This week on Command Post we’re taking a look at what has been going on for more than five months — yikes, by my watch that’s nearly half a year — in Libya. This was supposed to be a flick-of-the-wrist military action by the most powerful military alliance in the history of the world. NATO chieftains expected the barrage would lead to Muammar Gaddafi’s political, if not literal, demise in short order. But that hasn’t happened, and with every passing day NATO seems to be more lashed to the word hapless. But back to the start of this campaign on March 19: just what makes Libya worth risking any American lives or U.S. taxpayer dollars? John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security and your Battlelander discuss the U.S. national interests at stake in Libya — or the lack thereof — with Paul Hughes, a retired Army colonel now with the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Andrew Exum, a former Army officer who led Rangers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now a CNAS senior fellow.
