Libya
aviation show cannot help
NATO By Victor Kotsev
TEL AVIV - "This is a war of rumors," a
former Libyan colonel guarding the Benghazi radio
station told The New York Times on Tuesday in
response to a wave of mysterious killings of
defected former internal security officers that
are widely perceived as revenge attacks. "People
are very edgy."
The situation on the
ground has sunk completely in the metaphorical fog
of war. Western media regularly report rebel
advances. Government sources, often referenced by
Russian and other observers, claim that groups of
rebels are surrendering. Both sides deny
committing atrocities, but horrifying tales of
civilians emerge constantly. Nerves are frayed.
The humanitarian situation is in decline.
The NATO air campaign also has some
mystery attached to it
(how are targets selected?
Who participates? How efficient is it in
reality?), but overall it has a much higher
profile than the ground operations. There are some
very solid reasons for this, even though they have
nothing to do with the humanitarian fig leaf that
covers them. Let us set aside for a moment the
water resources, [1] the oil, and the central
banking interests that converge on the country.
[2] The Libyan war has become "a showcase in the
new arms race", as a Reuters special report puts
it.
"This is turning into the best shop
window for competing aircraft for years. More
even than in Iraq in 2003," a prominent defense
analyst told Reuters. "You are seeing for the
first time on an operation the Typhoon and the
Rafale up against each other, and both countries
want to place an emphasis on exports. France is
particularly desperate to sell the Rafale." [3]
Sell the Rafale France might do.
India just shortlisted the fighter plane as one of
two remaining competitors in a lucrative deal
worth US$11 billion. [4] The other competitor
(surprise?) is the Typhoon Eurofighter of the
European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company.
According to a former aircraft specialist and
military analyst interviewed by Asia Times Online,
this has everything to do with lessons from the
Libyan war.
The source, who asked not to
be identified by name, said that air-superiority
fighter jets with secondary ground-strike
capabilities, for example the F-16 and the Mirage
2000, had failed miserably to change facts on the
ground in the campaign against Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi. This was also demonstrated by
Gaddafi's use of agricultural airplanes flying at
low altitudes on Saturday to bomb fuel tanks in
the rebel city of Misrata. [5]
The rebels
claim that they notified the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) about the approaching
government planes (speaking about real-time
coordination between the rebels and NATO), but
"there was no response". The expert mentioned
above explained that low-flying aircraft posed a
difficult challenge to airborne radars, while any
target flying below 100 meters of altitude was
invisible.
More maneuverable, lower-speed
and lower-altitude aircraft, he added, had
achieved most of the results so far. Indeed, the
most significant rebel territorial gains occurred
when close air support planes such as the American
AC-130s and A-10C Thunderbolt IIs were in the air.
More recently, Gaddafi pulled his forces out of
Misrata when Predator drones showed up. The
Rafale, however, has also done relatively well,
alongside the aging British Tornado.
The
Rafale, which entered service in 2000, is of
particular interest, both because of the
political-economic implications of its wide use
and its unique characteristics. By contrast, the
other competitor for the Indian market, the
Typhoon, has only showed up sporadically over
Libya, and rarely if ever in ground-strike roles.
We might expect the latter to change as the
competition stiffens, despite that it is primarily
outfitted for air combat.
The Rafale
features a sturdy air frame, long service life,
exceptional maneuverability at low (sub-sonic)
speeds and a unique set of avionics that allows it
to both hit ground targets very efficiently and to
evade anti-aircraft fire. Its electronic warfare
suite, some reports have it, gives it a "virtual
stealth" capability.
Its superb
performance at low speeds is particularly
well-suited for mountain warfare - incidentally,
Gaddafi has so far avoided large-scale armor
offensives in the rebel hotbeds of the western
mountains - this, alongside the fact that it has
performed without losses so far, will boost its
export potential significantly.
Yet
despite of the use of this highly admirable weapon
- and a few others - NATO is not winning the war.
To be sure, rebel gains are reported almost daily.
"Rebel fighters made significant gains Monday
against forces loyal to Col Muammar el-Qaddafi in
both the western and eastern areas of the country,
in the first faint signs that NATO airstrikes may
be starting to strain the government forces," The
New York Times wrote on Monday.
Since
then, other sources (including al-Jazeera) have
claimed that scores of Gaddafi soldiers have been
killed in the east near the town of Brega, and
that the government troops have been pushed back
significantly in Misrata.
However, with
the fleeting battlefields phenomenon that is the
entire Libyan campaign, a few gains near Misrata
are hardly a critical success. The stepped-up
bombing campaign that accompanied these gains and
the increasing attacks against places where
Gaddafi might be hiding, tell another story - one
of frustration with the stagnation of the
campaign. The very fact that Gaddafi is able to
defy the no-fly zone and to send aircraft on
combat and reconnaissance missions mocks NATO's
military might.
Gaddafi, moreover, sticks
to his own version of the story. On Tuesday,
Libyan television showed a ceremony in which 150
men, presented as rebels who had surrendered, were
handed over to "tribal leaders". We can assume
that the story is manipulated, but questions
remain about the version we hear from NATO and the
rebels as well.
On Tuesday, NATO airplanes
carried out repeated strikes on Libya's capital
Tripoli, targeting, among other things, Gaddafi's
compound. This looks suspiciously like the latest
in a series of attempts on the Libyan leader's
life (see also my article Fatigue
shows in Libya, Asia Times Online, May 5),
even though there are no indications that Gaddafi
was present at the time of the strikes.
According to al-Jazeera, on Thursday (May
11) NATO announced "the start of a second phase of
its military operation aimed at command centers of
the Gaddafi regime". The announcement is several
weeks overdue. Given how much such definitions
usually get stretched, one has to wonder if this
is not a direct shorthand for killing Gaddafi
himself.
Europe is clearly under strain.
If the hostilities don't end soon, the southern
part of the continent will be flooded with
refugees from northern Africa. Recently, another
crisis has developed for NATO to deal with, and
hundreds of people have drowned while attempting
to cross the Mediterranean. Accusations have
surfaced that Gaddafi is forcing people to flee in
non-seaworthy boats, [6] but also NATO is coming
under criticism for not doing enough to rescue
them. [7]
Meanwhile, there is increasing
speculation that if this latest spike in bombing
raids and rebel activities fails to turn the tide
against Gaddafi, and if the Libyan leader
continues to evade the assassination attempts, a
ground war might be in the works. According to
Asia Times Online's M K Bhadrakumar, Russian and
Chinese leaders are trying to consolidate their
positions in order to avoid such a scenario.
According to Bhadrakumar:
[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei]
Lavrov revealed in that interview, "Reports of a
ground operation [in Libya] being prepared are
coming in and suggest that the appropriate plans
are being developed in NATO and the European
Union." And he publicly hinted at Moscow's
suspicion that the US ploy would be to
circumvent the need to approach the Security
Council for a proper mandate for NATO ground
operations in Libya and to instead arm-twist
United secretary general Ban Ki-Moon's
secretariat to extract a "request" to the
Western alliance to provide escorts to the UN's
humanitarian mission and use that as a fig leaf
to commence ground operations. [8]
Europe's shiny new air weapons, in
other words, are running low on time to win the
war on their own. As the humanitarian situation in
Libya worsens by the day and the fig leaf of a
"humanitarian war" becomes increasingly exposed,
the global defense community seems to be drawing a
lesson of its own.
In the future, we can
expect air power to be brought closer to the
ground and to be matched by sturdier ground
capabilities. Fighter planes that are well suited
for this, such as the French Rafale, will probably
do well and be adapted for more effective new
tactical doctrines.
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