The NATO Angle
By John Cole March 23rd, 2011
Apparently they won’t be taking over the operations in Libya. Can someone explain what is going on and why NATO would have taken over the operations, when the coalition includes non-NATO members? I’m curious.
Posted in War
I don’t know why they would have taken over operations, but they’re not doing so because Turkey vetoed it.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:49 pm
I think the argument for NATO taking over is that they already have the command structure and the logistical means to do this sort of thing.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:51 pm
1) Geographic proximity to the Area of Ops, ie. shitload of NATO people already in the neighborhood.
2) C3. NATO haz itz.
3) Sustainability.
From my USMC Command and Staff college days, purely from an operational perspective, sure, NATO has the chops and would be the logical command unit to lead such an operation.
Obviously that ignores the politics and strategic implications of such a NATO op. My thoughts are we lift a page from our Cold War opponents. Instead of being so obvious about our military role, instead we fund and arm the rebels. Lots. And for as long as it takes.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:52 pm
We could turn it over to Pee Wee Herman and The Muppets, so long as the above comes true.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:53 pm
The only reasons NATO would take over is that it has a competent command and control structure located reasonably near the AO and several NATO members are taking part in the action.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Plausible deniability.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:53 pm
From what I’ve been able to tell, it looks like Italy has been the primary advocate of putting this operation under NATO command. Italy’s main justification is that NATO is best equipped materially and organizationally to lead; I think they’re worried that there will be too much confusion over who does what and who’s “in charge”, especially since Italian bases are playing a big role.
France and Turkey have been opposed; in France’s case, it’s because they think NATO’s image in the Arab world is too negative (mainly because of the US) and Turkey thinks the bombings have already gone beyond the UN mandate.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Where are you seeing that they aren’t taking over? Everything I’m looking at still says that they are.
Edit: And by are, I mean are supposed to.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:56 pm
i think NATO was the backup plan, if the UN didn’t agree to involve itself in Libya’s civil war.
there’s also a bit about an arms embargo:
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Maybe they should get ARAMARK?
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:58 pm
NATO taking over the no-fly zone would have made life a bit simpler because there would be an existing command structure that the non-members could have tacked into. I’m not sure it will make a massive difference in the end result, just more logistical hassle. I’m surprised Germany hasn’t made more noise about it considering they pretty much pulled all their personnel from the Medditerrenean.
Keep in mind that NATO is running the arms embargo at sea, with Italy providing a large proportion of the ships, probably also as some kind of forward defense against any kind of funnies that Gaddafi tries to pull.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:58 pm
How about no integrated command? US reports to US, France to France, etc.; at this point, it’s not like we need integration except to prevent running a plane into a plane (which isn’t going to happen).
Added benefit, when the bomb hits Kaddafi’s tent, all different countries can point to another one and say “not me”.
March 23rd, 2011 at 2:59 pm
John,
Me thinks Obama, Gates and Clinton have lotsa explaining to do!
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:02 pm
@General Stuck: Is this more of that “imperial presidency” some people were rambling on about here yesterday?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:02 pm
@Ronc99: Quoi?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:03 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: Right. The only standing military coalition out there is NATO. The UN doesn’t have one, other than trying to shoehorn it under the peacekeeping banner.
More than anything else, it’s a shortcoming of the UN. If the UN has adopted a resolution that they should intervene in nations in which the government has turned against the citizens, they need to have some kind of mechanism by which to do this. They don’t. NATO is about as close as the planet has, and clearly that’s not always appropriate (I agree that this shouldn’t officially be a western action).
I think they should form some new ad-hoc structure lead by the UNSC nations. It’ll look pretty much just like NATO, but it won’t be NATO.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Who cares who’s in charge as long as we can blow shit up?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:10 pm
So we’ll have Qatari, UAE, Canadian, Norwegian and a few other countries jets sharing Italian and Greek airbases without integrated command. Nothing can go wrong there…
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Because they can? Sort like because Orbitz has a hovercraft.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:16 pm
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: instead we fund and arm the rebels. Lots.
