Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya

by Horace Campbell

In this incisive account, scholar Horace Campbell investigates the political and economic crises of the early twenty-first century through the prism of NATO’s intervention in Libya. He traces the origins of the conflict, situates it in the broader context of the Arab Spring uprisings, and explains the expanded role of a post-Cold War NATO. This military organization, he argues, is the instrument through which the capitalist class of North America and Europe seeks to impose its political will on the rest of the world, however warped by the increasingly outmoded neoliberal form of capitalism. The intervention in Libya—characterized by bombing campaigns, military information operations, third party countries, and private contractors—exemplifies this new model.
Campbell points out that while political elites in the West were quick to celebrate the intervention in Libya as a success, the NATO campaign caused many civilian deaths and destroyed the nation’s infrastructure. Furthermore, the instability it unleashed in the forms of militias and terrorist groups have only begun to be reckoned with, as the United States learned when its embassy was attacked and personnel, including the ambassador, were killed. Campbell’s lucid study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex and weighty course of events.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Libya, Africa, Northern Africa

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2013

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a wealth of information about the West & NATO's destruction of Libya, written in a very clear and organized manner. Campbell clearly shows how the invasion was brought upon by economic interest, interests beyond acquiring Libya's resource wealth (such as stopping Chinese investment in the region, creating bases & outposts to funnel weapons into Syria, etc.). Anyone who sees themselves as an anti-imperialist (among other things) should look to this book when learning about what happened in Libya.
The book isn't perfect, near the end Campbell focused on some details I don't consider particularly relevant, such as personal details about David Petraeus or what others in the CIA or military thought of him. Campbell says the Peace movement should look to those details, which I think puts too much emphasis on how much those details really matter. There's frequent usage of the terms like "Wall Street Bankers", "Military Industrial Complex","Neo-Conservatism", and many other terms which get repetitive and show the limitations of a non-marxist analysis of capitalism, imperialism, etc. Campbell also suggests the United Nations as a vehicle to fix NATO dominance, stating "In the present international conjuncture, the calls for the democratization of the United Nations need to be intensified to ensure that the same consequences of the Great Depression do not consume humanity during this one. This book was written as a apart of the struggle for global demilitarization and the democratization of the Security Council of the United Nations". It's baffling that Campbell would state this goal is the one that should be worked towards, considering much of the book talks about how the UN was used by NATO powers to justify no-fly zones and the rapid destruction of Libya.

Great book, with some weird ideas and naivety from Campbell in some places. I think this book would have been perfect had he been a Marxist.

8.5/10

[M. Salahuddin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horace Campbell has demonstrated an amazing grasp of the multi-dimensional geopolitical dynamics involved in the new, Global NATO's attempts at hegemony. He lays out beautifully how, as Noam Chomsky puts it, consent is manufactured by Western governments, through controlling of narratives with the help of subservient media (taking care of course, to allow the media wriggle room to leave in place at least a veneer of holding government to account).

Beyond this point however, Campbell digs deeper into the the complex games being played out in the African continent to assure Western domination, largely (a) to undermine selling power on the part of the owners of Africa's natural resources, and (b) to head off non-Western blocs such as those of the BRICS in any competition for those same resources. Most tellingly he refers to the financial-military complex that has superseded the old industrial-military complex in the West (having ceded the industrial part to China among others). He also picks apart in detail the linkages and motivations that led to NATO's intervention in Libya, culminating in a convincing argument that far from being a capture gone awry, Mu'ammar Gaddafi was, in fact executed for his role in promoting a united Africa and in seeking to wrest control of oil, gas, and water assets from Western powers while denying egregious proportions of their economic value to Western financial institutions.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Campbell's analysis is that the well-worn strategy of divide-and-conquer continues to work and always will. But instead of its modern manifestation being to capture and hold territory, the focus has shifted to "capturing" and controlling natural resources through Somalianization of resource producing countries. In short, subverting national cohesion, impeding the formation of continent-wide economic, social, political, monetary, and military union, and the deployment of small contingents of Special Ops and mercenaries to protect those relatively few locations at which resources are extracted, but in today's vogue, under the guise of either an endless war on terror or a "humanitarian" intervention - rubber stamped by the UN. I could go on but one really has to read this book to grasp the depth and breadth of its scope, which is truly magnificent. It is all the more so, given Campbell's lucid style and digestible rendition of the often bewilderingly many and not always coherent factors influencing events.

There are a few issues however, that I would take with the author.

First, he has not elaborated the commercial dimensions of media's abetting neoconservative and neoliberal agendas, producing in effect a financial-military-communications complex where the profit incentives among the media conglomerates are not to be discounted. These are not explored as deeply as I would have wished.

Second, I think he would have served his argument better by dedicating a chapter to a more nuanced profile of Gaddafi and cataloging his well documented excesses. This would have added credibility to his claims of demonization of Gaddafi carried out by Western powers, though he does masterfully pick apart precisely how this demonization took place. Bad people can also be demonized and we don't get a really clear sense of the real demon Gaddafi versus the fabricated one, with the work sometimes bordering on being apologist.

Third, I would have welcomed a chapter in which Campbell directs his conclusions to awaken his Western readers' moral obligation to reconsider what the "[American][European] way-of-life" costs the underdeveloped world and Africa in particular. He seems to stop just a bit short of stirring those particular emotions, possibly to retain the scholarly representation of the book. And that brings me to my last point.

Campbell occasionally indulges in something of an unwarranted polemicist tone when he almost always describes wars as being "against the people of..." any country to which he refers. In so doing without parsing how he concludes that the populace and not the regime of the given country were the targets reveals a lack of detachment which I believe does not serve him well.

All small points against the big messages of this book though, so I have no hesitation in giving it 5 stars and would love to see a future edition reflect unfolding events since the time of this one's publication.

[Radia]

Lots of revelations for me in this book but the most surprising passage was when the author mentions how a GAMER contributed to imperialism in cyberspace.

[Andres Gama · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to reread this book given the current state of affairs. I have long questioned the existence of NATO post Cold War. If the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism came to an end in the 1990’s, can’t we say mission accomplished? NATO has served its purpose. Unfortunately, this organization has continued its mission into the 21st century in the form of Western imperialism, capitalism, and hegemony. When Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi went against these core forces of the West, he put himself and his country in the crosshairs. For decades, the West has longed to exploit the vast wealth and resources Libya possessed. Under the false narrative of “the right to protect” of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, once Gaddafi was deposed, the West went in for the taking. War crimes and racism were rampant among NATO forces during the military campaign. The world the saw the brutal execution of Gaddafi on air and the end of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

There are four reasons behind the NATO/Western sponsored coup. They are as followed: The vast area of desert (solar energy for Europe), the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer (fresh water), Oil & Gas, and labor.