--- title: Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign | TIME description: Why did the U.S. decide to do the heavy lifting early in the Libya campaign and then hand it off to its NATO partners? A discussion between TIME and the Center for a New American Security canonical: https://time.com/video/k7EIIWQD/ og:title: Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign og:description: Why did the U.S. decide to do the heavy lifting early in the Libya campaign and then hand it off to its NATO partners? A discussion between TIME and the Center for a New American Security og:url: https://time.com/video/k7EIIWQD/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/k7EIIWQD/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign twitter:description: Why did the U.S. decide to do the heavy lifting early in the Libya campaign and then hand it off to its NATO partners? A discussion between TIME and the Center for a New American Security twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/k7EIIWQD/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign [Watch (HLS stream): Command Post: Why the U.S. Backed off from Leading the Libya Campaign](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/k7EIIWQD.m3u8) (5:59)  _Published 2011-08-08. Why did the U.S. decide to do the heavy lifting early in the Libya campaign and then hand it off to its NATO partners? A discussion between TIME and the Center for a New American Security_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:16 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Deadly Migrant Shipwreck Off Libya’s Coast](/video/k9mmRhs9/) ### Deadly Migrant Shipwreck Off Libya’s Coast [Evacuation of U.S. Embassy In Libya Underscores Militia Threat](/video/2OqsjFqV/) ### Evacuation of U.S. Embassy In Libya Underscores Militia Threat [Command Post: Why No U.S. Ground Troops in LIbya?](/video/V1qiTfPo/) ### Command Post: Why No U.S. Ground Troops in LIbya? --- ## Transcript This is Command Post, a series of discussions about military matters from Time and The Center for a New American Security. Paul, why did the United States decide it made sense for it to do the heavy lifting early in the campaign. And, and then hand the, the war essentially off to our NATO partner. Well, I think, John, that it, it's a matter of capability. The United States Americans have a misperception about NATO. They think that NATO is a organization of 28, 26, 28 states. That all kinda have equal. Amounts of power potential the United State's is the largest member of NATO by far in terms of population in terms of economy in terms of military strength and if NATO is to undertake anything the United State's must be there. And if it's not in the lead initially, then you're going to need a lot more countries of NATO, other than the Brits and the French saying we're here. They're, they're, they're inadequate by themselves. America needs to be there. America has unique military capabilities that other [ INAUDIBLE ] NATO states do not possess. For example right now with the air operations that are ongoing over Libya today. While there are no U. S. aircraft in actual attack formations, there are U. S. aircraft providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support. Providing command and control. Providing aerial re- fueling. Providing a whole lot of other logistical support. No one else can do. And there are American drones actually still in the strike. Yes, exactly [ INAUDIBLE ] There are unmanned American airplanes conducting that strike. We talk about these things like they are niche capabilities. ISR capabilities, the ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance of the battle field. These shouldn't be niche capabilities. In flight refueling, that should be a niche capability. Air left shoudn't be a need to capability. Have enough new missions to conduct an idependent air campaign, that shouldn't need to capabillity. And what we have seen is over the 1990s and over this decade, even as natives been involved in Afghanistan, you have seen [ UNKNOWN ] out of a lot of European member states in terms of military force. Some have remained quite robust. The French, the British are capable of operating independently to a degree. But others quite simply are not and this is the reality that we've seen first off in Afghanistan and now again in Libya in the Air campaign. So is this a harbinger for future wars? Can we expect again to see the United States knocking the door down and doing the heavy lifting? Well what I think this does is it, biffs [ GUESS ] the Libya campaign combined with the campaign in Afghanistan is going to cause U. S. policy makers. The public legislators think differently about the value of our European allies going forward. And if they're not able to support a campaign that quite frankly is in their backyard, then how are they gonna be able to supper expeditionary operations in, Asia, for example? I'm not sure that the political coalition is as as tight as they first thought it was going to be. You know, who were the first planes to bomb Gadhafi's forces outside of Benghazi. If I remember correctly, the French. And, and so. Did they get ahead of us? Did we get drug into something, that had not been properly coordinated, or what? Additionally a few weeks ago we saw the Italians begin to call for a halt in the bombing campaign. You know, the problem with alliance warfare will always be the coalition's political will, and it's it's coherence. And the contradictions are only gonna get more ridiculous as this campaign drags out. Lets say for example there's a siege around Tripoli. Now the order of battle in Libya has shifted away to the favor of the, of the rebels. Lets say there's a siege around Tripoli where Gaddafi has a lot of support already. Okay if rebels are threatening the civilians of Tripoli, if they suffer fuels shortages, food shortages, water shortages, it is conceivable that. The United States and its allies will begin humanitarian, humanitarian relief to the citizens of Tripoli, because they're under siege by a coalition that we've been given aid to. And that is the you know, i, in essence, that's the fundamental problem that we, we get into when we go to war. To protect humanitarian interests without a clear and articulated policy objective, that we're gonna push through with a, with fully resource military capabilities from the beginning. Responsibility to protect, applies to the civilians on both sides. Absolutely correct. Mm hmm, mm hmm, and I would also add, that that while we haven't heard about it, I am hoping that Nato and. It's members are now planning for the post conflict stabilization that must occur. The hard part of these wars isn't causing the government to topple, it's what happens afterwards. Exactly right. Think we all discovered that in various guises in Iraq and Afghanistan. The one thing I would at there is, and actually at this point, the US restriction on boots on the ground. Which makes sense if you're trying to limit the war, actually hurts you at this stage. Because post conflict reconstruction doesn't begin when Baghdad falls. It begins when the first village in Iraq falls. It begins and in Libya, it doesn't begin when Tripoli falls, when Gaddafi leaves. It should already be beginning. It's beginning in places like Benghazi, but if you don't have US advisors on the ground, if you don't. If you place restrictions on even Department of Defence civilians, to go on the ground, and see what the needs are to make a better conflict assess, post conflict assessment, going forward. Then it's very difficult to do that kind of post conflict reconstruction, even if the United States is not in the lead, even if we empower our, our European and, and, Arab allies to, to take the lead on that. 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