More news about how shaky Europe's financial basis for this war continue to come out:
Europe has a lot riding on NATO's mission in Libya, with the campaign widely seen as one spearheaded by European vision and the United States staying on the sidelines.
But as the conflict enters its fourth month, the continent's military leaders are beginning to ask if they can afford to keep up the fight, raising more questions about Europe's commitment after big talk from the leaders of Britain and France.
Once Khaddafi and his loyalists can start thinking all they have to do is last a day longer than NATO, they'll hang tough.
But this won't do the job:
And while many fret about the resources being poured into Libya, Andrea Nativi, a scientific adviser to ICSA, a Rome-based military and intelligence think tank, said NATO could win and do it more quickly if it was not hampered by its own rules of engagement — limiting targets and the types and amounts of weapons used.
"If Gadhafi's taking a beating, but he's resilient and not caving in, maybe we should be saying we should be intensifying it a little," said Nativi. "You can't say you're going to do a little war."
I disagree with the idea that we should intensify the war a little. This is the thinking that just a little more pressure will be the final increment that breaks the enemy. Adding US drones didn't do that. Adding British and French attack helicopters didn't do it. Daytime raids on Tripoli didn't do it. The fact is, once the Libyan loyalists endured the shock of that first big escalation of initial intervention, no subsequent ratcheting up even comes close to matching the impact of that first shock.
We might get lucky with continued bombings. But the only escalation that offers regime change certainty is sending in a good NATO division to land and capture Tripoli.
