The latest evolutions of the Libyan conflict

The Libyan war shows no sign of stopping. Despite the Egyptian proposal, by a government that is part of the cause of the conflict, of a truce, the fighting continues and the current situation seems to be favorable to the forces of Favez al-Serraj and the government of Tripoli. The Libyan National Army and its leader Khalifa Haftar are losing ground. In reality, the Egyptian attempt must be framed in the logic of the Libyan conflict, which has become a sort of proxy war, behind which different interests are hidden and even superior to the actors directly involved. Turkey has lined up alongside Tripoli, always in a frantic search to create its own area of ​​geopolitical influence and Qatar, which moves to counter the interests of its opponents in the Persian Gulf, while to support the Libyan National Army there are Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Cairo's main interest is to extend its hegemony in the Libyan part bordering the Egyptian country; but the advance of Tripoli is frustrating this aspiration and the unsuccessful attempt to seek a truce with the aim of gaining time demonstrates how Egyptian aspirations must be reduced. The Libyan one promises to be a defeat also for the western states, especially for Italy, which would see their influence diminished in a strategic area of ​​the Mediterranean, both for energy issues and because Libya is the door where the major flows pass of illegal immigration to Europe, a potentially very high power in terms of blackmail and capable of influencing the delicate balances existing between the countries of the European Union. The special observation is Turkey, which after having failed Erdogan's project to recreate the Ottoman influence zone, tries to take on a primary role in the Mediterranean capable of giving it relevance as a medium regional power. Seen from a European perspective, Turkish initiative appears dangerous, because, first of all, if it is associated with the current American logic of detachment from the Mediterranean, Ankara would have the opportunity to exercise its role without Washington's counterweight. It should be remembered that Turkey's political and military action is characterized by an unprejudiced use of Islamic fundamentalists and radicals, as seen in Syria; also in Libya the presence of these paramilitary formations constitutes the main support for the government of Tripoli, which indicates a way of doubtful value for the security of European investments and as regards the possible management of migratory flows. For now, in addition to the Libyan National Army, the military militias that survived the fall of Gaddafi, which have been the main cause of Libyan instability, have been defeated. But to better frame the general situation, the role of the USA and Russia must also be considered; the former, already with the Obama presidency and then with that of Trump, which was its continuation in a foreign policy without changes, preferred to focus on fighting China in the Pacific regions and only a new president could reverse this trend by giving back to the Mediterranean its importance in the world chessboard. On the other hand, Moscow has shown that it wants to fill the void left by the Americans and continue to exercise its role in the Mediterranean area already started with the policy implemented in Syria. The affinity between Moscow and Ankara has been revealed precisely on Syrian soil, favored by the similarities of Putin and Erdogan, which is ready to replicate itself on Libyan soil with a division of the areas of influence, with the main purpose of ousting the European nations. So, if the USA voluntarily left the southern shore of the Mediterranean, it was not so for the Europeans, that with a non-unitary policy and characterized by the inability of a practical and political management of the facts of Libya, they will be the real losers, even if not the only ones, as seen for Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which by proving themselves less capable than Turkey have revealed their military and strategic weakness, replicating the Syrian defeat. However, the Arab countries had the intent, like Ankara, to increase their influence and will not be expelled from an area from which they had settled, albeit with mixed fortunes, since the end of the Second World War, as will happen for Europeans. The great wrong of the European Union was that of not engaging in the first person, but only with impromptu and ineffective initiatives and, above all, not being able to have a shared objective and not understanding that the garrison on the southern shore of the Mediterranean had to be a garrison to be maintained at all costs to guarantee continental energy protection and preserve Europe from migratory blackmail.