Notwithstanding the rhetorical precautions taken by Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s new strongman, apparently anxious to spare Moscow and Teheran, it seems that the Russian armed forces are preparing to evacuate their two main bases in the country (Tartus and Hmeimim). Under the protection of the Turkish army, the Russian military, present in a dozen other locations, initially withdrew to these two bases. Now, experts are observing a ballet of jumbo jets bound for Russian bases in Cyrenaica and Fezzan (eastern and southern Libya). As things stand, these bases do not make up for Russian losses in Syria, but it would be dangerous to allow such a stronghold to develop on Europe’s southern flank.
First of all, it is important to put Russia’s presence on the shores of the Gulf of Sidra and in its hinterland into perspective. Although no match for Egypt or Syria, Under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who seized power in 1969, Libya was a significant strategic partner for the USSR. The first arms contract between the two countries dates back to 1974 and, over the next twenty years, thousands of Soviet advisors passed through Libya to train its armed forces. Naval facilities were also granted to the Soviet fleet, enabling it to strengthen its presence in the western Mediterranean. Gaddafi and his regime outlived the USSR by two decades. In the meantime, a large part of Libya’s debt to Russia, the Soviet Union’s main successor state, was written off in return for new arms contracts (2008). While many dismissed these contracts as purely mercantile opportunism, Russia laid the foundations for a political, diplomatic, and military breakthrough in the Greater Middle East (North Africa/Middle East/Persian Gulf), with real effects and gains in Sub-Saharan Africa1.
A foothold in the Mediterranean and toward the Sahel
Just as Moscow was regaining its foothold, the insurrection against the Libyan regime on February 15, 2011 called into question Russian positions in the country (energy and agricultural investments, in addition to arms contracts). The Russian president at the time, Dmitri Medvedev, did not oppose UN Security Council Resolution 1973 (March 17, 2011), the legal basis for the Western military intervention that toppled Gaddafi’s Great Jamahiriya (the “State of the masses”). On the other hand, then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in favor of a veto, and Russian diplomacy considered that the West, by pursuing a policy of regime change, had exceeded the text of the resolution. According to some analyses, the war in Libya and the physical elimination of Gaddafi (October 20, 2011) are the matrix of Russian policy in the Middle East. With hindsight, it appears that Vladimir Putin was driven from the outset by a deep-seated desire for revenge, and conceived an autonomous policy (he is not a “man-of-effects”, a sheer reaction to the “man-of-causes” of the West).
In Libya, the National Transitional Council (CNT), set up after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, has failed, and this vast, thinly-populated spatial entity (6.5 million inhabitants over 1.7 million square kilometers) has fragmented under the effect of centrifugal forces of various kinds — ethnic and tribal divisions, regional allegiances, theological-ideological enmities — once overshadowed by pan-Arab discourse. While there are many armed militias, there is a major rift between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania (eastern and western Libya), to the point of causing a second Libyan war, which broke out in 2014. The situation was exploited by jihadist groups claiming to be part of the “Islamic State” (ISIS), who for a time dominated 300 km of coastline in the Sidra Basin. In the southwest, armed groups from the Fezzan are involved in the invasions of countries in the Sahel (Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Chad). While the UN supported the government of Fayez al-Sarraj, based in Tripoli, which was supposed to bring together the various components of Libya and set up a new political system, the Russian authorities openly supported General Khalifa Haftar (things have not changed since). Cyrenaica’s strongman obstructed international efforts and the implementation of the Skhirat Agreement (Morocco, December 17, 2015).
In truth, Haftar is an old warhorse. Now 81, he trained as an officer at the Benghazi Military Academy during the Senoussist monarchy2 (1951-1969), then completed his training in Nasser’s Egypt and the USSR. In 1969, the general took part in Gaddafi’s coup d’état, overthrowing the monarch and establishing the Arab Republic of Libya. A lifelong companion of the “Trotsky of the sands,” Haftar led the Libyan corps engaged in the Yom Kippur War (1973), and later the one that attacked northern Chad (1986). The Gaddafi expedition turned into a disaster and he was captured. Haftar turned against the “Nasser of Libya” and joined the National Salvation Front of Libya (FSNL), supported by the American services. Later exfiltrated by the CIA, he transited through Zaire and Kenya before reaching the United States, where he stayed for some twenty years.
The man lost his value when Gaddafi opened his arsenals to the United States and renounced his weapons of mass destruction program (2003). Haftar returned home during the first Libyan war (2011), but it was after Gaddafi’s fall that he rose to prominence. He fought the forces of Tripolitania, seized Cyrenaica and refused the UN-backed reconciliation solution. In the summer of 2014, when the Misrata militias clashed with Islamic State, General Haftar’s army conquered the oil crescent near Sirte, through which half of Libya’s oil is normally exported. The man was now unavoidable, but in poor health. In April 2018, possibly following a stroke, Haftar was hospitalized for some time in Paris. He was seen at the time as a bulwark against Islamic State3.
