an air campaign, using a harsh…
