Many of the "mercenaries" fighting on behalf of Gaddafi's regime in Libya are ethnic Tuaregs who fled conflicts in Mali and Niger in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980, Gaddafi began encouraging the young Tuareg men -- illegally residing in Libya -- to join military service as "African regiments" within the Libyan military. The general reputation of the Tuareg are as fierce and brutal fighters and they appear to be the "foreign mercenaries" in many...
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Guest Post: What way will the guns point in the Middle East?
Building on Dan's observation this past week, Theo McLauchlin is a PhD student at McGill University offers us some insights on the role of the military in the various Arab revolutions we're witnessing. He works in the area of military defections and civil wars.Which Middle Eastern regimes seem liable to fall? That's a popular question these days, and an important answer, as Dan Nexon points out, is that it depends on each country's armed...
Worst. IHL. Treaty. Evar….
Suspected Mercenaries in LibyaI really do more things than tweeting, but this morning I got up to find that the ICRC had sent out a message that simply stated the title of the Convention of the OAU for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. Libreville, 3rd July 1977 and a link to the treaty. I can only assume they're doing it in response to the situation in Libya where it has been alleged that Gaddafi has been using mercenaries (from Chad?...
Norms Are What Analysts Make of Them…? And Other Thoughts About Targeting Killings, Sieges, and War Law Development
Professor Michael Gross left a lengthy response at Current Intelligence to my remarks about his characterization of asymmetric war. I'm afraid he seems displeased with me:Far superior to faint praise, it is still annoying when reviewers pick out controversial arguments but leave the impression that the author did not address them.Oh dear. It's true that, in my effort at brevity, I did give short shrift to many of the overarching strengths of...
Not-so Random Thought of the Day
Whether or not significant elements of the military defect continues to be the key factor in the Revolutions 2011.(Photo: AP)
A Rare Georgetown Post
My University's relationship with the neighborhood's oligarchy really, really sucks.Although our neighbors have some legitimate grievances, I find it hard to sympathize with the Advisory Neighborhood Commission's particular brand of crazy. According to the City Paper:Basically, the neighbors want to seal all evidence of student presence either on M Street or inside the campus gates, protecting quiet streets from noise and unsightly student...
Desperation in Libya
As reports circulate that the vast majority of Libya is in the hands of the opposition, Gaddafi blames al-Qaeda and drug-addled youth for the revolution:Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has said in a speech on Libyan state television that al-Qaeda is responsible for the uprising in Libya."It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda," he said, speaking by phone from un unspecified location.He said that the protesters were young...
Who Needs Social Scientists When We Have the Onion?
Many scholars consider "prediction" to be the goal of social science. They deploy fancy statistical techniques to create complex models that, if they're really good, reach the Olympian heights of 47% accuracy rates.Then there's the Onion, who makes all of those technowizards with their "R" and their "LaTeX" look like a bunch of coin flippers. Consider the its scarily accurate 17 January 2001 headline, "Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of...
Bizarro U.S.
Wednesday, February 23rd was certainly one of the stranger days of American politics.Best I can tell, we decided that all those darn Middle Easterners were getting too much attention with their popular protests bringing down regimes, civil wars between pro-democracy and autocratic forces, and all that, so the US was all like, "dude, better turn on the crazy and get some freaking attention!!"At least, that's the best explanation I've got.
Strengthening Civilian Protection
My review essay on the protection of civilians is out in Foreign Affairs. I discuss two books - Michael Gross' Moral Dilemmas of Modern War, and Stephen Rockel and Rick Halpern's edited volume Collateral Damage. All these authors clearly care deeply about protecting civilians in armed conflicts, and worry in different ways that the existing laws of war are flawed. I have somewhat more faith, particularly in the ability of global civil society...
Middle Eastern Dictator Speech Bingo: Threatened by Revolution Edition
From LSE to the ICC?
Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi's second son and purported successor, Saif Al-Islam Alqadhafi fueled the protests the other night with his disjointed speech. The irony of Saif's complicity in all of this is that he wrote his Ph.D. dissertation under David Held at London School of Economics titled: "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratisation of Global Governance Institutions." From the Abstract: This dissertation analyses the problem of...