Since 2011, Libya has been increasingly described as politically, militarily and territorially fragmented, lacking a strong central authority and solid national political and military institutions.[1] In particular, the disconnect between political and military actors, that is the inability of representatives of transitional state institutions to exercise their authority on the armed groups on the ground, has proved detrimental to restore state authority.
The transformations witnessed in Libya's security sector over the past decade largely reflect the violence that reshaped the country's social landscape during the 2011 revolution. Gaddafi, formerly the lynchpin to an idiosyncratic distributive state built on coercion and patronage, bequeathed post-revolutionary Libya with hollowed-out institutions, a rentier economic system, and a zero-sum political culture.
In October 2011, the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was murdered near the city of Sirte during the First Libyan civil war, resulting from the hugely consequential popular movement of the Arab Spring which overtook the whole MENA area. The bloody end of the rais, without a regular process, sounded like a dark omen to outside observers.
Libya's Arab Spring revolution can be viewed as the violent expiration of Gaddafi's 42-year-old social contract. Since 2011 the continuing grievances of Libya's peripheries towards Tripoli, the motley crew assembled by Haftar to usurp the revolutionary state and the swelling payroll of the public sector showcase that something remains gravely wrong. Whilst the old order may have died with Gaddafi, the failure to birth a new one has given Libya socio-political necrosis.
The relations of the European Union (EU) with Libya over the last 30 years have been comparatively more difficult than any other Northern African country. Following the ousting of Gaddafi, European states were divided on the Libyan issue and have since proceeded with no clear sense of direction. Divisions among member states have resulted in an EU policy which can be characterized as having been both incoherent and often contradictory over the last ten years. However, there were some limited periods in which EU countries reached a common stance on Libya.
Within three years of the popular and internationally supported overthrow of the Qaddafi regime, the initial optimism that Libya would put itself on a path toward stability, democracy, and prosperity gave way to a decade of insecurity and turmoil. Ultimately, in 2019, Libya's situation would devolve into a full-blown violent conflict, fueled by external actors engaged in intense geopolitical competition.
Ten years ago, the Libyan citizens took to the streets to protest the Gaddafi regime. In the following years, the country became the battleground of political competition between regional and international powers that exploited local rivalries to advance their interests. Nowadays, Libya still lacks functioning institutions to provide efficient services and fairly distribute hydrocarbons revenues to citizens. While severe issues remain, other developments give rise to cautious optimism.
After a year and a half of violent confrontation and various failed attempts of international mediation, the two Libyan warring sides, the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and the Libyan National Army (LNA), have recently agreed to an UN-backed nationwide ceasefire deal intended to pave the way towards a political solution to the country’s conflict.
The drums of war being beaten by Egyptian President ʿAbdel Fattah al-Sisi in June 2020 ‒ in response to the Government of National Accord (GNA) forces’ advance on the Sirte-Jufra frontline towards Cyrenaica, Egypt’s declared red-line ‒ seem to have been set aside to favour a possible agreement between the parties, as a consequence of the ceasefire[1] announced at the end of August by Libya’s UN-backed and internationally-recognised GNA.
In Libya, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are testing their ambitions as a middle power, exactly like they did - and are still doing despite extensive military disengagement - in Yemen. In both arenas, the UAE intertwines geopolitical and ideological goals: it needs strong proxies and trusted allies to achieve them.
Launched by the EU Council in the midst of the Covid-19 emergency, Operation Irini is the eleventh CSDP military mission[1], 17 years after the first EU “boots on the ground” in Macedonia. Irini's main task is to enforce the arms embargo on Libya, which was imposed by the UN since 2011 but unfortunately has never been effectively implemented as yet, thereby contributing to the peace process in the country.
The overlapping of civil and proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have gradually turned the wider Mediterranean into a land of conflicts, asymmetric threats and geopolitical challenges. In particular, the implosion of some coastal states of the southern shore has undermined the stability and legitimacy of the old regional system built in the post-Cold war. This shift has unequivocally stressed a new perception of the Mediterranean arena: an expanded and wider space turned in one of the world’s most volatile regions.