From brotherhood of the revolution to the struggle for power: analysis of the Libyan Civil War in the context of the security dilemma

ABSTRACT

The concept of the security dilemma, which was developed in the 1950s based on inter-state wars, was applied to civil wars to explain the cause of intra-state conflicts after the end of the Cold War. These applications have criticized for violating the key components emphasized by the original theory. The flaws of the literature have led to the generalization that the security dilemma cannot be applied to civil wars. This study, which opposes this generalization, claims that the process evolved into civil war in 2014 among the opposition groups that played a role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime can be explained by the concept of the security dilemma.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Barry Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict’, Survival 35 (1993): 27–47, Stuart J. Kaufman, ‘The Irresistible Force and the Imperceptible Object: The Yogoslva Breakup and Western Policy’, Security Studies 4 (1994): 281–319; ‘An “International” Theory of Inter-ethnic War’, Review of International Studies 22 (1996):149–71; ‘Spiraling to Ethnic War’, International Security 21 (1996):108–38, Paul Roe, ‘The Intrastate Security Dilemma: Ethnic Conflict as a “Tragedy”?’, Journal of Peace Research 36 (1999): 183–202, ‘Former Yugoslavia: The Security Dilemma that never was’, European Journal of International Relations 6 (2000): 373–93, ‘Actors’ Responsibility in Tight, Regular, or Loose Security dilemmas’, Security Dialogue 32 (2001):103–16, ‘Which Security Dilemma? Mitigating Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Croatia’, Security Studies 13 (2004):280–313.

² Esther Visser and Isabelle Duyvesteyn, ‘The Irrelevance of the Security Dilemma for Civil Wars’, Civil Wars 16 (2014):65–85, Shping Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict: toward a dynamic and integrative theory of ethnic conflict’, Review of International Studies 37 (2011):511–36, Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, ‘Civil War and the Security Dilemma’ in Barbara F. Walter and Jack Snyder (eds), Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

³ Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (New York: Princeton University Press, 1976), 75, Tang, ‘The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis’ Security Studies 18 (2009):597.

⁴ Herbert Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London: Collins, 1951), 19–20.

⁵ Roe, ‘Former Yugoslavia’, 377.

⁶ Butterfield, History and Human, 21.

⁷ John Herz, International Politics in the Atomic Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 241.

⁸ Herz, ‘Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’, World Politics 2 (1950):157.

⁹ Herz, Political Realism and Political Idealism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 240.

¹⁰ Jervis, Perception and Misperception, 64–5.

¹¹ Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma’, 37.

¹² Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, 518, Visser and Duyvesteyn, ‘The Irrelevance’, 70.

¹³ Kaufman, ‘Spiraling to Ethnic War’, 109.

¹⁴ Kaufman, ‘The Irresistible Force’, 284–87, ‘Spiraling to Ethnic War’, 109.

¹⁵ Kaufman, ‘An “International” Theory’, 158, ‘Spiraling to Ethnic War’, 116–8.

¹⁶ Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, 520, Visser and Duyvesteyn, ‘The Irrelevance’, 71–2.

¹⁷ Roe, ‘Which Security Dilemma’, 288.

¹⁸ Roe, ‘Which Security Dilemma’, 287.

¹⁹ Roe, ‘Actors Responsibility’, 106–10.

²⁰ Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, 523–25.

²¹ Tang, ‘The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis’, 594.

²² Kaufman, ‘Spiraling to Ethnic War’, 118.

²³ Kaufman, ‘An “International” Theory’, 157.

²⁴ Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, 520, Visser and Duyvesteyn, ‘The Irrelevance’, 72.

²⁵ Posen, ‘The Security Dilemma’, 29–31.

²⁶ Tang, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, 527.

²⁷ Snyder and Jervis, Civil War and the Security Dilemma, 16.

²⁸ Visser and Duyvesteyn, ‘The Irrelevance’, 80–1.

²⁹ Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, ‘Security Seeking under Anarchy: Defensive Realism Revisited’ International Security 25 (2001), 131–6, Tang, ‘The Security Dilemma: A Conceptual Analysis’, 604.

³⁰ ‘Libya: Militias, Tribes and Islamists’ Landinfo (19 December 2014), 18, https://landinfo.no/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Libya-Militias-Tribes-and-Islamists-19122014.pdf

³¹ Wolfram Lacher, ‘A Most Irregular Army The Rise of Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forces’ SWP (2 Now 2020), 11.

³² Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation: Structure and Process in Violent Conflict (London: Tauris, 2020), 127.

³³ Frederic Wehrey, The Burning Shores: Inside the Battle for the New Libya (New York: FSG, 2018), 78.

³⁴ Lacher, ‘Families, Tribes and Cities in the Libyan Revolution’, Middle East Policy 18 (2011), 144–5.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid, 146–7.

