Libya: Building a New Nation

Last February, Libya joined many other nations in the Arab world by overthrowing a dictator that had repressed their country for decades. Muammar Gaddafi, the “mad dog of the middle east” was toppled after several months of struggle, with the help of extensive NATO air support. In the past year, Libya has been through a whirlwind transformation, making it an interesting study of modern nation building. On August 9, Libya’s current transitional government elected its new president, Mohammed Magarief. Magarief, who struggled for decades in exile to overthrow Gaddafi, now faces an arguably harder task: creating a democracy from scratch.

One of the unique aspects of the Libyan situation is the almost total lack of existing institutions on which to build a democracy. Gaddafi worked systematically to eliminate almost all potential opposition to his rule. This was partly his undoing, as the crippled Libyan military had to rely on foreign mercenaries due to a lack of competent personnel. Civil society and the private sector were greatly restricted under Gaddafi. This means that Libyans are currently attempting to build a democracy in a nation with almost no democratic foundations.

In a way, this is a blessing. Libya is starting from scratch, and is tearing apart all aspects of the Gaddafi regime. Planners have a tabula rasa to figure out the optimal democratic system. Gaddafi’s repression has also served to unite Libyans. Libyans have joined together to tear down the remnants of the old Gaddafi regime, from license plates to school textbooks. At times this fervor to wipe away Gaddafi has appeared almost dangerous – a law outlawing praising the former regime was eventually repealed on free speech grounds, but indicated the level of hatred towards Gaddafi.

Libya’s transition to democracy is very much a work in progress. The successes and failures of the transition provide useful lessons for future nation building exercises. Most of the transitional process has been handled by the National Transitional Council (NTC), a loose coalition of various leaders of the revolution. The NTC created a roadmap with specific checkpoints on the path to democracy. While the NTC has run late on some of its deadlines, the roadmap is still being followed, and sets clear, measurable objectives. This has also increased the legitimacy of the NTC. Instead of being a miscellaneous group of strongmen, the NTC defined itself as a temporary body with an exact  expiration date.

The National Transitional Council yields to an elected 200 member ‘General National Congress’ (GNC). The new GNC has more legitimacy than the NTC because it is an elected body; however, it is unclear how much power it actually possesses. With no constitution, it is not clear what processes the GNC will use to actually effect change. The NTC struggled to implement major policies because of a lack of defined legislative procedures. Once a constitution is ratified the new parliament should have more power, but Libya cannot afford a year of dallying. The country is still largely run by the remnants of the Gaddafi bureaucracy and risks slipping back into old ways. Therefore, replacing Gaddafi institutions needs to happen now in this current climate of change.

For the United States, Libya is a vindication of President Obama’s much-maligned strategy of “leading from behind”. The US waited for multilateral support before assisting the NATO campaign to bomb Gaddafi forces. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States bore the brunt of the military campaign and got stuck occupying the countries. Conversely, the United States contributed zero foot soldiers in Libya. Therefore Libyans have a strong sentiment that they are responsible for their own future, with strong acclamation for US assistance. The United States enjoys higher approval ratings in Libya than anywhere else in the Arab world.

The major lesson of this hands-off approach is that more caution is needed with post-conflict management. After the war, Gaddafi’s defeated mercenaries left the country en masse. While Niger successfully managed the influx of soldiers and weapons, the young democracy of Mali did not, and the brutal violence there has made the nation a potential recruiting ground for Al Qaeda. While Libya is an example of a cheap, successful military intervention, the US should learn from this experience and remain constantly engaged in the region, even after the fighting appears to be over. This strategy can prevent similar types of damaging aftershocks.

Going forward, Libya faces two major challenges. The short term challenge is recovering from the revolution, specifically in disarming the militias. Much of the fighting during the revolution was conducted by a variety of semiautonomous military groups who have been loath to abandon their weapons and power. While Libyans generally want the militias to throw down their arms, Libya is awash in weapons, and plenty of households have a pile of Kalashnikovs sitting in their kitchen. More dangerous weapons are not secured properly, with the potential for weapons proliferation or accidental detonation.

In the long term, resource management is a major issue. . Libya’s economy depends on oil. With a population of only about six million people, Libya is sparsely populated but has the largest oil reserves in Africa. This oil is generally located in the barren south, which is almost totally devoid of people. Equitably distributing the oil wealth to a diverse population of different sects will be a major challenge. Already the residents of Benghazi in the east worry that they will be abused by the government of Tripoli in the west. The constitutional debates will center around oil; how its profits will be distributed and the creation of potential geopolitical divide in wealth.

These difficulties aside, there are several reasons to be optimistic about Libya. Even under Gaddafi’s corrupt regime, oil profits allowed Libyans to enjoy the highest per capita income in Africa Restoring oil production was the top priority of the NTC and to the surprise of many analysts, it has almost completely returned to pre-war levels. Libyan reconstruction is expected to be extremely rapid; The Economist projects it will be 2012’s fastest growing economy. Gaddafi, despite his despotic rule, launched several projects that will prove useful in the future. His education curriculum required Libyans to read his “Green Book” to indoctrinate them in his “Jamahiriya” ideology. While the book was widely considered ridiculous, the program raised literacy in Libya to among the highest in Africa. Gaddafi’s gargantuan Great Manmade River project, the largest irrigation system in the world, should provide the desert nation a stable water supply, solving a problem even wealthy nations in the region like Israel are struggling to remedy. Libya offers fantastic tourist opportunities, with the best Ancient Roman ruins in Africa and miles of sandy Mediterranean beaches. Various Libyan cities are trying to position themselves as trade hubs for Mediterranean shipping to take advantage of Libya’s central location between Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. If Libya can successfully use its oil money to rebuild the nation and promote security, the nation could become similar to the United Arab Emirates in terms of wealth and global influence.

Of course, that is a massive “if”. And even the most optimistic observers acknowledge that building a private sector, government, and diverse economy could take a generation. Still, in two years Libya has gone from the reign of a dictator entrenched for decades to the rule of their first democratically elected body. As far as revolutions are concerned, Libya’s path has been remarkably smooth.