Bah most of the modern states had event of traumatic reorganization, some in Europe less than two generation ago. Heck some g8 states like Italy were quartered under four different crowns less than 200 years ago.
And the worst part of this take is that is also denies agency for populations that had their own centennial empire at some point in history as if they were never more than paesant in some scheme. Thats deeply flawled in so many ways.
for those that downvoted this comment, lol open a book sometime.
True, Libya gave up their nukes to appease the same force that then turned around and bombed them. That doesn't undermine the strong impression I have that the intervention in Libya was the proximate cause of most of the modern crises in the Sahel, northern Iraq, with ISIS, "fortress Europe" response to migration, etc.
The US in particular, but also plenty of NATO and European powers, have not learned any lessons from the era of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: supporting the most barbaric reactionary forces in a bid to destabilize/topple a disfavored central government, leads to widespread suffering in the region, and eventually on home turf.
Reading about that conflict should remind people that the US military uses the same tactics that Russia is using right now in Ukraine (indiscriminate shelling), except with air superiority, the bombardment is more varied and destructive.
Libya had a nuclear weapons programme, and actively pursued development or acquisition of nuclear weapons from the 1970s until 2003 when all such work ceased.
But it never actually had nuclear weapons to the best of my knowledge.
You're right, I was wrong. I remember now that they had existent chemical weapons and a nuclear weapons program. Over time, my memory of talk of them "giving up their WMD" led to conflation and "giving up their nukes".
I think it's an important and interesting corrective, but fundamentally doesn't affect my argument about the intervention in Libya and its effects. It's just less ironic now.
As someone else already mentioned, this is especially ironic to bring up in the case of Libya because Libya gave up their nukes to appease Western powers. Then were invaded and toppled by those same powers later on.
You're very close to an epiphany here. Why would that be the case and who would have benefited from that situation when they were drawing those borders?
And the worst part of this take is that is also denies agency for populations that had their own centennial empire at some point in history as if they were never more than paesant in some scheme. Thats deeply flawled in so many ways.
for those that downvoted this comment, lol open a book sometime.