Isn’t that what we did in Afghanistan? How well did that turn out in the long run?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:17 pm
@Martin: The one world government freakouts would really be fun to watch if the UN addressed this issue!
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:17 pm
If the French take over, Libya’s precious bodily fluids will be shot to hell.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:22 pm
@The Dangerman:
The problem is that the US and UK seem to be on the same page, possibly with Italy as well as some others. France wants to do much more, and the other nations don’t trust them enough to turn over command to them. Then another group of nations like Turkey don’t want to turn their back on the situation, but think that even the US and UK are going too far.
Whoever takes command takes command – they’re going to call the shots, and if it’s France and they say to carpet bomb Gaddafi’s house, then that’s the order. If it’s Turkey and they say to stop all air-to-ground activities, then that’s the order. But there needs to be an integrated command.
Ironically, it seems everyone trusts us the most to be in charge.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:24 pm
@Dennis SGMM: Who cares who’s in charge as long as we can blow shit up?
Willard: Hey soldier, do you know who’s in command here?
Soldier: Ain’t you?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:26 pm
@gex: No shit. But the UN has put forward a pretty strong position on this – and Libya is exactly the kind of situation that they had in mind. It was a unanimous general assembly vote, IIRC.
It’s not even that the UN body would need to have much in the way of assets – they could draw that from the UN members. But they need to have the kind of coordinating and command talent and infrastructure that NATO has and that we have. And they already have a fair bit of that for the peacekeeping mission – they just need to duplicate it and expand on it, and hand more of it’s control over to UNSC.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:29 pm
OT but schadenfreude is what’s for lunch:
James O’Keefe asks supporters for $50,000 to pay off “major credit card debt”
Aw. Couldn’t happen to a nicer asshole.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:30 pm
@PurpleGirl: But it doubles as a jobs program. Foreign policy and domestic policy gold!
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:30 pm
@Martin: Who’s in charge here?
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
OT:
James O’Keefe asks supporters for $50,000 to pay off “major credit card debt”
Aw. Couldn’t happen to a nicer asshole.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
@Calouste: Not to mention everyone flying in and bombing the targets of their choice. And who are the rebels supposed to talk to about what targets to avoid – oh right, they’re supposed to talk to everyone at the same time.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:32 pm
>Whoever takes command takes command – they’re going to call the shots, and if it’s France and they say to carpet bomb Gaddafi’s house, then that’s the order.
And now you know why the US is taking the lead initially, to keep the French from doing something incredibly stupid (i.e., ground troops).
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:32 pm
@Martin:
I think it was the Arab League actually agreeing on something that shocked everyone into maybe doing something. Those folks hardly ever agree on anything, but they did this time.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Hmm apparently the Turks now do want NATO command
http://mobile.twitter.com/blak.....7000774656
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:34 pm
@Southern Beale:
i wish there was a way to donate negative amounts of money.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:37 pm
@Valdivia:
When these things happen, and especially when rushed, there always is the usual quibbling of egos and working around possible domestic political problems. Every country is special,, and must make sure their citizens and the world knows they are important. But it really seems like a lot of people in the neighborhood wanted this, and when that is the case, things usually get worked out. Not necessarily for the better, but some kind of consensus to move forward.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
From the muck loved Al Jazerra
“8:36pm
Reuters: NATO envoys fail to agree on taking over command of Libya operations, says NATO diplomat.”
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Erdogan is a pain. He refuses to do anything where a civilian might be killed. He’s got Obama in a bad spot b/c he just helped negotiate the release of the NYT’s reporters that were captured. He owes him right now. He’s going to have to come up with something good b/c he’s the only thing holding this up.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:44 pm
@General Stuck:
The Arab League asking for help set off Kerry who kept saying we absolutely could not turn them down b/c they had never asked for anything like this.
