President Barack
Obamahas
touted his emphasis on multilateralism in the U.S. military
intervention in Libya, but, for political, operational, and legal reasons, Obama's
"coalition of the willing" is smaller than any major multilateral operation
since the end of the Cold War.
The
Cablecompiled
a chart listing all the countries that contributed at least
some military assets to the five major military operations in which the United
States participated in a coalition during the last 20 years: the 1991 Gulf War
(32 countries participating), the 1995 Bosnia mission (24 countries), the 1999
Kosovo mission (19 countries), the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan (48 countries),
and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (40 countries), at the height of the size of each
coalition. As of today, only 15
countries, including the United States, have committed to providing a military
contribution to the Libya war.
Experts quickly point out that all of these military
interventions happened in different contexts. However, they added that the
reason Obama's Libya war coalition has less international involvement than all
the others was also due to his administration's behavior in the lead-up to the
war, its approach to multilateralism, the speed with which it was put together,
and the justifications for the war itself.
Michael
O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,
said that the administration's effort to build the coalition was hampered by
its stated desire to hand
off the leadership of the Libya intervention to NATO.
"[I]f you [focus on the handoff],
you don't deserve a lot of credit for leadership," he said. "Obama in his
deference to [getting out of the lead]has
not only wanted other countries to do as much as they could, he has essentially
forgone his responsibility to build the coalition."
The Libya mission is, by definition,
smaller in scale than Iraq or Afghanistan; and a no-fly zone doesn't require as
many countries as a full-on invasion, O'Hanlon pointed out. However, the
relatively few Arab countries contributing military assets could pose a problem
for the mission's legitimacy.
Operation Odyssey Dawn now has three
Muslim countries with actual military contributions --Qatar, Turkey, and the
UAE. "The limits of Arab support are palpable and could be a growing concern in
the days and weeks ahead," O'Hanlon said.
While the Libya intervention was
endorsed by the Arab League, the endorsement doesn't actually require any Arab
countries to contribute materially to the effort, said David Bosco, assistant professor at
American University and author of FP's blog The
Multilateralist.
Obama put a priority on "formal multilateralism," as
opposed to "operational multilateralism," concentrating on getting
international political bodies to endorse the Libya attack before he focused on
getting individual countries to pledge actual military contributions, Bosco
said. That's why the administration,
primarily the State Department,is working
the phones now to ask countries such as the UAE to chip in a
few planes here and there.
"At a certain point the administration is going to
have to decide whether just to say this is a coalition of willing countries,"
said Bosco. "That's not the end of the world."
Bosco also said Obama was practicing "a la carte
multilateralism" by trumpeting the endorsement of certain regional
international organizations, such as the Arab League, while dismissing
the opinions of other groups, such as the African
Union, which strongly opposed the intervention.
"There's a legitimacy shopping exercise that's going
on here," Bosco said.
Wayne White, a former senior
State Department intelligence official now with the Middle
East Institute,
noted that another problem with the Obama
administration's efforts to build a coalition was its own apparent lack of enthusiasm about the war. It was keenly aware of the war-weary U.S. populace,
concerned about the burden of its strategic commitments in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and unsure how this would play out in an extremely competitive and
divisive election next year, White said.
"They were profoundly conflicted
internally whether to do this, let alone to lead, which is quite unique," he
said.
Obama administration officials have argued
that the speed of international action on Libya was much faster than any previous
intervention, and that the process was driven by the need to avert a
potentially imminent humanitarian disaster.
"I know that the nightly news cannot
cover a humanitarian crisis that thankfully did not happen, but it is important
to remember that many, many Libyans are safer today because the international
community took action," Secretary of State Hillary Clintonsaid on Wednesday.
While the chart accurately lists all the countries that participated in the various operations, the operations themselves are not automatically comparable. The 1991 Gulf War, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq all included ground forces -- and it is much easier to build a larger coalition using ground forces, since every country has them, and very small force contributions can be sent. Libya, however, is purely an air and naval operation (at least so far), and far fewer countries possess the capabilities to contribute advanced airplanes and vessels. Kosovo is the only other country on the chart that did not involve ground forces, and the number of participating countries isn't that far off from the number participating in Libya so far.
I would contend that getting nations to contribute ground forces means a larger commitment is being asked of those nations. An operation needing troops on the ground is probably a more dangerous one than an operation where a nations' commitment of a couple of planes can fly combat air patrols in basically uncontested airspace.
