Coercion, Survival, and War: Why Weak States Resist the United States by Phil Haun

Author:Phil Haun [Haun, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Security (National & International), Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780804792837
Google: dnbPwAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 23508231
Publisher: Stanford Security Studies
Published: 2015-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Map 6.1. Libya.

Despite U.S. efforts to coerce Libya by military action and sanctions, over the next few years Libya continued to antagonize the Reagan administration. In April 1983, U.S. intelligence uncovered a shipment of weapons bound from Tripoli for the communist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and, in May 1983, Libyan troops once again invaded Chad.16 The bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon on October 23, 1983, though not directly linked to Libya, produced a major shift in U.S. foreign policy toward Libya.17 In April 1984, Reagan announced National Security Decision Directive 138, establishing a more aggressive response to terrorist groups and their state sponsors.18

LIBYA’S SUPPORT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM

Reagan’s new foreign policy received an unexpected boost two weeks later when Britain severed diplomatic ties with Libya following the murder of a female police officer in front of the Libyan embassy in London.19 Yet it would not be until the end of 1985 that the United States would consider direct military action against Libya. That year witnessed a series of hijackings and high-profile killings linked to terrorist organizations with Libyan ties, including Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Tripoli-based Abu Nidal organization. In the span of seven months, these groups carried out three airliner hijackings, one of which resulted in the murder of a U.S. sailor. They also orchestrated the seizure of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and the simultaneous detonation of bombs just after Christmas at the airports in Rome and Vienna, which killed twenty, including an eleven-year-old American girl.20

The Christmas bombings resulted in the United States escalating the conflict into a full-blown crisis. On January 7, 1986, Reagan announced “irrefutable evidence of [Qaddafi’s] role in these attacks,” banned all trade with Libya, and ordered all remaining U.S. nationals out of Libya.21 In addition, Reagan ordered a second carrier group to the Mediterranean to perform operations in the Gulf of Sidra.22 From January through March, the U.S. Navy conducted monthly “Freedom of Navigation” exercises. On March 24, Libya fired surface-to-air missiles at Navy aircraft when they crossed over the “line of death.” In response, and in accordance with the White House’s more aggressive rules of engagement, the Navy not only destroyed the missile site but also sank two Libyan patrol boats.23

Not only did Libya continue to resist U.S. demands with regard to its policies supporting international terrorism, but, after the U.S. Navy attacks, Qaddafi retaliated. On April 5 an explosion rocked a Berlin discotheque killing two, including a U.S. soldier. Most damning were encrypted messages passed between Libya’s embassy in East Berlin and Tripoli prior to and following the bombing. Intercepted and deciphered by American and British intelligence, the messages directly implicated Qaddafi’s regime.24 Finally, armed with “smoking gun” evidence, Reagan ordered air strikes.

El Dorado Canyon

In the early hours of April 15, 1986, U.S. Air Force F-111s conducted a night strike, code named El Dorado Canyon, on three targets in Tripoli while U.S. Navy A-6Es simultaneously attacked two targets in Benghazi. The targeting process had commenced six months

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