Global NATO and the catastrophic failure in Libya : lessons for Africa in the forging of African unity / by Horace Campbell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. The NATO intervention in Libya: a lesson of colossal failure -- The independence of Libya and the birth of NATO -- Collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of global NATO -- Muammar Gaddafi and the elusive revolution -- The neoliberal assault on Libya: London School of Economics and Harvard professors -- UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and the responsibility to protect -- Libya and Gulf Cooperation Council -- Libyan resources -- France and Libya -- Libya and the financialization of energy markets -- The NATO campaign -- The African Union and Libya -- NATO in Libya as a military information operation -- Who took Tripoli? -- Tawerga and the myth of "African mercenaries" -- The execution of Gaddafi -- NATO's Libyan mission: a catastrophic failure -- European isolation in Africa -- Failure begets failure: the NATO quagmire in Libya consumes the U.S. ambassador to Libya -- "Libya all in": a culture of dysfunctionality in the U.S. military and its explosion in the U.S. political system -- Conclusion: NATO and the processes of failure and destruction in Libya -- Afterword by Ali A. Mazrui: from the Lockerbie air crash to the Libyan revolution.

Print version record.

In this incisive account, scholar Horace Campbell investigates the political and economic crises of the early twenty-first century through the prism of NATO's intervention in Libya. He traces the origins of the conflict, situates it in the broader context of the Arab Spring uprisings, and explains the expanded role of a post-Cold War NATO. This military organization, he argues, is the instrument through which the capitalist class of North America and Europe seeks to impose its political will on the rest of the world, however warped by the increasingly outmoded neoliberal form of capitalism. The intervention in Libya--characterized by bombing campaigns, military information operations, third party countries, and private contractors--exemplifies this new model. Campbell points out that while political elites in the West were quick to celebrate the intervention in Libya as a success, the NATO campaign caused many civilian deaths and destroyed the nation's infrastructure. Furthermore, the instability it unleashed in the forms of militias and terrorist groups have only begun to be reckoned with, as the United States learned when its embassy was attacked and personnel, including the ambassador, were killed. Campbell's lucid study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex and weighty course of events.

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