Looming Threat of Ground Troops Introduces New Phase of Action toward Libya

As of April 19, the air raid on Libya has been ongoing for a month. On the same day, the United Kingdom decided to dispatch a military team of more than 10 people to Benghazi, playing the role of military adviser. However, NATO’s actions continue to get stuck in a bottleneck; its commander Brigadier Mark van Um admitted at Brussels headquarters that NATO’s air raid on Libya was limited.

A German researcher at the Marshall Fund in Washington D.C., Ian Lesser, said to a correspondent that such action may indicate a new phase of action toward Libya.

Last week, the United Kingdom and France urged NATO consecutively to strengthen the effort in cracking down on Libya. Outsiders speculate that the appointment of military advisers by the United Kingdom aims at seeking new ways to help the opponents break the deadlock.

But there’s a great conflict between NATO members. A researcher from the European Union Institute for Security Studies, Daniel Keonane, said to a correspondent that only seven out of 28 NATO member countries had this intention. He predicted that more countries would offer help to the opponents separately.

In addition to military intervention, diplomatic mediation will not stop. April 19, chairman of the Libyan oppositions’ National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi initiated a meeting; on the morning of the 20th, the chairman was in France meeting the French president Nicolas Sarkozy for the first time.

Outsiders Conjecture That a New Phase of Ground War Is Approaching

The British Foreign Office announced cautiously on April 19 that the dispatched military advisers were to help the National Transitional Council improve the level of military organization, communications and logistics, better improving humanitarian aid and providing medical help. They emphasized repeatedly that they would not train and arm the oppositions.

Right after this, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe expressed that France was against dispatching ground troops to Libya.

Although all parties are avoiding leaving the image of directly involving themselves in Libya’s civil war, the action of the United Kingdom on the 19th still caused the speculation from outsiders that western countries were joining the ground war.

Until now, the use of only air forces has been obviously ineffective, said by Director of EU Institute of Security Studies lvaro de Vasconcelos, hoping the Gadhafi administration will solve the conflict politically is absolutely unrealistic.

The British Daily Telegraph cited the words of a British government official on 19th that the dispatch of military advisers to Libya was just the first step; there would be more measures after this, among which would possibly include British special forces attacking Gadhafi and arming the oppositions.

Daniel Keonane thought that the key issue of the Libyan situation was how NATO would strengthen its attack, including by dispatching ground troops and using helicopters; but the huge conflict between NATO members could cause more countries to support the opposition on their own like the United Kingdom did.

U.K. Military Dispatch Tests the United Nations’ Determination

After one month of air raids, western countries found that it was hard to be effective using that approach alone. France admitted on 19th that they underestimated Gadhafi’s army’s resistance power.

lvaro de Vasconcelos said that they thought the dispatch of ground troops to Misurata was the solution. He analyzed that the forerunner who dispatched ground troops was the European Union At the beginning of April, 27 countries in the European Union consented that under the premise of the United Nations’s mandate, they would send a humanitarian relief mission to Libya, and under necessary conditions, they would use military means to guard. There are two objectives of the military escort mission: one is to secure the supply transport to Libya, especially Misurata, and the other is to protect the safety of the evacuated personnel from Misurata.

However the United Nations hasn’t made any similar requests. If they make the request, the European Union will be the first western military forces that land in Libya after the start of the Libyan war. But Daniel Keonane thinks that this will be a rather small scale “pure humanitarian” action and won’t exercise any influence on the current Libyan military stalemate; he estimates that the number of E.U. troops will be within 1,000.

Nevertheless, NATO doesn’t welcome the proposal of an E.U. dispatch. On 19th, Mark van Um claimed that the current access points (navy, army and air force) for humanitarian personnel in Libya were all open, and it’s not necessary to develop new military actions.

On the same day, NATO’s spokeswoman Oana Lungescu announced that NATO would hold an ambassadorial level coalition conference with the European Union in several weeks to discuss the Libyan situation; she also said that the degree of information sharing between European Union and NATO was unprecedented.