Already, Egyptian special forces (and maybe others) are on the ground in Libya helping the rebels, and arms are reaching the rebels. As the NATO-led intervention in Libya expands further, with British, French, and Italian advisers being sent to help organize the rebels; American non-lethal aid promised; American Predator drones added to the arsenal; and pressure on non-contributing NATO members to fight, some have called this "mission creep." But it isn't. This is just plain old-fashioned gradual escalation.
To be "mission creep" the mission itself has to creep up. As in Somalia when the first American mission to enable food relief to starving civilians edged up to defeating the militias and trying to cobble together some sort of state to stabilize Somalia. That was mission creep with the means lagging.
But where is the mission creep in Libya? Admiral Mullen notes:
Regime change is not a part of the NATO mission, and the U.N. resolution does not address it, Admiral Mullen said, but it remains to be seen whether the Libyan dictator will step down.
"The long-term political end-state is to have (Colonel Gadhafi) gone," he said. "Globally, the guy is a pariah, and every single action the vast majority of countries are taking are going to continue to put the squeeze on him until he's gone. Is (Colonel Gadhafi) going to figure that out? I don't know."
I find it odd that we would deny that the mission is regime change while admitting that it has always been the goal for Khaddafi to be dethroned. Smart diplomacy is like that, I guess.
But the mission has always been to get rid of Khaddafi. Once, the administration and its international allies thought that rebels marching into Tripoli would do it, but now we hope that continuing to squeeze the loyalists will result in Khaddafi's departure. But Khaddafi and the loyalists are feeling pretty good about surviving the aerial onslaught. So the means to squeeze the loyalists a little bit more are being explored and put into effect to match our existing mission.
Our military certainly knows that gradual escalation just allows the enemy to adapt to higher levels of violence directed against them. I know the term "shock and awe" is derided these days, but the Iraqi military did crumble in three weeks when we hit them hard and fast. Our means matched our objective.
More than a month after NATO hit Khaddafi's forces, the Libyan loyalists still fight and we have no idea how we'll win this war other than hoping that just a little more force will crack the resolve of the loyalists or make Khaddafi figure out he is doomed.
But what our military knows that our civilian rulers have no clue about could fill books. Pity that Von Clausewitz didn't write On Limited Kinetic Actions.
