With each passing day, the regime grows weaker and the rebellion grows stronger. The rebel heartland in eastern Libya is militarily secure.
True enough. But the security is from NATO activity that has degraded loyalist offensive capabilities and the air umbrella that keeps the loyalists from massing. The rebels are surely better organized and armed by now, but the key in the security is the inability of the loyalists to attack.
If the Gaddafi regime believed it could control the rest of Libya, that hope has evaporated with the relief of Misurata. With the rebels’ training and organisation improving, and Nato’s continued engagement, Gaddafi’s forces will be unable to retake the operational initiative, struggling to retake lost territory or suppress new outbreaks of insurrection.
Failure to take Misrata is indeed a telling sign of weakness. And continued revolts south of Tripoli and near the Tunisian border are also signs that Khaddafi's grip is weak.
When it comes to Nato’s role, the precision with which its attacks are carried out tends to mask the extent to which it has degraded the regime’s capabilities. As of last Saturday, Nato claimed to have hit more than 860 targets, including 98 tanks, 72 artillery or rocket systems and around 40 armoured vehicles.
This doesn't impress me. In two months of air attacks, destroying 210 major pieces of equipment given all that Khaddafi started with is really nothing.
Equally important, the target list included more than 300 ammunition stores.
That could be significant. But if Khaddafi bought ammo the way his fellow dictator Saddam did, it might not be important at all. Saddam's ammo sustained insurgencies for years and we were on the ground to--in theory--control them.
Then there is the impact that repeated defeats, increasing casualty numbers and equipment losses will have on the morale of the regime’s troops and its foreign mercenaries, which has been ignored.
Yes, that is important. And it could be key. But if the mercenaries aren't dying in high numbers because the air campaign is fairly small, as long as they get paid, will they crack? And bad morale could be endured if there is nobody on the ground to exploit the poor morale. And does fear of losing bolster what defeat is degrading? Armed forces and countries can endure far more damaging air bombardments (as a British author should know) than we are inflicting on Libya and keep resisting.
The real danger, in short, is not of a protracted stalemate, but of a sudden regime collapse: as the campaign goes on, and the capability of Gaddafi’s dictatorship to intimidate the population is eroded, the true extent of support for him among the Libyan people will be exposed. If it turns out to be shallow, the regime could suffer an abrupt end.
True enough. Current trends do run against Khaddafi if given enough time to play out. But will NATO get the time? That seems uncertain given the author's words to buck up our will to continue the fight:
It is therefore essential not just that Nato retains its resolve, but that the coalition is prepared for a sudden crumbling of the regime’s forces, and that it puts the plans and resources in place to deal with the aftermath.
The loyalists could crumble. But so too could NATO. If we crumble, it doesn't matter if we got darned close to defeating Khaddafi. We'll lose.
The question is, what could cause NATO's will to fight to crumble? Waves of refugees reaching Italy? A major mistake in bombing that kills Libyan civilians in large numbers? A Libyan air or missile strike on a major NATO warship? Rebel atrocities that make siding with them too difficult to justify? A Greek default?
Or might a UN General Assembly effort to impose a ceasefire backed by the African Union, Russia, and China be too much for the coalition fighting Libya to resist?
Heck, perhaps the loyalists are hoarding a mobile force in the hopes that a good sand storm will ground NATO air power for a few days and allow the loyalists to either make a major effort to take Misrata or try to dash through Ajdabiya to make another grab for Benghazi.
Are we winning? Yes, I'll grant that. But winning at the moment is not the same as having won. I feel the same about Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of factors are involved in judging that we are winning, and if some of those factors change, the calculation could change the judgment very quickly. So while time may be on our side (if trends remain the same), time is also the only factor that gives hope to the loyalists that they could emerge victorious. President Obama himself acknowledges this:
"I absolutely agree that given the progress that has been made over the last several weeks that Gaddafi and his regime need to understand that there will not be a let-up in the pressure that we are applying.
"I believe that we have built enough momentum that as long as we sustain the course that we are on that he is ultimately going to step down," he added. [emphasis added]
That's the key, eh? As long as we can sustain the course, we'll win.
But how long can we sustain the course?
UPDATE: Again, President Obama notes the problem of not having a ground component:
"Once you rule out ground forces, then there are going to be some inherent limitations to our air strike operation," Obama said, adding however that the aerial bombardment would eventually force out the Libyan strongman.
And a senior NATO official says:
NATO must "speed up the systematic destruction of Tripoli's military machine with the goal of neutralising Kadhafi's forces for good," the official said, adding allies hoped Kadhafi would fall by late June or early July.
In defense of the lack of Western ground forces early in the war no matter how much more miltiarily effective that would have been, I will concede we'd have taken a propaganda hit as many--Westerners and rebels--would have accused the West of stealing the rebellion from an inevitably victorious rebel army. Only now, after the rebels proved themselves incapable of winning and after many more thousands of civilian casualties, would Western ground intervention be more acceptable
Meanwhile, other nations try to end the fighting. Turks, South Africans, Egyptians, and the African Union all want to end the fighting, perhaps with Khaddafi departing. But who knows if that would be the key demand? Russia says NATO is going beyond UN authorization. Might not a ceasefire that splits Libya seem acceptable to many who want the fighting stopped?
And Khaddafi still fights on seeking ways to fight away from NATO power:
A rebel commander in southeast Libya, Ahmed Alzway, said rebel fighters fought off a Sudanese mercenary force 18 miles (30 kilometers) west of the southeast oasis of Kufra. The rebel force pursued, dislodging the Sudanese fighters from a fortified position further out in the desert, Alzway said.
Also interesing:
Tornado and Typhoon jets also destroyed a radar station in the coastal city of Brega during the Tuesday night raid.
Brega (Burayqah) is near the coastal frontline west of Ajdabiya. I don't know if what was destroyed was an air defense or sea search radar, but either way it would be useful to destroy if the British plan to send their helicopter carrier closer to shore to use their embarked Apache attack helicopters to support the rebels ashore.
The war goes on.
