GOVT 3223

Was US Intervention in Libya To Remove Gaddafi a Mistake?

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

Questions have arisen recently about the wisdom of the 2011 Western intervention in Libya, which resulted in the removal and assassination of Colonel Gaddafi, that country's long-time ruler. The question is being asked today in relation to the political chaos that ensued and the rise in today's Libya of political movements and forces favorable or connected to Al-Qaeda and ISIS. This course is not intended to settle that question as is currently formulated. Instead, the course approaches the question of intervention in Libya in terms of the connections between global governance, the responsibility to protect, and political order and democracy in the zones of intervention. In this context, the course has two aims. The first is to contrast the approach of the African Union to the resolution of the Libyan crisis, which was summarily dismissed by the US and its allies, with the preferred approach of the Permanent Western members of the UN Security Council.  The second aim is to examine the manner in which the responsibility to protect was executed in Libya and the lessons that might be gained from it. 

When Offered Spring.

Breadth Requirement (GB)
Distribution Category (HA-AS)

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