The Libyan Armed Forces between Coup-proofing and Repression

Although seen by many as an unequivocal supporter of Gaddafi's power basis, the Libyan military's reaction to the 2011 uprising was far from unified: plagued by desertion as well as disintegration, the regime managed to rely only on the hard core of its armed forces. This was mostly a result of the regime's decade-long coup-proofing measures which rendered it in large parts militarily useless. Weakened at the micro level, the Libyan military was incapable of acting at the macro level in any meaningful way. Sitting at the analytical intersection between internal and external features of the armed forces, the Libyan case provides useful insights on the study of the armed forces.