	Generational Dynamics
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Mar-2011
31-Mar-11 News -- US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal

Web Log - March, 2011

31-Mar-11 News -- US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal

Obama orders CIA deployment in Libya

US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal

The rebels in Libya suffered a decisive reversal on Wednesday, as Gaddafi's forces changed tactics. The rebels were forced to pull out of the key oil town of Ras Lanuf, according to the BBC, as well as several other cities.

Libya military actions - March 30 (BBC)

Libya military actions - March 30 (BBC)

Western politicians, analysts and journalists had been fantasizing that the rebels could hold on to the towns with oil fields, and that they could then sell the oil to support their effort. That fantasy now seems unlikely to be fulfilled.

It's becoming widely recognized that the rebels have no military experience, and are poorly disciplined and ill-trained, according to the Guardian.

Not only does Gaddafi have a trained army, but he's also hired thousands of foreign fighters from Chad, Niger, Mali and other countries to provide security in urban areas, freeing up soldiers to fight the rebels.

Reuters reported on Wednesday evening that President Barack Obama has signed, within the last two or three weeks, a secret order authorizing covert support for the rebels.

Furthermore, the CIA has sent more than a dozen covert operatives to Libya as part of an escalating U.S. effort to help the rebels to oust Gaddafi, according to a report by the National Journal.

The CIA's deployment to Libya is certain expand, and direct assistance to the Libyan rebels will be provided. Furthermore, the United Kingdom has several dozen Special Air Service commandoes and M16 agents already operating there, according to the report.

Thus it appears that America is becoming more fully committed and involved in the Libyan intervention, and that the American involvement is becoming increasingly dangerous.

I've been holding back an important part of the Generational Dynamics analysis of the Libyan intervention, mainly as an emotional decision because the news is not good.

In order to describe the situation, I'm going to go into the weeds of generational theory, but hopefully the result will be worth the effort.

In order to analyze what's going to happen in Libya, the first question is to identify Libya's previous generation eras, particularly its generational crisis wars. (See "Basics of Generational Dynamics.")

I've found it extremely difficult to do this analysis, because I've been unable to find enough historical information about Libya.

Based on what I knew several weeks ago, I tentatively concluded that the last crisis war was the Italian invasion of Libya that began in 1911, and reached a climax in 1920 with the destruction of the Tripolitanian Republic, and the agreement with the Sunusis with the al-Rajma agreement of 1920. This would make Gaddafi's 1969 coup, or its aftermath, a likely candidate for the next crisis war. However, even when I reached this conclusion, I knew it might be wishful thinking, since nothing about the 1969 coup or its aftermath "reads" like a generational crisis war.

Libya, showing the three historic divisions: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica

Libya, showing the three historic divisions: Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica

Several weeks ago, an online correspondent wrote to me, putting the case that Libya's last crisis war climaxed in 1931 with the Italian massacre of Bedouins in Cyrenaica, and the settling of a large population of Italians in Tripolitania.

So I wrote back to him as follows:

"I guess I'm emotionally reluctant to accept your conclusions because if you're right then it means that the current Libya war is a full-fledged crisis civil war, which means that things are certain to go very, very badly.
So I think that for emotional reasons I'm going to postpone a decision a while longer, until it's clearer which way things are going, now that we're in three simultaneous wars in Muslim countries."

To put this conclusion into perspective, let's take a quick look at the Vietnam war and the recent Iraq war.

North and South Vietnam have had different ethnic origins, with North Vietnam (Vietnamese Kingdom) originally populated by ethnic Chinese, and South Vietnam (Champa Kingdom) populated by Polynesian settlers from Indonesia and Malaysia. These ethnic differences resulted in one crisis civil war after another over the centuries. Prior to the 1960s, Vietnam's last crisis war was the French conquest of Indochina in the 1880s and 1890s. By the 1960s, Vietnam was deep into a generational Crisis era, and so there was bound to be a crisis civil war, and the U.S. could neither have caused it nor prevented it. All the U.S. could do was to get caught in the middle, which we did.

The Iraq war was frequently called "another Vietnam," but it was nothing like the Vietnam war. Iraq's previous crisis war was the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, so Iraq is in a generational Awakening era, where a crisis civil war is literally impossible. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq did all they could to trigger a sectarian civil war, but it fizzled within a year, as expected.

Now we come to the Libya intervention, which is increasingly becoming a civil war with the U.S. being caught in the middle. Iraq could never have become "another Vietnam," but ironically Libya can.

Generational Dynamics forecasting is at best probabilistic. It can predict things with certainty over a long time frame, or with some uncertainty in a shorter time window.

So at this point, I don't completely buy into the Libyan disaster scenario. There are too many uncertainties, and I've come to have too much respect for the power of chaotic events and political interventions to delay trend events and the inevitable. Furthermore, it's my fault that I haven't tracked down whatever books or histories or whatever of Libya in the 1920s and 1930s to be able to reach a definitive conclusion on what happened there. (As long as I'm blaming myself, I'll take the liberty of whining a little, because I simply don't have the time to do a lot of the research that needs to be done. I make no money from Generational Dynamics, which is a public service, and I'm like everyone else having to work hard at my day job just to pay bills.)

At this point, all I can really say is that, based on the information I have so far, there is a non-trivial probability that the Libyan intervention will degenerate into a bloody crisis civil war. In the case of the Iraq war, I could say that the probability of that happening was zero. In the case of Libya, I don't know whether that probability is 30% or 50% or 70%, but I know for certain that it's well above zero. However, one bit of good news is that I totally discount any credible involvement by al-Qaeda in Libya.

The key to refining this analysis is to thoroughly study what happened in Libya in the 1920s and 1930s, Libya's last generational Crisis era, in order to understand the historical relationship between the Arabs, Berbers, Bedouins, Italians, and other ethnic and tribal groups in Libya. Perhaps I'll have the time and opportunity to do that analysis soon.

In the meantime, what I can tell you now, based on what I know now, is that the Libya war is much more like the Vietnam war than Iraq ever was, and that I'm not very optimistic about what's coming soon. And with the entire Mideast in a generational Crisis era, it could be much worse than Vietnam. It's a shame that no one in the Administration knows anything about generational theory, or they might be pursuing a different policy.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Mar-11 News -- US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (31-Mar-2011) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Mar-2011 31-Mar-11 News -- US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Mar-2011
31-Mar-11 News -- US deepens involvement in Libya, as rebels suffer decisive reversal