Khalifa Haftar, Russia’s client
Clearly, the slogan of the “war against terrorism”, which General Haftar had seized upon, covered up far more concrete and immediate issues of power and wealth (but the argument will have carried weight with Paris and Washington). In this conflict, Haftar, the self-proclaimed marshal, enjoyed the support of Al-Sisi’s Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and even more so of Russia, support he still enjoys. Russia provides him with funds and weapons, and its veto power in the UN Security Council prohibits any international sanctions against its protégé. Before and after his coup over the oil crescent, Haftar made two visits to Moscow (June 27 and December 29, 2016) and was received with full honors on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kouznetsov as it made a stopover in Tobruk on its return from Syria (January 11, 2017). Shortly afterward, Sergei Lavrov officially confirmed Russia’s interest in this warlord (news conference, January 17, 2017).
In Libya, Putin took advantage of the West’s lack of enthusiasm and the uncertainty surrounding the foreign policy orientations of the first Trump Administration (2017-2021). For the master of the Kremlin, it was not yet a question of embarking on heavy military intervention aimed at placing the whole of Libya under the control of a “friend” of Moscow, on the pretext of fighting terrorism. The partition of the country and General Haftar’s hold on Cyrenaica were enough to secure strategic gains, including new footholds for Russian naval forces (Tobruk and Benghazi). Russian oil interests in the Gulf of Sidra must also be taken into account.
On another level, the alliance with Marshal Haftar made Russia a key player in the Libyan political process, uncertain though it was. Finally, Russian activism in Cyrenaica and the central Mediterranean was part of a much broader geopolitical project, an Afro-Mediterranean project that is still relevant. Marshal Haftar is at the center of a Russia-Egypt-Algeria diplomatic triangle that opens up prospects for Moscow in North Africa, on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, opposite Europe. Russia’s wider success would have had consequences for regional balances of power and in the energy field. Put forward in the 2000s, the Russian idea of a “gas OPEC” could once again be proposed to Algeria, or even to Egypt, a future major producer of blue gold4. Last but not least, there is the instrumentalization of the migratory flows that are destabilizing Europe.
In this multi-dimensional geopolitical undertaking, the Russians and their man, Haftar, will have encountered as their only obstacle the Turks and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s desire for power. Based in Tripoli and recognized by the UN, Fayez el-Sarraj’s government (the Government of National Unity, GNA) was supported by Ankara and the Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2019, when Marshal Haftar launched an offensive on Tripoli, Turkey sent armored vehicles and drones to Tripoli, helping to bring the offensive to a halt. It was against this backdrop that, on November 27, 2019, the Turkish and Tripolitan governments signed two energy and military agreements. The first agreement concerned the delimitation of their respective exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean, with the delineation of a maritime corridor encroaching on the Greek-Cypriot and Egyptian zones. Ankara thus thwarted the ambitions of the member countries of the Gas Forum, formed in January 2019 and including Greece, Cyprus, and Israel. At the time, the forum had taken on the appearance of an anti-Turkish front. The second agreement provided for the opening of Libyan bases to the Turkish army, as well as the despatch of military advisors and instructors to the Tripoli government.
Turkish-Russian “conflict synergy”
On January 2, 2020, the Turkish Grand National Assembly approved the despatch of Turkish troops to Libya. In fact, the bulk of the force was made up of mercenaries recruited from the Syrian National Army (perhaps up to 7,000 troops), which had come under Ankara’s control since the fall of Aleppo5 (December 2016). The vigorous Turkish military commitment, including the introduction of its drones, enabled the GNA to win the battle of Tripoli (June 2020). Marshal Haftar and the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group withdrew to Tripolitania and Fezzan, with the country remaining under the control of a sort of Turkish-Russian condominium; Ankara and Moscow subsequently did little to facilitate the national reconciliation process and the organization of elections initially scheduled for late December 2021. Since then, the Turkish military presence in Tripolitania has taken root6, supporting Ankara’s diplomatic action and ambitions in the Mediterranean and as far afield as the Maghreb. In short, Turkey’s military intervention in Libya, at a time when its scope for action in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean was shrinking, enabled it to reassert its regional power and ambitions, from the Middle East to North Africa, in opposition to the Saudi-Emirati axis.
The fall of the al-Assad regime has profoundly changed geopolitical configurations in North Africa and the Middle East. Previously able to normalize diplomatic relations with the region’s Sunni Arab regimes (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt), Turkey, allied with Qatar, is now the victor in Syria. Over and above the “Kurdish question” (the de facto autonomy of a large part of Syrian Kurdistan), which he intends to settle to his advantage, Erdogan is posing as the protector of a “new Syria,” filling the strategic void left by the departure of the Russians and Iranians7. Russia will seek to compensate for its losses in eastern and southern Libya, the “linchpin” of the Mediterranean and African aspects of its overall strategy8.
