Libya: "Mr. Cool" Obama's War by Proxy

The victory over Gadhafi owes its success not to the insurgents’ courage, or to Sarkozy’s persistence, or to the combined Franco-British efforts, but instead to… Barack Obama.

“The tide of war is receding.” On Oct. 21, Barack Obama used this poetic metaphor to announce to his fellow citizens the definitive withdrawal of American troops from Iraq before the end of the year. This announcement followed the previous day’s proclamation of the coalition’s victory over the last of Col. Gadhafi’s forces after the colonel’s death, shot down as he attempted to flee with the last patch of his partisans.

The manhunt for Gadhafi, much like the hunt for Saddam Hussein, took seven months. In both cases, America scored a victory when each of these two hugely symbolic enemies disappeared from the playing field. However, the different wars which led to each result show just how much the American doctrine and its rules of engagement in conflicts have changed.

In the case of Iraq, an intervention meant the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops, cost nearly 4,500 lives of American soldiers and cost the United States Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars. The result was not completely satisfactory. More significantly, it bore hardly any resemblance to George Bush’s hope to bring democracy to the banks of the Euphrates.

On the other hand, Libya: Not one uniformed American soldier was deployed, not one life was lost among the coalition members (although it did claim a significant number of Libyan lives) and it only cost the United States a little over a billion dollars. A fundamental hope of this engagement was that a military success would lead to the foundation of a more democratic regime.

Qualified Success for the Coalition

These differences are undoubtedly due to Obama (“Mr. Cool,” according to journalists), who is quite different from the hotheaded George Bush. For example, he refused to engage in what Gadhafi would probably have considered ultimate glory: a direct confrontation with the American devil. Through direct implications, the Pentagon can hone their strategies using the conclusion drawn from this calculated refusal. A war against an average-sized power like Libya can be won relatively quickly without any human intervention on the battlefield if certain actions are taken. At first, use only air-to-surface and sea-to-surface precision missiles. Then, create a reliable system of information and observation using an armada of drones to determine the location of key targets. Finally, rely upon an allied network of well-trained and solid air and naval forces — in this case, the French and British armies.

Still, although Obama’s proxy leadership was a success, the coalition’s forces had a more qualified result. Of course, they helped secure the insurgents’ victory through thousands of relentless air-based attacks. But without question, this war proved that the French and British forces have a pressing need for American strategy.

Essential Drones

30 American KC-135 planes were mobilized for the war, 16 of which flew 24 hours a day to refuel the coalition’s planes. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also provided planes which controlled airspace, so no Libyan plane has been able to fly for months.

American Predator drones transmitted information of ultimate importance, as confirmed by the final attack against Gadhafi. One of the drones relayed to French air forces that a significant convoy of 4x4s was leaving Sirte. Two Mirages could then block the fugitives’ path. For a few months, the coalition has been able to determine just how essential the American unmanned surveillance aircraft has been. The CIA mobilized all of its available American drones in the area for two days over the summer, mostly likely to track an al-Qaida leader. As a result, the coalition’s air force was instantly blind, and they had no way to carry out any of their precision missions, as they had done every day of the conflict.

The French and British armed forces must equip themselves with effective drones in order to not simply serve as the physical armed presence of the American power controlled by proxy. We must hope that they don’t fail on the path that they have recently chosen for themselves.