U.S Democracy Campaign during The Civil War in Libya

The NATO intervention in Libya was one of the most contentious conflict in 2011. The permission given by the UNSC for NATO to intervene in Libya led to a debate that said intervention carried out in Libya was not based on the humanitarian objectives but for US national interest. This situation is strengthened by several NATO activities that show their involvement is for the US interest. Some of the US interest are protecting their territorial sovereignty from terrorism, oil interest and democracy campaign or ideology. Ideology is counted as their long-range or important interest. Previous studies have explained the other US interest in Libya such as the oil interest and terrorism. However, there are not many studies that precisely portray the importance of liberalism in this operation. Therefore, this research is questioning on the importance of democracy campaign during operation by NATO for the US. The main argument in this study is that US did not only launch the operation for humanitarian reason but for its own interest and that democracy liberal ideology interest hold the same importance as the other interest of US.


Introduction
Arab Spring is a phenomenon that started a similar uprising in Arab countries. This incident began in Tunisia, when Tunisians demanded President Zine El Abidin Bin Ali to step down from the office. 1 This phenomenon then gave a rise of enthusiasm for countries around Tunisia to do the same with their authoritarian governments such as Libya, Syria and Egypt. The uprising that occurred in Tunisia succeeded in overthrowing its president with conducive conditions, giving some hope for Libya to build a new life claimed his administration is what his people really want, but he doesn't give any opportunities for his people to build any political parties and prohibits the existence of independent media. In addition, during his reign Gaddafi implemented a 'stick and carrot' system in which loyalist get 'carrot' for their reward and 'stick' for the disloyal (Al-Ghwell, 2015).
These things then led to the emergence of desire of the Libyans to be free from the authoritarian president, striving for independence. Rebel groups and demonstrator attempted to remove Gaddafi from office. This actions then led to Gaddafi's response which including acts of violence and human rights violations to suppress the rebel groups (Tarik, 2011). Gaddafi and his troops used weapons in the form of sticks or baton weapons, teargas, and others in arresting the rebels. He also arrested demonstrators and figures that demanded freedom such as Mohamed Al-Sahim, a journalist about Libya freedom (HRW, 2011). This rebellion succeeded in taking Gaddafi down from office but was not able to turn Libya into a free country as desired. This rebellion continued and actually gave rise to a new internal conflict because the absence of government and the single political ideology that will unite the Libyan people. (Gebremichael, 2018:5 Council was asking Gaddafi to protect his citizens and asking him to receive assistance in the form of medical and medicines that will be distributed by the World Health Organization (WHO). 4 Once there is no sight of Libya's internal change even after the effort that was been made and preventing the conflict from spreading to a larger scale, with a consent from the UN as described in the UNSC resolution 17 March 2011, on 23 March 2011 NATO carried out Operation Unified Protector (OUP) with United States as the leader, based on UN Charter Chapter VII article 41, Resolution 1970, Resolution 1973 regarding the missions that can be carried out by NATO. 5 OUP is also a follow up action after the enactment of the no-fly zone in Libyan territory. This resolution is a form of fulfilling the obligation of member countries to carry out 'responsibility to protect' in the context of conflict resolution. In this resolution, it is emphasized that the UN Security Council is worried about the conditions that occur and rejects all types of violence. In the UN Charter, it is said that the UN Security Council can decide when the use of weapons is needed in an effort to resolve conflicts. This effort was forcibly ousted by the Libyan people on October 20 2011. 6 NATO is an organization with collective defence as the main instrument. They committed to the principle that an attack against one or several of its member will be considered as an attack against all. 7 Relations between the two countries, is not considered as a new one. Libya and United States have been involved in a few common interests since before President Gaddafi took over the government, replacing King Idris I. United States is also one of the Therefore, question raised in this paper is how did the US spread their liberal ideology in Libya and what is the importance for them. To answer this question the next section will present about the US national interest in the Libya and by using the neo-realism theory, this paper captures the importance of US interest and the involvement in Libyan Civil War.

The United States and Libya: The Contradictions of Intervention and Disengagement by Youssef M. Sawani
The focus of this journal is to analyze what are the US interest in Libya that makes them decided to be involved in the war. In this journal, he argued that NATO does not have protecting civilians as their main goal but their role was as an extension of the US that has various interest in Libya. US saw Libya in a strategic location, with a location In my opinion, this journal is sufficient enough as he explained the US interest as well as the OUP by NATO but did not explain about how important democracy campaign in Libya actually is. By this paper, author is hoping to be able fill the gap in this journal.

The Role of the United States (U.S.) Interests in the Intervention in Libya 2011 by Zyad Muhammad Nuri
In this journal Zyad argued that in the process of the decision making, the UN was influenced by United States. In this journal he said that there are three main arguments on the motivations of the U.S participation in intervention in Libya, including: foreign policy interest and stability in MENA region which was threatened by Gaddafi's action, to stabilizing Libyan natural oil production resources, and to repay NATO allies for their support in the U.S intervention in Afghanistan.
This journal's main argument is that by seeing from the structuralist view, the concepts of humanitarian intervention which demand state to protect civilians from violence is contrasted with the main idea of realism: to protect their national interest before everything else. This is in line with author's argument that instead of humanitarian values, U.S choose to protect their national interest instead.

