The LAAF’s prospects are ultimately constrained by the dominance of personalities over its institutions and the contradictory political goals and motivations of its factions.
The collapse of the LAAF’s Tripoli offensive placed Haftar’s forces under unprecedented pressure. His ambitions for controlling the whole of Libya were proven beyond his reach, leading to much speculation regarding his future. In the circumstances, the LAAF’s unwieldy alliance has proven resilient, but is now under mounting strain following the breakdown of security in Benghazi and the formulation of the GNU. The LAAF faces an uphill struggle to navigate these threats.
The LAAF has not become an integrated organization for two main reasons. First, while the skilful manipulation of narratives has been used to present a pretext for the recruitment of a wide range of groups and communities, a closer look at LAAF components reveals contradictory political goals and motivations. The aspirations of those seeking eastern autonomy were always out of kilter with Haftar’s centralizing authoritarian tendencies, while the LAAF’s recruitment across the revolutionary divide creates obstacles for building cooperation among its subunits. Moreover, the ultimate social goals of the Madkhali-Salafi groups sit uncomfortably with other elements of the alliance. As a result, LAAF factions struggle to coalesce around specific goals and objectives. This limits its ability to create horizontal relationships of trust and collaboration.
Second, the modus operandi of the LAAF reveals that personalities rather than institutions hold sway. Foremost among these is Haftar, of course, but also his sons Saddam and Khalid. Mirroring a defining feature of parochial networks, the chain of command is separate from the actual locus of power. The LAAF contains in-groups and out-groups, and it lacks the relations of information, trust and belief required to institutionalize its power. This is seen in the frenzied positioning that followed reports that Haftar had died or was suffering from a serious illness in 2018, as potential conflict brewed between Haftar’s sons and the General Command over succession.
Against the backdrop of political developments in Tripoli and the fracturing of LAAF control in Benghazi, it is difficult to see how the LAAF will overcome these defects. Indeed, the above factors link directly to the potential causes of its breakdown or weakening. Lessons from the failures of other parochial groups illustrate that the lack of strong horizontal ties can lead to infighting among rival commanders. In the LAAF’s case, this is a considerable threat given the differences among its subunits. Such infighting could be brought about by internal struggles among rivals. Here, the brewing conflict among local armed factions in Benghazi merits attention, and future attempts to coax commanders away from the LAAF are likely. Nonetheless, the praetorian units retain the ability to protect Haftar in eastern heartlands outside of Benghazi, even if they lack the capacity to project power across the country. The centrality of Haftar as an individual, meanwhile, makes the septuagenarian leader’s health pivotal to the survival of the alliance. Alternatively, the establishment by other LAAF commanders of direct relationships with external states could end Haftar’s monopoly and see rivals emerge.
External support has been critical to the development of the LAAF and is indispensable for its maintenance. Its principal path to unifying or ‘fusing factions’ has come via external sponsorship that provided Haftar with resources. Combined with the potential for distribution of rents – through economic opportunities and state funding – this has also produced a pull factor as would-be allies covet the supplies that Haftar can provide. This makes the LAAF especially vulnerable to shifts in policy by those external states.
There is already anecdotal evidence that the UAE is establishing direct relationships with LAAF commanders and particularly with Darfurian armed groups. Moreover, the interests of Russia impact the LAAF’s relationship with Russia-backed mercenaries. Moscow has also engaged other constituencies, notably of the former Gaddafi regime, and it could move its support from Haftar to other political actors if it sees this as opportune.
Finally, the importance of maintaining the LAAF’s ability to leverage income from the Libyan state has been understated. Should the GNU be able to place limitations on the LAAF’s extraction of state funds, this will also constrain its ability to distribute patronage to its allies, potentially causing them to seek other patrons.
Implications for policy
For Western policymakers, a socio-institutional understanding of the networks that comprise the LAAF and its partners has practical implications for key areas of engagement in the security, political and economic sphere.
On the security level, discussions of security sector reform are the focus of much analysis and strategy development. The broad implications of the socio-institutional analysis here are that the LAAF cannot be simply integrated into a reformed national force. Its elements suffer from some of the same flaws that have plagued their opponents: personalized command structures, limited training, and engagement in illicit activity and rights abuses. In its praetorian units, the LAAF has developed a core of trained and well-equipped forces that have developed strong ties among recruits and commanders and maintain strong horizontal links among the leaders of a diverse range of communities. These forces would be strong candidates for inclusion in a unified Libyan military. But it is clear that the predominance of familial relationships in their existing command structure would have to change for them to be integrated into a national chain of command and for ‘state’ authority to prevail. Other elements of the LAAF are, however, more parochial networks in nature, possessing weak horizontal ties across space. The LAAF has relied on individuals to cohere such forces rather than meaningfully incorporating them into its structure, indicating that such affiliations remain transactional.
On the political level, Western policymakers must recognize that Haftar does not, and never did, hold a monopoly over the interests of areas under LAAF control. His emergence as the sole interlocutor for eastern Libya in international negotiations between 2017 and 2020 bolstered his credentials locally, providing him with further credibility. A lack of willingness to challenge human rights abuses by his forces disempowered local opposition. A socio-institutional analysis of the LAAF illustrates that, while Haftar has sought to centralize power around a clique of family members and close associates, he is dependent on continuing negotiations with social constituencies as the bulk of his forces are not functionally integrated within the alliance. The lesson here is that further direct outreach to those constituencies is required from the international community if genuine reconciliation is to be facilitated and to prevent an arbitrary distinction between eastern and western Libya being unwittingly exacerbated.
International attempts to accommodate Haftar have also given carte blanche to the LAAF to dominate the ‘state’ space in eastern Libya. As this paper has illustrated, the LAAF has leveraged its position to obtain revenues through state financing mechanisms and also to dominate the private sector, using state resources to help underwrite the development of its patronage network. Internationally mediated discussions over economic reform and the distribution of resources are yet to broach this sensitive issue, with their focus remaining on implementing short-term measures to prevent further economic hardship being inflicted on Libyans. However, the LAAF’s expansion in this realm cannot be ignored any longer. Meaningful agreement over institutional reunification in Libya, and therefore a consolidated national budget, should place clear limits on LAAF revenue generation.
