Time for bargaining in Libya
Libya's rebels seem to finally be closing in on Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. According to the New York Times, rebels in the west, which used to be the more reliably pro-Qaddafi region of the country, have moved into two towns just west and south of Tripoli. Should the rebels complete the capture of Zawiyah along the road to Tunisia and Gheran to the south, Qaddafi's final redoubt in the capital would be cut off. In a scene harkening back to Stalingrad in early 1943, Qaddafi exhorted his remaining followers to resist from the far end of a scratchy and barely audible landline, exclaiming that "[t]he blood of martyrs is fuel for the battlefield."
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If Qaddafi's future now looks bleak, it should be no surprise to find him now open to a negotiated end to the war. Indeed, Reuters reported that a U.N. envoy had arrived in Tunisia and was meeting with Libyan government and rebel representatives at an island resort. But both Qaddafi and the rebels denied that they were bargaining. In spite of the denials, the bargaining for Libya may be imminent.
How Wars End, by Dan Reiter, a political science professor at Emory University, provides a useful guide for what we should expect from Libya's endgame. According to Reiter, how a war ends is a function of bargaining: the arrival of additional information -- usually from the battlefield -- that changes each sides' bargaining calculations, and each sides' calculations about the enforceability of a possible settlement. In the case of Libya, shifting battlefield fortunes, combined with uncertainty over Qaddafi's postwar status, have so far made negotiations unworkable and have thus prolonged the war.
Reiter points out that if combatants knew in advance how a war would turn out or if they agreed in advance on the relative military balance, actual fighting would be unnecessary: the two sides could simply skip to the surrender ceremony. But war involves large servings of uncertainty, chance, and miscalculation, which decision-makers on all sides gamble will work in their favor. Libya's war has been especially confusing in all of these dimensions. From the start, there has been deep uncertainty over the loyalty of Qaddafi's followers, the ability of the rebels to organize military units, the utility of NATO's air campaign, and the capacity of all sides to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. With such uncertainty, and with battlefield outcomes swinging back and forth, it is no surprise the conflict has lasted as long as it has without any serious attempts at bargaining. Both sides have felt good reason to believe that their persistence would eventually pay off.
With the war now trending their way, the rebels have an incentive to increase their demands on Qaddafi. Conversely, Qaddafi, if he believes he is losing, has an incentive to cut his demands and make a deal, a plea the rebels likely feel they can ignore for now. If the rebels now believe that their winning streak will accelerate, Reiter would predict that they will further ramp up their settlement demands, a result that would prolong the fighting. If, on the other hand, the rebels had some nagging doubts about another reversal in their battlefield fortunes, perhaps caused by a breakdown within their tribal alliance, they might have an incentive to cut a quick deal with Qaddafi.
Reiter's model of war termination also includes the uncertainty surrounding the enforcement of a peace deal. Qaddafi may think it is rational to fight to the end if he didn't trust that an agreement that included amnesty for him would be honored. Likewise, the rebels may so fear Qaddafi's possible return from exile that they prefer continuing the war until he is dead, rather than settle for his exile.
The rebel capture of Zawiyah and Gheran may have finally provided the information both sides have needed to calculate their odds of success. With that information now in hand, serious bargaining over a settlement may now be possible. But only an end that sees the annihilation of Qaddafi and his followers will be reliably self-enforcing, a grisly outcome that can be avoided. There is now an opportunity for outside institutions and leaders to provide some guarantees that could assure both sides that an agreement involving Qaddafi's removal from power and exile will be enforced. The alternative is a lot more unnecessary killing.
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