Jeffrey Martini

Christopher S. Chivvis

This report assesses the challenges facing Libya since the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime and evaluates the impact of the limited international role in efforts to overcome them. It also sketches possible future roles for the international community.

Lessons and Implications for the Future

Libya After Qaddafi

A year after Qaddafi's death, the light-footprint approach adopted for Libya's postwar transition is facing its most serious test. Security, the political transition, and economic development all present challenges. But if Libya's transitional authorities and the international community handle this issue set adroitly, Libya could still emerge as a positive force for democratic stability in North Africa and a valuable partner against al-Qaeda.

The Nation-Building Challenge

Libya's Post-Qaddafi Transition

This book investigates France's 2013 military intervention in Mali and its lessons for America's fight against terrorist groups in Africa and worldwide. Its assessment of new anti-terrorist military strategy will be of use to those in the foreign policy and national security communities.

The French War on Al Qa'ida in Africa

A highly readable look at the role of the US and NATO in Libya's war of liberation, and its lessons for future military interventions.

Libya and the Limits of Liberal Intervention

Toppling Qaddafi

Stephanie Pezard

James Dobbins

Laurel E. Miller

Julie E. Taylor

"This volume analyzes the impediments that local conditions pose to successful outcomes of nation-building interventions in conflict-affected areas. Previous RAND studies of nation-building focused on external interveners' activities. This volume shifts the focus to internal circumstances, first identifying the conditions that gave rise to conflicts or threatened to perpetuate them, and then determining how external and local actors were able to modify or work around them to promote enduring peace. It examines in depth six varied societies: Cambodia, El Salvador, Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It then analyzes a larger set of 20 major post-Cold War nation-building interventions. The authors assess the risk of renewed conflict at the onset of the interventions and subsequent progress along five dimensions: security, democratization, government effectiveness, economic growth, and human development. They find that transformation of many of the specific conditions that gave rise to or fueled conflict often is not feasible in the time frame of nation-building operations but that such transformation has not proven essential to achieving the primary goal of nation-building -- establishing peace. Most interventions in the past 25 years have led to enduring peace, as well as some degree of improvement in the other dimensions assessed. The findings suggest the importance of setting realistic expectations -- neither expecting nation-building operations to quickly lift countries out of poverty and create liberal democracies, nor being swayed by a negative stereotype of nation-building that does not recognize its signal achievements in the great majority of cases."--Page 4 of cover.

Christopher S. Chivvis

Books

Your next favorite book is out there