military action against Libya

Yep, this is exactly how I would describe my current take on the last 48 hours of warfare.

It's a vital interest to European nations and maintaining an alliance with Europe is now more in our interests than ever before. Unfortunately Obama doesn't really appreciate this (still nursing inherited colonial grudges) and has to be led to it by advisors.

Try as he might, he's not going to build a powerful alliance structure with Third and Second World countries to replace America's Western and Asian alliances.

But oil for Europe, so it's OK.

Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe Coalition air-power can do more than keep The Colonel from crushing the rebels. In order to tip the conflict to the rebels, the Coalition will have to arms the rebels up the wazoo, and probably commit some form of ground support...I.e. "Boots on the ground."

Which would be disregarding the UN-resolution ...

A summary of what's going on just before the London conference starts, from The Guardian.

This reflects totally may opinion:

And a civil war has no end; conflict will remain no matter who takes over their government.

So would arming the rebels be. The currently prevailing interpretation of it is that the "all necessary means" does not countermand the previous resolution's explicit proscription against arming the rebels.

I agree that there is currently a military stalemate, which is why I wish that the intervention had not so explicitly ruled out said boots on the ground. Now it's very unclear how we can exit.

Probably more vulnerability here for Ghadaffi than the rebels, given the relative ease of targeting vehicles in a desert environment from the air. I suspect the recent losses gave him no option but to fall back. As long as he has no operable air capability he won't be able to retaliate either.

We can't ensure a rebel victory but we can deprive Ghadaffi of one. We don't know enough about the likely political future of Libya without Ghadaffi to make the insertion of ground troops either worthwhile or in our interest. In effect we are making a bet that the Libyans will come up with something better, but are not willing to ensure that they do so. That's good enough for me. More would be both unwarranted and unwise.

And your point is?

UN resolutions are political coverage, not blueprints.

Yep. When i started my thread on this subject i wondered aloud what the UN intended with their resolution--to partition Libya, or to protect the rebels indefinitely. As perhaps you'll recall, i said more than once that the value of the exercise would be in sapping the morale of Got-Daffy's army. I also firmly denied that we would be obliged to send in troops, and my opinion that this would be a bad idea hasn't changed.

Got-Daffy was educated at the military academy in Athens, and he took several courses at the army schools in England. His performance, however, in Chad suggests to me that he does not have any of the natural attributes of a military man. Benedict Arnold had no training or experience, and yet he proved to be a natural leader and a brilliant tactical commander. George Washington made just about every fool mistake he could have done in 1754, but he learned from those mistakes and in 1775, no one in America was better qualified to take up the supreme command. Bedford Forrest was a white trash backwoods boy who made it big in the Memphis slave trade, but when the war came along, he showed arguably the greatest natural ability of any general officer in the war who came to the task without training or experience.

Got-Daffy has never shown any of the traits of a competent military leader, and his performance in Chad over 20 years suggests that he is inept and without any ideas of how to conduct military operations. That a heavily re-inforced brigade of Libyans with armored fighting vehicles were routed by the Chadeans riding in Toyota "technicals" suggests that not only does he lack basic military competence, but that there's nobody in his officer corps to supply the lack.

This will be an interesting war. For those who are unaware, there is an escarpment which runs roughly parallel to the coast in the region where military operations are now going on. So long as an army keeps a flank guard on the escarpment, the topography assures that two opponents must go at each other headlong in frontal attacks. That is why the morale of Got-Daffy's army is so important. If their will to fight is sapped, then the rebels will be more or less safe from their attack. The other side of that coin, though, is whether or not the rebels can sustain an offensive in a situation in which they will be obliged to cointually make frontal attacks over a relatively narrow front.

I think we agree about most of this. With respect to military leadership there is an observable difference between excellence in winning battles and strategic wisdom in guiding a protracted struggle in a war. A very few commanders have shown both in the historical record, while more have exibited one or the other. A good deal of the controversy (in my view at least) involved essentially unresolvable comparisons between one and the other. You have provided good examples of both.

I'm by now long out of touch with current inside estimates of these things. but we never credited Libya with much military competence - during the 1970s the Soviets armed them well with then first rate aircraft and weapons (and Russia has continued to do so), but the training and leadership of their forces wasn't much to brag about. They took a beating during their intervention in Chad in the early 1980s, and for a while were using Korean and Russian speaking pilots in their Air Force.

I think you are being generous in your reference to the "UN's intentions". The "mandate" was merely "permission" to act if member nations were so inclined. It passed only because Russia, China and India chose to tolerate it by abstaining in the Security Council vote and are instead merely sniping from the sidelines. I recognize that the UN represents some of our hopes for greater international cooperation and the peaceful resolution of problems. However, the the fact remains that most of the world's governments are authoritarian, and the UN reflects mostly the least common denominator of the self interest of the major players. It is often useful, but ultimately unreliable where vital issues are involved.

Obama has explained that he attacked Libyan forces because he FEARED a humanitarian crisis if he did not...... Please explain how this is different from and better than the much maligned Bush doctrine of preemptive strike...

Only by actively engaging within that system and taking a leadership role can we hope for that international bodies' reliability to be improved over time.

I tend to think of governance, on any scale, as a series of crappy or middling performers punctuated occasionally by some awesome minds, and rarely, by visionaries, who can actually make improvements in the whole situation. I suppose I'm young and naive, but I have that same basic hope for the UN, and I want that leader to be an American.

Damn, I just realized I'm a scoundrel!

Cycloptichorn

Preemptive strike under Bush was related to self-interest on our part, whereas Obama seemed to focus somewhat more on the humanitarian interest. I found his section on the 'interests of America' to be unconvincing, compared to the rest.

Cycloptichorn

The action is the same, only the cause of fear has changed.

Yah, you see that a lot in life. We call it 'differences.'

Cycloptichorn

I changed my post to better reflect that in my opinion we are not talking about much difference here....both feel free to impose their will upon other peoples, out of fear for what MIGHT happen if they dont. There is a little problem with rights to do so however..

"Only..." I don't think so. It is a nice sounding phrase, but if you think for a moment about its meaning its vapid emptimess becomes evident.

The continued development of other authoritarian sometimes tyrannical governments,also members of the UN, is also required. That isn't accomplished merely by going along with UN actions like putting the representatives of abusive authoritarian governments like those of Zimbabwe or Libya on the UN Human Rights Commisssion. The reliability and utility of the UN as a protector of freedom and justice is ultimately a function of the appetites for freedom and justice among its member states. Pretending that it is more than it really is doesn't accomplish that.

Give the rebels the weapons they need to defend themselves than get the hell out. They dident want foreign troops there, just some air cover to keep out the tanks and airpower.