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Necessary Step, Dangerous Rationalization: NATO Prolongs Libya Campaign
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 107June 3, 2011 04:02 PM Age: 2 days
By: Vladimir Socor
On June 1 in Brussels, the North Atlantic Council approved a prolongation of the NATO-flagged campaign in Libya for another 90 days –that is, until the end of September (NATO - Homepage, June 1). The Alliance had originally set a 90-day term, counting from March 31 when launching this campaign; and it anticipated a quick successful conclusion to materialize well before the original deadline. The prolongation announced on June 1 comes 30 days before the expiry of the original 90-day term. It seems therefore that the net gain is of 60 days, rather than 90, for this operation.
Prolongation and escalation (as reportedly planned) are imperatively necessary in this unnecessary war, which must nevertheless, once initiated, be prosecuted to a successful outcome. Moreover, a Russian-mediated outcome (which Moscow actively seeks) would be widely perceived as a setback to NATO and the US, after months of bombing and other exertions.
n a flurry of accompanying statements on May 30-June 1, NATO's Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, justified the prolongation largely with the same arguments he had used for justifying the launch of the campaign ("NATO and the Responsibility to Protect: Whom Exactly ?," EDM, May 21). Rasmussen postulates a NATO humanitarian "responsibility to protect the Libyan people" from violence; and he insists that NATO could only act with approval from the UN Security Council (resolution No. 1973 of March 17 in this case). Moreover, the Secretary-General seems to hail the precedent-setting value of this mechanism, which would take NATO down the path of universal humanitarian interventions, if Rasmussen's rationalization for the Libya mission is taken at face value.
This would constitute a major distraction from NATO's core mission of protecting its own member countries and filling the security deficit in Europe's East. "Responsibility-to-protect" interventionism would entail an unsustainable mission creep for NATO and its members at any time, all the more at this time of drastic cuts in defense budgets. And by presenting UN Security Council approval as indispensable, Rasmussen is using an argument that can only boomerang against NATO in future contingencies, in the form of Russian (or Chinese) vetoes.
........(an article is too long but is ended as follows...)
Importing the "responsibility-to-protect" doctrine into NATO would make short shrift of the Alliance's Strategic Concept, only months after its adoption at NATO's summit in November 2010. The Alliance has no responsibility to protect populations of the world against violence from their governments or from each other. NATO is only responsible for protecting its own member countries and the Alliance's collective interests in its eastern and southern neighborhoods. Europe has some major interests in Libya (oil and gas supplies, migration control), but these have not been factored into the planning for this intervention. Referencing these interests could actually reinvigorate political support for bringing the campaign to a successful outcome, without resort to third-party brokers.
Source:The Jamestown Foundation: Necessary Step, Dangerous Rationalization: NATO Prolongs Libya Campaign
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/g...id]=26&cHash=1b77c6c2a0f7f5b3f6b7a74e54abfe5d
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 8 Issue: 107June 3, 2011 04:02 PM Age: 2 days
By: Vladimir Socor
On June 1 in Brussels, the North Atlantic Council approved a prolongation of the NATO-flagged campaign in Libya for another 90 days –that is, until the end of September (NATO - Homepage, June 1). The Alliance had originally set a 90-day term, counting from March 31 when launching this campaign; and it anticipated a quick successful conclusion to materialize well before the original deadline. The prolongation announced on June 1 comes 30 days before the expiry of the original 90-day term. It seems therefore that the net gain is of 60 days, rather than 90, for this operation.
Prolongation and escalation (as reportedly planned) are imperatively necessary in this unnecessary war, which must nevertheless, once initiated, be prosecuted to a successful outcome. Moreover, a Russian-mediated outcome (which Moscow actively seeks) would be widely perceived as a setback to NATO and the US, after months of bombing and other exertions.
n a flurry of accompanying statements on May 30-June 1, NATO's Secretary-General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, justified the prolongation largely with the same arguments he had used for justifying the launch of the campaign ("NATO and the Responsibility to Protect: Whom Exactly ?," EDM, May 21). Rasmussen postulates a NATO humanitarian "responsibility to protect the Libyan people" from violence; and he insists that NATO could only act with approval from the UN Security Council (resolution No. 1973 of March 17 in this case). Moreover, the Secretary-General seems to hail the precedent-setting value of this mechanism, which would take NATO down the path of universal humanitarian interventions, if Rasmussen's rationalization for the Libya mission is taken at face value.
This would constitute a major distraction from NATO's core mission of protecting its own member countries and filling the security deficit in Europe's East. "Responsibility-to-protect" interventionism would entail an unsustainable mission creep for NATO and its members at any time, all the more at this time of drastic cuts in defense budgets. And by presenting UN Security Council approval as indispensable, Rasmussen is using an argument that can only boomerang against NATO in future contingencies, in the form of Russian (or Chinese) vetoes.
........(an article is too long but is ended as follows...)
Importing the "responsibility-to-protect" doctrine into NATO would make short shrift of the Alliance's Strategic Concept, only months after its adoption at NATO's summit in November 2010. The Alliance has no responsibility to protect populations of the world against violence from their governments or from each other. NATO is only responsible for protecting its own member countries and the Alliance's collective interests in its eastern and southern neighborhoods. Europe has some major interests in Libya (oil and gas supplies, migration control), but these have not been factored into the planning for this intervention. Referencing these interests could actually reinvigorate political support for bringing the campaign to a successful outcome, without resort to third-party brokers.
Source:The Jamestown Foundation: Necessary Step, Dangerous Rationalization: NATO Prolongs Libya Campaign
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/g...id]=26&cHash=1b77c6c2a0f7f5b3f6b7a74e54abfe5d
