Summary: Arming a rebel force can help level the playing field or nudge a conflict towards a certain conclusion, but taken alone, the act of supplying arms simply cannot solve the fundamental problems that result in the force being militarily inept.

Analysis:

Talk of arming the rebel opposition in Libya predates the decision to initiate an air campaign over the country, but is again increasing in volume as the rebels fail to show any sign of being able to successfully engage forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The headlong advance of the rebels from the disputed town of Ajdabiyah just south of the de facto opposition capital at Benghazi to the outskirts of Sirte, Gadhafi’s hometown, was in actuality <http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110328-libyan-airstrikes-march-27-28-2011><an advance into territory that loyalist forces had already withdrawn from and conceded>. As soon as the rebels encountered prepared defensive positions outside of Sirte, they were <http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110329-libyan-airstrikes-march-28-29-2011><forced to beat a hasty and chaotic retreat>. Already, there are reports that loyalist forces have retaken the town of Ras Lanuf, a key hub of energy export infrastructure.

<Use most recent update map: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110329-libyan-airstrikes-march-28-29-2011>

The renewed talk of arming the rebels has its roots in the fundamental problems of a limited air campaign against Libya. Coalition airpower is capable of defeating Gadhafi’s air force, of crushing his larger, more fixed air defense capabilities as well as taking out known command, control and communications hubs. But the use of airpower to totally crush Gadhafi’s ability to wage war <http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110308-how-libyan-no-fly-zone-could-backfire><entails civilian casualties and collateral damage>. And if minimizing those casualties is a key objective, then it is simply not possible for airpower alone to force loyalist forces, already ensconced in built up urban areas, to withdraw from them.

If <http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110321-what-next-libya><airpower is the wrong tool for the job> and no one is willing to provide the right tool in the form of foreign ground combat forces, then an alternative must be found in order to advance the situation on the ground. There seems to have been some hope that the rebel opposition in the east would serve as an alternative, but the rebels never coalesced into a meaningful military force. Before the imposition of the no fly zone and coalition airstrikes, their defensive lines were utterly collapsing in the face of a concerted assault by Gadhafi’s forces, and it is now unambiguously clear that coalition airpower has not fundamentally altered the military situation on the ground in Libya. The rebels remain militarily inept.

This is the lens through which the idea of further arming the rebels must be understood. The concept is rooted in the idea of giving them the capability to do what coalition airpower cannot do and to act as

the ground combat force that the coalition will not commit to Libya. But arming them is doomed to be just as disappointing as their inability to make inroads against loyalist forces with coalition airpower overhead.

<http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110322-problem-libyan-rebels><The longstanding problems of the rebels> has nothing to do with arms. Without coherent organization, leadership, battlefield communications as well as command and control and the ability to plan and sustain offensives logistically, no quantity of arms is going to magically solve the problem.

And in any event, in the early days of unrest opposition forces broke open Libyan military arsenals and appropriated an enormous quantity of small arms, ammunition, heavy weapons and related materiel – there have even been signs of armored vehicles and rocket artillery in their possession. While there has been considerable wastage of what ammunition they do have, the problem has consistently been the rebels’ inability to maintain those weapons and employ them properly and coherently towards military objectives.

Powerful recoilless rifles have been fired aimlessly into the air as an attempt at inaccurate artillery. The opposition has called out for drivers capable of operating a T-55, an archaic Soviet tank and one of the oldest in even the Libyan arsenal. Early on there were reports that a rebel SA-7 shoulder-fired surface to air missile (<http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100129_manpads_persistent_and_potent_threat><MANPADS>) was used to shoot down one of the rebel’s own planes.

Indeed, the longer-term problem in Libya is not too few arms, but too many. All of the arms that have been broken out of Libyan stockpiles cannot be returned after the conflict ends. Everything from <http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110309-will-libya-again-become-arsenal-terrorism><small arms to explosives to MANPADS will be proliferating around the region> for years to come. (And there are concerns that even within the rebel movement <http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110329-why-washington-reluctant-arm-libyas-eastern-rebels><there are elements of al Qaeda and Hezbollah> seeking to take advantage of the situation.)

Already, there are reports that Egypt and possibly Qatar have been involved in smuggling weapons to the opposition. But what the opposition needs is not more weapons but training that will to build them into a coherent fighting force that could advance with only limited outside support, as the Northern Alliance did against Kabul and the Taliban in 2001. Unfortunately, training is not a quick-fix solution for the coalition either. As recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrates, the time it takes to train up a meaningful fighting force is considerable and measured in years, not weeks or months.

Arming an opposition or insurgent force can work when the group or a collection of groups are already composed of capable fighters and competent leadership. When the United States slipped FIM-92 Stinger MANPADS to the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of the country, the mujahideen was a bloodied and battle-hardened force capable of planning and executing ambushes and assaults on Soviet

positions. They were already slowly bleeding the Red Army in Afghanistan, and may well have ultimately prevailed even without the Stingers. But the new missiles helped reduce a key Soviet advantage, their airpower, and level the playing field.

And when the Soviets and Chinese armed North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese had the basic military competencies to not only incorporate those arms into their operations but to orchestrate the massive logistical effort to sustain them in combat and conduct large scale military operations.

Today, <http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100830_afghanistan_why_taliban_are_winning><the Taliban is winning in Afghanistan> with Lee Enfield rifles from the turn of the last century and homemade improvised explosive devices. They are an agile and capable insurgent force that may ultimately prevail even without any expansion of limited outside assistance.

In short, arming a rebel force can help level the playing field or nudge a conflict towards a certain conclusion, but taken alone, the act of supplying arms to a group cannot fundamentally alter military realities on the ground. And rooting out competent forces from prepared defensive positions in built-up urban areas is a profound challenge for the best militaries in the world. Providing a ragtag group of rebels with additional arms and ammunition will not achieve that, though it may well make the conflict more bloody – particularly for civilians. And like the arms already loose in the country, any additional arms inserted into the equation will not be used only against Gadhafi’s forces. They too will pop up for years to come across the region.

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