Qaddafi’s next moves

Qaddafi’s next moves

from SWJ Blog by Robert Haddick

The international coalition’s air campaign is about 48 hours old and in strictly military terms the results thus far are probably exceeding expectations. Western aircraft are flying over Libya and Libyan aircraft are not. Quick air supremacy was widely expected. More notable are the dozens of pro-Qaddafi armored vehicles now burning along the road between Ajdabiya and Benghazi, destroyed by coalition attack aircraft. The successful attack on Qaddafi’s armored column on the road to Benghazi has provided the relief Western policymakers were scrambling for last week.
But this very likely ends the conventional military phase of the campaign. Qaddafi will now attempt to deprive Western airpower of any additional targets by shifting to irregular warfare tactics. He will also attempt to implement a political and media strategy with a goal of cracking support for the intervention. The coalition must reckon with the possibility that its leverage may soon peak. If it does not achieve a quick knock-out of Qaddafi, it will need to fashion a sustainable political and military strategy for a long campaign.