Admittedly, the infrastructure available to the Russian armed forces is not comparable to that in Syria, especially as the military and financial effort induced by the war in Ukraine, with its economic consequences — the cost of international sanctions, the increased weight of the military-industrial complex on the civilian sector, and rising inflation — limit Moscow’s scope for action. In fact, an examination of the Russian forces (Africa Corps has taken over from Wagner) and their equipment shows the limitations of this system. However, the Kremlin’s idea is not to mount a major frontal offensive in southern Europe, but to wage a low-key “covert war” (so-called “hybrid war”) in the Mediterranean basin and Africa. There is no need for colossal resources to conduct coercive diplomacy in the Sahel, or to exploit the opportunities opened up by the North African geopolitical rift, between Morocco on the one hand, and the “Algerian-Tunisian Maghreb” on the other9.
Conclusion
To counter Russian shenanigans, there is Turkey, solidly installed in Tripolitania, where it has bases and points of support enabling it to enforce the status quo imposed in 2020, after Haftar’s failure in the battle for Tripoli. The problem lies in the fact that this type of so-called “frozen” conflict can very quickly tip over and alter the geopolitical situation as we have seen in the Caucasus (autumn 2020), in Ukraine (February 2022), and most recently in Syria (autumn 2024). Furthermore, Russia and Turkey, which are economically interdependent (trade, smuggling, and energy), are developing an effective form of conflict synergy (“conflict-cooperation”); the two countries have already demonstrated their ability to agree to exclude the West and “share the spoils” in Libya as in Syria and the Caucasus. It therefore appears that the United States and its European allies, rightly concerned about their southern flank, cannot outsource their strategic interests in Libya and the central Mediterranean to Turkey. To do so would be to facilitate the expansion of destabilizing forces into the western Mediterranean basin.The chain of conflicts in the Middle East, since the pogroms perpetrated by Hamas on Israeli territory (October 7, 2023), have led the US Navy to reinvest in the Mediterranean, but the growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the Western Pacific are putting it under considerable strain (problems of availability of ships and equipment). It is important that a European coalition, around the French naval air group for example, should shoulder a greater share of the burden and once again turn the Mediterranean into Mare Nostrum (a Mediterranean version of “peace through strength”). Beyond the concrete strategic stakes, at a time when a “covered war” with Russia is unfolding from the White Sea to the Mediterranean, such an initiative would be a valuable contribution to the renegotiation of the terms of trade between Americans and Europeans. As a result, it would be possible to envisage a more determined European military action against the Houthis (Yemen), in the Red Sea, a vital logistical axis linking Europe to Asia.
Associate professor of history and geography and researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics (University of Paris VIII). Author of several books, he works within the Thomas More Institute on geopolitical and defense issues in Europe. His research areas cover the Baltic-Black Sea region, post-Soviet Eurasia, and the Mediterranean.
Footnotes
- See Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, “Wagner in Mali: the tree must not hide the forest”, Desk-Russie, October 8, 2021.
- At the origin of this monarchy was a Sufi brotherhood (a tarîqa), the Sanusiyya, founded in 1837. It fought the Italians when the latter captured Libya (Tripolitania, Cyrenaica, and Fezzan) from the Ottomans. During the Second World War, British services supported the Sanusiyya, which was still fighting the Italians. In 1951, the grandson of the founder of this tarîqa became King of Libya.
- For two decades, the need to combat terrorism and jihadism has singularly narrowed the field of perception of Western leaders and distorted their geopolitical representations.
- Russia’s “special military operation” launched on February 24, 2022 and its many consequences, including the redirection of its hydrocarbon exports to China and India, have since turned the world’s gas map and strategies upside down. Gas produced and exported by the United States has become even more significant.
- Aleppo was then taken by Bashar al-Assad’s troops, with military air support from Russia and Iran (Pasdarans, Hezbollah, and other pan-Shia militias). From November 27 to 30, 2024, the second battle of Aleppo, won by Islamist and rebel groups, some of whom are Turkey’s “clients,” heralded the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime (December 8, 2024).
- Turkish and assimilated forces (Syrian mercenaries) are present in Tripoli, at the Misrata base (a port city 200 kilometers east of Tripoli) and at the Al-Watiya air base, located in western Libya, close to the Tunisian border. The number of Turkish forces was estimated at 2,500 in 2020 (excluding Syrian mercenaries), at the height of the battle for Tripoli (2020). These forces would have trained 2,500 Libyan soldiers on site, to which would be added 1,000 Libyan soldiers trained in Turkey. On January 2, 2024, the mission of Turkish soldiers in Libya was extended by two years.
- Erdogan will be able to travel to Damascus to pray at the Umayyad Mosque, as he once promised his supporters (in 2014).
- Russian military personnel and contractors (Africa Corps) are present or established in Sirte, at the al-Joufra base (southeast of Sirt, on the coast), in Benghazi, at the al-Khadim base (100 km from Benghazi) and in Brak as-Shatti, near Sebha (southern Libya). Russia provides most of the air force and air defense for Haftar’s stronghold. Before the withdrawal from Syria, Russian military strength was estimated at around 2,000 troops. S-300 and S-400 systems have reportedly been redeployed in Libya.
- Algeria’s ambition is to gather Kais Saied’s Tunisia and the Tripoli regime around it in a free-trade zone, which would turn Morocco into a geostrategic “island,” a valuable anchoring point for Western powers.