So thanks, Arab League who finally showed up with a couple planes after the nofly was in place…Qatar.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
@General Stuck:
Yes I agree with this. Because I have been following most of it thorugh the experts instead of our media my view has been more of the growing pains of multilateral action than the us us us view that pervades other coverage. YMMV.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
@Martin:
As well. There’s a lot of pie-in-the-sky shit going on on this website both by commentors and frontpagers that really shouldn’t be there if people took half an hour or an hour to browse through wikipedia and just think about things for a few minutes. Like the snarky bullshit by Cole about the “Arab League” no-fly zone. Just look at the map and tell me how you can enforce a no fly zone from 1500 miles away with a jet that has a 350 mile operation radius, flying through the airspace of at least 2 other countries.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:54 pm
@Martin:
This is one of those things covered under the Treaty of Naganapan signed in 1945 by the victors of WWII. It doesn’t appear in many history books, but it’s the one least likely to be violated by any of the UNSC’s veto-holding members.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Anyone who does not support Operation Delta Don, Operation Enduring Seagull, Operation Iraqi Freebird, and all other necessary patriotic military endeavors ordered by our Galtian Overlords as represented in the person of Supreme Leader Barack Obama, is a traitor to America.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
@The Moar You Know:
yep. so we can say ‘it’s not us that killed that fucking baby! it’s nato‘.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
Now I see why we end up being the the one to do everything, because no one else will step up.
March 23rd, 2011 at 3:57 pm
I don’t know if it’s relevant, but prior to this series of events I had read various European centered news stories that questioned if NATO still needed to exist what with the now long gone communist block thereat it was created to counter. Those few stories tended to go on to talk about maybe EXPANDING NATO’s role because it could be useful for this or that…Evidently it’s something serious people, or at least writers have been thinking about lately.
2nd I’m not sure I remember after all this time but I think it was a mutual defense group and this Lybia emergency has apparently been driven by Europe and especially Italy’s fear they’ll be over run by Lybian refugee’s so if you stretch the meaning of defense a bit, maybe it does qualify as invoking self defense.
March 23rd, 2011 at 4:15 pm
@Martin:
The UN really is only its member states.
It’s not actually an autonomous agency. The passage of a security council resolution is just an agreement among the 5 major nuclear powers. Typically when opposing, China and Russia abstain.
I don’t think that the permanent members would want an independent UN force acting outside particular agreed-upon projects. It could basically be allowed to deputize NATO and the AU if those organizations agreed, I guess.
March 23rd, 2011 at 6:01 pm
@PurpleGirl:
Except that, in Afghanistan, we weren’t arming rebels because they were fighting their government. We were arming them because they were fighting the Soviets, and it was yet another idiotic attempt to keep a country from “going Commie.”
Our foreign policy was distorted for years by our need to “fight Communism” and the kind of alliances that required. Everyone is only just now starting to figure out how to operate in a post-Soviet world, and they collapsed 20 years ago.
March 23rd, 2011 at 6:11 pm
@Mnemosyne:
You do realize that the Soviets intervened in the first place to prop up an already existing (if unpopular) communist government in Afganistan, one that lasted (at least in Kabul) until the early 90s.
March 23rd, 2011 at 6:40 pm
@bourbaki:
And that invalidates my comment that the US only sent weapons to the mujahideen to mess with the Soviets … how, exactly?
March 23rd, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Can someone explain what is going on and why NATO would have taken over the operations, when the coalition includes non-NATO members? I’m curious.
Look at Afghanistan- The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is a NATO command, but it includes countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, who are a loooooonnnnngggg way away from the North Atlantic
In the end, a way will be found to include non- NATO countries, because I can’t see NATO asking countries outside the North Atlantic who want to participate to “please stay away”.
March 24th, 2011 at 4:59 am
Money
EDIT: Er, that’s my explanation. I’m not asking for an expl. of money.
March 24th, 2011 at 10:04 am