Colonel Gadaffi Too nice ?

[mistermack]

Where did Colonel Gadaffi go wrong? Could it be that he was too nice for his own good?



Why is Asad still there in Syria and Gadaffi gone in Libya? What's the difference?
The answer is fear. Asad has his army so scared, they don't dare to contemplate changing sides.
Gadaffi was bad, but not bad enough it seems.
That's what it's like in Arab countries. If he had been even nicer, he would have been gone years ago.
The Saudis are one step more ruthless, even than Asad. And you can be sure that they are learning the lessons from Gadaffi. Not that he was too severe, but that he wasn't ruthless enough.
So what they will do is make some meaningless concessions in public, and increase the terror in private.

[Rum]

He went because the country is not as strategically important as Syria and so the west felt safe in giving him a push (and securing oil deals in the process) in my view. They are tiptoeing much more with Syria given where it is, with Iran next door as well as Turkey and Israel all very close. If Syria gets totally unstable the consequences would be pretty unpredictable internationally.

[MrJonno]

Noit sure you can scare an army with anything other than another army (well apart from Seth). Various tribal reasons determined whose loyalty the army went to and in Libya situation it was spit

[mistermack]

Noit sure you can scare an army with anything other than another army (well apart from Seth). Various tribal reasons determined whose loyalty the army went to and in Libya situation it was spit

That's not what I meant though. It's not the army as a unit that needs to be scared, it's the individual members. You need to know that if you even DISCUSS any form of disloyalty, you will be likely to be informed on, jailed for life if you're lucky, and your extended family getting similar treatment.

To do that, you need an extended network of spies, informers, and big rewards for anybody who reports disloyalty.
Stalin showed the way, he had his army from the generals down terrified of their own shadows, and more than willing to report the slightest hint of disloyalty.

I suspect that Syria and Saudi work on a similar basis. Gadaffi must have been a bit slapdash in comparison.

[MrJonno]

Can you really run an army like that, I thought what most the dodgy leaders did was to never give generals too many troops or hire ones that were personally related. There has to be at least some loyalty from the military to the leadership

[Svartalf]

He went because the country is not as strategically important as Syria and so the west felt safe in giving him a push (and securing oil deals in the process) in my view. They are tiptoeing much more with Syria given where it is, with Iran next door as well as Turkey and Israel all very close. If Syria gets totally unstable the consequences would be pretty unpredictable internationally.

[mistermack]

Can you really run an army like that, I thought what most the dodgy leaders did was to never give generals too many troops or hire ones that were personally related. There has to be at least some loyalty from the military to the leadership

Of course you need some sort of reward as well as terror.
I think they use a more brutal form of carrot and stick. ie greed and fear.
The more extreme the greed and fear, the less chance of them contemplating disloyalty.

But spies are vital. The military need to be aware that ANYBODY that they talk to could report them.
And the one who reports a fellow officer has to be well rewarded, so that nobody can be sure that the person they are plotting with isn't leading them on in order to get rich.