Research & Commentary Results

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Gerald Feierstein, Mirette F. Mabrouk, Fatima Abo Alasrar, Marvin G. Weinbaum, and Yesar Al-Maleki.

The U.N.’s approach to achieving a political solution to Libya’s conflict is now highly vulnerable to falling apart.

The War for Tripoli, launched by Gen. Khalifa Hifter in April 2019, came to an abrupt end in June 2020 after extensive Turkish military capabilities were introduced to the theater at the beginning of the year. This research paper seeks to drill down into the military, logistical, and technological aspects of the war, highlighting the unique role of drones, soft-kill and hard-kill air defense technologies, private military contractors, and extraterritorial military professionals in determining its final outcome. 

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Paul Salem, Jonathan M. Winer, Gonul Tol, Mohammed Soliman, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Elizabeth Dent, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Robert S. Ford.

In recent years Turkey has launched three incursions into Syria and become increasingly involved abroad.

Essentially what we are witnessing is a struggle by two sets of international coalitions to control the mediation process.

For the last five years, the international community has tried a range of different approaches to mediating the Libyan civil war. All have failed. Most nations not actively fueling the war with weapons, money, training, and mercenaries now see that halting these destructive flows is critical to bringing the rival militias to the negotiating table. However, this will not be enough to solve the conflict. Once militias are cut off from external sources of support, the core economic issues that gave rise to the conflict will still remain. Only a new approach empowering Libyan economic reformers and reworking the economic system can fix the dysfunction. To achieve this, international actors need to facilitate the establishment of a Libyan-led International Financial Commission with the authority to restructure the economy.

Since 2011 Libya’s seemingly endless Wars of Post-Gadhafi Succession have not fundamentally been fought over the control of territory, but rather over the control of economic institutions, patronage networks, and the amorphous optics of legitimacy and international support. The most recent battle, the 2019-20 “War for Tripoli,” was about gaining access to the fonts of both legitimate and corrupt enrichment: letters of credit, smuggling networks, subsidized petrol, and control of those myriad institutions to which Libya’s sui generis economic system grants the ability to exert de facto fiscal, financial, and legal power. Therefore, although Hifter and his allies have been wholesale evicted from western Libya, the grievances they highlighted, preyed upon, and took advantage of remain unchanged.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Marvin G. Weinbaum, Grace Wermenbol, Jason Pack, Shahla Al-Kli, and Khaldoun Khelil.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Charles Lister, Randa Slim, Jonathan M. Winer, Alex Vatanka, Marvin G. Weinbaum, Robert S. Ford, Mirette F. Mabrouk, and Syed Mohammad Ali.

Jonathan Winer and Mirette Mabrouk join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the latest developments in Libya and the regional dynamics in play, including the role of Egypt.

MEI’s Mirette Mabrouk and Guled Ahmed join host Alistair Taylor to discuss the ongoing dispute between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), recent developments in Somaliland, and changing dynamics in the Horn of Africa.