If you listen to Obama and his administration talk about their international Kinetic Military Action, you would think that the entire world was in his coalition. It facinating to find out that George Bush in addition to getting Congressional approval had a much larger coalition for Afghanistan and Iraq. You can't really blame the rest of the world. When an American President launches a war against a nation that is no threat, without Congressional Authorization, while playing soccer in Brazil, its pretty easy to know its going to cost billions and turn into a disaster. We still really don't know why we are there, what we would consider success, when we will leave, who is in charge? And now we find out that many of the rebels we went in to defend actually are closely tied to Al-Qaeda and some even went to Iraq to kill American soldiers. If Gadhafi doesn't go we could be fighting Obama's war for a decade. If he does Libya could be come an anti-American Al-Qaeda allied state? The incompetence of the Obama administration is mind boggling. Billions and billions are being spent on a disaster. Congress should force Obama to get out now!!!!!
@Valwayne - First of all, George W. Bush got congressional approval based on very poor intelligence and what turned out to be flat out lies so i would contend that the approval he received was not deserved. The larger coalition was because for more countries are able to commit some resources to a ground war, however this conflict is strictly air and naval support to the rebels. The smaller coalition is due to the fact that far fewer countries have strong enough air and naval forces to support the no-fly zone and the bombing missions.
"its pretty easy to know its going to cost billions and turn into a disaster," its actually not easy to know this. This conflict is much different than Iraq or Afghanistan because the power and cultural structures in Libya are much less nuanced. So far our role has been attempting to prevent Qadaffi from killing hordes of his own people. We will likely be in a holding pattern until one side makes significant gains.
"And now we find out that many of the rebels we went in to defend actually are closely tied to Al-Qaeda and some even went to Iraq to kill American soldiers." It is a gross exaggeration to say that "many" of the rebels are closely tied with Al-Qaeda. A lot of the press about this has been generated by Qadaffi in an attempt to get the international community to back off. He claims that he was trying to push Al-Qaeda out of Libya when he attacked the rebels, but it is not currently well known if this is true.
Finally, the Obama administration made the best move they could from a foreign policy stand point. They waited until enough of our European allies would commit to naval and air forces so the U.S. wouldn't carry the entire burden of the no fly zone, but just in time to make sure the rebels weren't destroyed by their own government. We will not likely spend billions on this conflict that would not be spent otherwise for the mobilization of the naval and air forces involved and the Obama administration will demonstrate the administrations willingness to use force.
Contrary to the other commenter, Bush had a long list of causes for war with Iraq, only one of which involved WMD. Hence the assertion that the war was illegitimate because the intelligence about WMD's was wrong (and related "lies") is nonsense.
Obama's war has the lowest approval rating of any modern military intervention. There's a good reason for that.
I favored intervening in Iraq, but not by kissing the butts of the UN Security Council while ignoring the US Constitution!
It is distressing that Obama is far more concerned with getting legitimacy from the UN Security Council, meaning approval from the likes of Russia and China, than from the American people and the Congress. The Libyan intervention is arguably illegal, since it is clearly a war and is neither authorized by Congress nor an emergency situation that would preclude Congressional pre-authorization.
Obama is showing his contempt for America and his worship of corrupt international institutions..
In any coalition, nations must balance their short-term and long-term self interests, to include threir often competing long-term foreign policy and short-term domestic policy concerns.
With deference to Twain's "lies, damn lies, and statistics," it might be useful to do a follow-up measure of the statistical balance of U.S. vs non-US participation in the various coalitions cited. Diplomatic partifcipation is of course essential. But the scale of military participation ("burden sharing, to borrow a NATO-centered phrase) also is very important. By this measure, the Libya campaign is comparable to the NATO Bosnia mission of '95-'96 (larger non-US than US participation) and the Kosovo mission than of the others. It is well understood that the '03 Iraq mission nearly exclusively American at the tactical level and that many coalition members, while diplomatically very relevant, had limited ability to contribute militarily.
In Libya, the coalition is heavily weighted toward highly capable military forces, the great majority of whom are materially contributing to the military enforcement of UNSCR 1973 through the use of combat aircraft or naval vessels.
I agree with the contention that the smaller coalition was partly driven by need to act quickly to prevent potentially imminent humanitarian disaster. For this reason, the US could not have gained broad support like previous missions. However, the US did gain the support of those allies who would have a large role in enforcing the no fly zone to ensure the US did not have to carry the burden alone, as well as consulting with key regional organizations like the Arab league. Again, given the nature of enforcing a no fly zone, the individual military contributions that countries have offered in past interventions would not have been applicable as most lack the capabilities necessary for the type of intervention in Libya. Furthermore, while it would be ideal to consult widely with organizations such as the African Union, especially given Obama’s commitment to multilateralism, this would have taken time which the urgency of the mission did not allow for.
Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
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