³⁷ Lacher, ‘The Rise of Tribal Politics’ in Jason Pack The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future (New York: Palgrave, 2013), 154.

³⁸ Ibid, 158.

³⁹ Anas El Gomati, ‘Libya’s Political Culture Wars’ Sadeq Institute (16 November 2020). https://www.sadeqinstitute.org/long-reads/libyas-political-culture-wars

⁴⁰ Lacher, ‘A Most Irregular’, 14.

⁴¹ Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Illinois:Waveland, 1979), 88.

⁴² Murat Yeşiltaş, Tuncay Kardaş and Tim Jacoby, ‘Rethinking non-state armed actors and sovereignty’ International Politics, (2022), https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-022-00377-w, Tuncay Kardaş and Ali Balcı, ‘Inter-societal security trilemma in Turkey: understanding the failure of the 2009 Kurdish Opening’ Turkish Studies, 17 (2016), 155-80, Anthony Vinci, ‘Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups: Reconsidering Conventional Analysis’ International Studies Quarterly 52 (2008).

⁴³ Luca Raineri, ‘Security and informality in Libya: militarisation without military?’ Conflict, Security & Development 19 (2019), 586.

⁴⁴ Wolfram Lacher and Peter Cole, ‘Politics by Other Means: Conflicting Interests in Libya’s Security Sector’, Small Arms Survey, no:20, 20. Ramazan Erdağ, Libya in the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Insecurity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 47-65.

⁴⁵ Lacher, ‘The Libyan Revolution and the Rise of Local Power Centres’, Mediterranean Politics, 2012.

⁴⁶ Wehrey, ‘Ending Libya’s Civil War’, 4.

⁴⁷ Lacher and Ahmed Labnouj, ‘Factionalism Resurgent: The War in The Jabal Nafusa’, in Peter Cole and Brian McQuinn, The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath (New York: Oxford, 2015) 266–8.

⁴⁸ Jalel Harchaoui and Mohamed-Essaïd Lazib, ‘Proxy War Dynamics in Libya’, PWP Confict Studies, 12. https://doi.org/10.21061/proxy-wars-harchaoui-lazib

⁴⁹ Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 83–5.

⁵⁰ Wehrey, ‘Ending Libya’s Civil War’, 8.

⁵¹ ‘General National Election Final Report’, Europen Union, 7 July 2012, https://aceproject.org/ero-en/regions/africa/LY/libya-final-report-general-national-congress/view

⁵² Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 29.

⁵³ ‘Libyan parliament bans ex-Gaddafi officials from Office’, Reuters, 5 May 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-politics/libyan-parliament-bans-ex-gaddafi-officials-from-office-idUSBRE94405320130505

⁵⁴ Wehrey, The Burning Shores, 150.

⁵⁵ ‘The Prize: Fighting for Libya’s Energy Wealth’, International Crisis Group, Report no:165, 3 December 2015, 8. https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/libya/prize-fighting-libya-s-energy-wealth

⁵⁶ Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 33.

⁵⁷ Lacher and Cole, ‘Politics by Other Means’, 49.

⁵⁸ Ibid.

⁵⁹ Sean Kane, ‘Barqa Reborn?: Eastern Regionalism and Libya’s Political Transition’ in Cole and McQuinn, The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath, 206–11.

⁶⁰ Nasos Mihalakas, ‘A New Federalism for Libya and the Arab Spring’, The Federalism Project, 10 April 2012. https://the-federalism-project.org/2012/04/10/a-new-federalism-for-libya-and-the-arab-spring/

⁶¹ ‘Libyan tribal leaders declare semi-autonomous eastern state’, The Guardian, 6 March 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/06/libya-benghazi-state-of-barqa

⁶² Wehrey, The Burning Shores, 80.

⁶³ Wehrey, ‘Endin Libya’s Civil War’, 8–10.

⁶⁴ Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 33.

⁶⁵ Lacher, ‘Factionalism Resurgent’, 269.

⁶⁶ Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 127.

⁶⁷ Brain McQuinn, ‘History’s Warriors’ in Cole and McQuinn, The Libyan Revolution and Its Aftermath, 238–9.

⁶⁸ Wehrey, ‘Ending Libya’s Civil War’, 5.

⁶⁹ Lacher, Libya’s Fragmentation, 127.

⁷⁰ Kane, ‘Barqa Reborn?’, 223.

⁷¹ Ibid, 221–2.

⁷² Barak Barfi, ‘Khalife Haftar: Rebuilding Libya from 37 the Top Down’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 2014. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/khalifa-haftar-rebuilding-libya-top-down

⁷³ Lacher, ‘A Most Irregular Army’, 8–10.