This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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France Attacks

So, enforcement of the no fly zone in Libya just started… with France taking the lead.

Those of you you listen to the podcast know I (and Ivan) have expressed a huge amount of skepticism on the wisdom of the US getting directly involved militarily. It seemed like folly, adding a third major military commitment, for a cause where while you could certainly make a case that it would be nice to have a regime change in Libya or otherwise constrain the regime, the case that there was a compelling enough direct threat to the US to justify acts of war such as those needed to enforce a no fly zone was very very weak.

However… if Obama has succeeded here in something that George HW Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W Bush all failed in (well, if they even really tried)… namely working toward a UN-supported military action that did NOT have the vast majority of the action done by the US, but rather one where Europe (and perhaps others) take the lead… or maybe even do almost the whole thing by themselves with just symbolic support from the US… well… if that is what happened, then we have a whole new picture here.

It is still really early here. It is not entirely clear exactly what is happening. But it will be interesting to watch. If we do end up having a situation where regional players, who perhaps have more of a direct interest, take the lead and end up doing something successfully, while the US just nods and says “good luck with that”… without somehow getting sucked in deeply and directly… then that is a VERY interesting development. I’ll be especially interested in understanding exactly what the involvement is of the various countries (including the US) in this action.

Time to pay attention closely. I’m sure Ivan and I will be talking about this a bunch in this week’s podcast (which we will record tomorrow) as well.

Interesting times.

4 comments to France Attacks

  • From BT via Facebook:

    Go France! I think this is the last thing we need to get involved in. Let someone else with jet fighters do some of the heavy lifting for once.

    38 minutes ago

  • From JS via Facebook:

    Have they surrendered yet?

    17 minutes ago

  • From SM via Facebook:

    Hillary is on TV right now, VERY carefully avoiding describing exactly what US military involvement will be other than saying that other countries are taking the lead and we will “support them” and provide some of the US’s “unique capabilities” where necessary. I find the lack of an answer in and of itself very interesting. (I am among those that say if direct involvement is anything other than trivial, then congress needs to explicitly approve first.)

    2 seconds ago

  • From SM via Facebook:

    Oh, and @JS… no, not yet. Probably tomorrow. :-)

    2 seconds ago

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