Libya and the 5 Stages of U.S. Intervention

A. Trevor Thrall

Politics, Middle East

Washington is falling into the same bad habits.

The United States and its European allies are ramping up plans to intervene in Libya again, this time to confront the growing Islamic State presence in the country. The eagerness to jump back into Libya follows a five-stage pattern that has become all too familiar since the end of the Cold War. This pattern reflects the fundamental inability of the American political system to accept the world as it actually is, rather than how policymakers prefer it to be. Without addressing this dysfunction, the United States will find itself unable to break its cycle of failure in the Middle East.

Stage 1: Outrage and Denial

Since the end of the Cold War, every U.S. military intervention has been one of choice rather than necessity. Even the terrorist attacks of 9/11 did not require the United States to launch a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan. Instead, it is outrage that has driven American intervention. After 9/11, the outrage was visceral, stemming from the intense pain caused by the terrorist attacks. In most other cases, the outrage has been philosophical, erupting when events abroad violated the moral sensibilities of American foreign-policy elites and the public.

Even on the eve of Desert Storm in January 1991, a war approved of by many realists, outrage was evident in President Bush’s explanation of the decision to go to war. Citing the need for a “new world order” in which the rule of law triumphed over the “law of the jungle,” Bush quoted Marine Lieutenant General Walter Boomer, saying: "There are things worth fighting for. A world in which brutality and lawlessness are allowed to go unchecked isn't the kind of world we're going to want to live in.''