Research: The troubled international equilibrium between Libya and the West
Starting from the birth of the "State of the Masses" (Jamahiriya), established with the coup of November 1969 in Libya and led by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, relations between Libya and the West have been characterized by a complex web of hostilities and international tensions. The historical peak of such tensions between the Jamahiriya and the Western world was reached in the 1980s by the Reagan administration, when Libyan support for international terrorism triggered the U.S. reaction which culminated in the American military operation called El-Dorado Canyon on 15 April 1986. In 1988 and then in 1989, following the Lockerbie terrorist attacks (bombing of Pan Am flight 103 on 21 December 1988) and UTA (bombing of UTA flight 772 on 19 September 1989) a further level of escalation of international frictions between Libya and the West was reached. Against the backdrop of a changed international environment marked by both the end of the Cold War and by the rise of the so-called U.S. "unipolar moment," relations between Libya and the Western world continued to be characterized by growing animosity and competition. As a matter of fact, the United States moved in an attempt to diplomatically isolate the dictatorial regime of Muammar Qaddafi, finally succeeding in the early 1990s (1992) in getting the United Nations Security Council to pass two resolutions by which the international community de facto isolated Libya imposing strict economic sanctions on the North African country. In light of this historical context, while Western European nations diplomatically supported U.S. initiatives by working closely with their ally, they maintained a certain degree of autonomy with respect to relations with Libya until international sanctions were passed. The aim of this research project is to understand the extent to which the economic component influenced the choices of European states and how the new international order resulting from the end of the Cold War played a role in the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 731 and 748.