The wars in Libya and Kosovo share many similarities.
Stephen Walt compares the war in Libya to the NATO effort in Kosovo:
Both wars were launched on impulse, there were no vital strategic interests involved, and both wars were fought "on the cheap" through the use of airpower. NATO leaders expected the targets to succumb quickly, and were surprised when their adversaries (Milosevic in 1999, Qaddafi today) hung on as long as they did.But there's another parallel that deserves mention too. Serbia eventually surrendered, and I expect that Qaddafi or his sons will eventually do so too. But in the case of Kosovo, NATO and the U.N. had to send in a peacekeeping force, and they are still there ten years later. And Kosovo has only about 28 percent of Libya's population and is much smaller geographically (some 10,000 square kilometers, compared with Libya's 1,800,000 sq. km.) So anybody who thinks that NATO, the United Nations, or the vaguely defined "international community" will be done whenever Qaddafi says uncle (or succumbs to a NATO airstrike) should probably lower their expectations and prepare themselves for long-term involvement in a deeply divided country.
It should be added that were Western troops to enter Libya in any large numbers as peace-keepers, it's quite possible that whatever's left of Gaddafi's forces would stage an insurgency. After all, many Libyans traveled into Iraq to Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers during Iraq's insurgency. That's why I think it's very unlikely that NATO would play a role in the peacekeeping efforts, preferring instead to hand that particular duty off to the United Nations.
(AP Photo)
