Before Mubarak's exit, stage right, I was discussing the Tahrar Square situation with a friend. I was certain that the only way the tide could be turned would be the Tienanmen Square option, murder all the folks protesting and scare the hell out of everybody else.
The people who run China, then and now, have the advantage of a standing army as big as a country. There are more soldiers in the PLA's permanent military than there are men, women and children in Latvia or Botswana. If you add in all military and paramilitary units, that comes to 7.5 million troops, one million more than there are people in Libya. Add reserves and civilian guards and you're up to 45 million at least, more than the population of Poland or Argentina, about the size of the nation of Colombia.
My point would be that in China the rulers had the advantage of being able to call on a country within a country, with its own hierarchy, mores, culture and governing laws. And all the weapons (approximately). That's a hell of a thing. The Tienanmen brutalist paradigm could not be easily replicated in Egypt, though it wasn't until after the government was deposed that I saw the factor that might have made it impossible.
The Egyptian military did not have a virtual country separate from the land they lived in. They were too much part of the population not to have it manifest that they would be turning their guns on their nieces and cousins, or childhood friends.
I've also seen the point made that the Egyptian military is a major owner and investor in the economy. They couldn't treat the population in revolt as if they were a colonized people, because they would have been razing their own fields.
What now are the possibilities in Libya? The army is mainly underweaponed and untrusted by the rulers, except for elite battalions dedicated to one Qaddafi or another. The elite battalions could commit a massacre (more sustained and localized than the mere killings they've committed so far), but I don't think that they have the resources and numbers relative to the population to impose a new normal and an absence of memory as the masters of the PLA could.
It scares me that Qaddafi certainly remembers as do I the total destruction of the city of Hama, Syria, by Hafez Al-Assad in 1982. The city was bombed flat and bulldozed to eradicate a revolt. A salutary action from the dictator's point of view.
We may be at the cusp of this occurring in Libya or not. There are likely reliable reports leaking out of attacks from the air, and of the defection of two jet pilots who flew to Malta rather than obey orders to bomb civilians. I'm sure somebody who knows Libya better than I do could still pick out an exemplary city Qaddafi could destroy to break the back of the revolt. I don't think it would work - not a sufficient separate military force to tame the nation. Mercenaries have been brought in from other countries, which must be galling elite and non-elite soldiers. A peace imposed by mercenaries and elite officers is a recipe for coup d'etat possibly even more threatening to Q than the general revolt.
A Tienanmen is not possible in Libya, I wager. The singular quality of Tienanmen is not only the end of the rebellion but the extirpation of rebellion and suppression from memory. We may yet see a Hama-style massacre in Libya. It might quell the immediate revolt, but I would bet we've seen the end of the Qaddafi era. Simply not enough resources for this country to make war on itself.
Stats are rough and courtesy of Answers.com and Wikipedia.
The people who run China, then and now, have the advantage of a standing army as big as a country. There are more soldiers in the PLA's permanent military than there are men, women and children in Latvia or Botswana. If you add in all military and paramilitary units, that comes to 7.5 million troops, one million more than there are people in Libya. Add reserves and civilian guards and you're up to 45 million at least, more than the population of Poland or Argentina, about the size of the nation of Colombia.
My point would be that in China the rulers had the advantage of being able to call on a country within a country, with its own hierarchy, mores, culture and governing laws. And all the weapons (approximately). That's a hell of a thing. The Tienanmen brutalist paradigm could not be easily replicated in Egypt, though it wasn't until after the government was deposed that I saw the factor that might have made it impossible.
The Egyptian military did not have a virtual country separate from the land they lived in. They were too much part of the population not to have it manifest that they would be turning their guns on their nieces and cousins, or childhood friends.
I've also seen the point made that the Egyptian military is a major owner and investor in the economy. They couldn't treat the population in revolt as if they were a colonized people, because they would have been razing their own fields.
What now are the possibilities in Libya? The army is mainly underweaponed and untrusted by the rulers, except for elite battalions dedicated to one Qaddafi or another. The elite battalions could commit a massacre (more sustained and localized than the mere killings they've committed so far), but I don't think that they have the resources and numbers relative to the population to impose a new normal and an absence of memory as the masters of the PLA could.
It scares me that Qaddafi certainly remembers as do I the total destruction of the city of Hama, Syria, by Hafez Al-Assad in 1982. The city was bombed flat and bulldozed to eradicate a revolt. A salutary action from the dictator's point of view.
We may be at the cusp of this occurring in Libya or not. There are likely reliable reports leaking out of attacks from the air, and of the defection of two jet pilots who flew to Malta rather than obey orders to bomb civilians. I'm sure somebody who knows Libya better than I do could still pick out an exemplary city Qaddafi could destroy to break the back of the revolt. I don't think it would work - not a sufficient separate military force to tame the nation. Mercenaries have been brought in from other countries, which must be galling elite and non-elite soldiers. A peace imposed by mercenaries and elite officers is a recipe for coup d'etat possibly even more threatening to Q than the general revolt.
A Tienanmen is not possible in Libya, I wager. The singular quality of Tienanmen is not only the end of the rebellion but the extirpation of rebellion and suppression from memory. We may yet see a Hama-style massacre in Libya. It might quell the immediate revolt, but I would bet we've seen the end of the Qaddafi era. Simply not enough resources for this country to make war on itself.
Stats are rough and courtesy of Answers.com and Wikipedia.
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