Research Methodology
This study is a qualitative study due to its research process. This research is conducted because of the question arise in many countries or scholar about what is the true intention of the US when they decided to conduct the operation in Libya. This study is using qualitative approach in order to be able interpreting the situation that happened in Libya at that time. This method also used to gain a better knowledge of US interest based on the perspective of Neo-realism theory.

Analytical Framework
This study will use the theory of offensive realism to explain the problems regarding US interest in Libya. This section aims to answer the question on how is the US spread its democracy or liberal ideology in Libya. For realist thinkers, the state is the only actor in international relations. The state as the main actor has the highest power to make decisions and determine other policies related to the survival of the country. To be able to do that, the state must possess power. There is no limitation on how many powers a country should have. This was caused by the fear among these countries especially big countries. The more power, they will have the bigger chance of survival. Every country has the right to have as much power as possible to ensure their own survival.
Mearsheimer said that 'the best defense is a good offense,' meaning a good defense a country will have is when they have a good offense in order to maintain the safety of their country. 10 In contrast to defensive realism which tends to 'preserving power,' offensive realism tends to choose to 'increasing power' to survive.
But this condition will create another problem or neo-realism call it 'Security Dilemma'. Security dilemma will occur because the state does not know about the intentions of other country then it will decide to increase its power to ensure safety. 11 However it is hard for one country to increase their power without threatening safety for other countries, in this case Mearsheimer argues that states must be offensive to each other. Security dilemma appear because actors in international stage is operating in anarchic system. Anarchy system is a condition where there are no centralized authority or ultimate arbiter that stands above states. 12 As for national interest, Holsti said there are three types of US national interest and that is Core Interest and values, middle range goals and long-range goals. 13 Ideology is counted as the long-range goals of US which then regulates how is the country relations in international system. United States is a country with democratic values as their main principles. This could be seen during the second world war when they compete with Soviet Union to spread their ideological values. institutions that populate the order. 14 The ultimate goal of these liberal democracies is to spread democracy across the globe while promoting open world economy and building an international institution. Or in easier way, we could say that liberal international order wanted to create a system that economically engaged and bound together by sets of common rules. 15

U.S Democracy Campaign in Libya
The large number of actors involved in Libyan Civil War raises a concern for the US This condition does not meet the U.S ideal, where the liberal international order did not exist, preventing the US from fulfilling its national interest. The shortage of incoming oil will certainly have a major impact on the US economy. By taking Gaddafi down from the office, US was hoping for a policy and ideology change to the liberalism values. Holsti might put ideology in the long-range interest, the interest that is not the priority to be fulfilled. But seeing the urgency of oil politics in the civil war, it shows that liberalism is actually the value that US carry and spread in order for other national interest to be fulfilled. We might call the ideology as liberalism but the intention of US is still counted as neo-realism. Because there is an absence of higher authority above states or the presence of anarchy system. They could not make sure the intention of one country to another. US could not make sure the terrorism from Libya would not spread to their country, then the first reason for US to invade Libya is to hold terrorism, this prove that there is a security dilemma in the system. The territorial sovereignty is their main interest. access to be involved in the region. With the involvement of US in the region, the democracy liberal campaign will be easier to be carried out and national interest will be fulfilled. This is because the absence of institutions that share the same ideology, economy and political values in the region has become one of NATO's motivations to be engaged in the region. 24 With the involvement of NATO in Libya, people could see how they put interest in the community first, how they have democratic way to solve problem instead of solving it in one hand and how they build trust between each other to prevent conflict. It should be noted that NATO is also a political alliance where one of the main agendas is to spread liberal democracy values. NATO has the principle of helping member states assistance and cooperate to resolve issues related to security, build trust and prevent conflicts.
The liberalism in NATO also gave an example of burden sharing system in the middle east to keep the stability in the region. This is one of the democracy campaign by US through NATO in Libya and the region. By using NATO, the US will be able to fulfill its national interest with minimal budget as the advantage.

Conclusion
Based on the study that was conducted, it was found that the US did not only intervene in the interest of humanity but also for its national interest. This action is for the US survival in the anarchy system where there is no higher authority in the international stage.
The democracy interest in Libya did not get too much recognition when it is also the main interest of US. National interest could be changed depends on the time and place, so do the democracy. Democracy interest is not always be a long-range interest, the interest that does not have a greater urgency when in fact in this Libyan conflict, the other 24 Igwe, Stanley C and team, "An Assessment of the motivations for the 2011 NATO Intervention in Libya and its Implications for Africa," Canadian Social Science, 26 April 2017.
Jurnal Diplomasi Pertahanan, Volume 7, Nomor 3, 2021 E-ISSN 2746-8496 54 interest will be harder to pursue if the democracy interest has not yet been fulfilled. By creating and introducing democracy in Libya, it will be easier for US to fulfil their oil interest because two countries with the same ideology will create a liberal international system, an open world economy. In this context, author think that the democracy liberal interest should be put in the vital interest instead of the long-range interest, seeing the other interest could only be fulfilled when this democracy interest is fulfilled.
In addition, NATO became the tool of United States to spread the ideology of liberalism and restrain the spread of communism. NATO indicate the importance of 1 common ideology and in this context is liberalism. So it could be conclude that democracy campaign that was done by US through NATO is very important for US interest.

Thank You Note
Thank you to Professor Banyu Perwita for this opportunity to write about U.S democracy interest in the Libyan Civil War. I'm learning a lot during the process and will keep the lesson learned in mind.