Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder

- Blurb -

We no longer inhabit a world governed by international coordination, a unified NATO bloc, or an American hegemon. Traditionally, the decline of one empire leads to a restoration in the balance of power, via a struggle among rival systems of order. Yet this dynamic is surprisingly absent today; instead, the superpowers have all, at times, sought to promote what Jason Pack terms the ' Enduring Disorder' . He contends that Libya' s ongoing conflict--more so than the civil wars in Yemen, Syria, Venezuela or Ukraine--constitutes the ideal microcosm in which to identify the salient features of this new era of geopolitics. The country' s post-Qadhafi trajectory has been moulded by the stark absence of coherent international diplomacy; while Libya' s incremental implosion has precipitated cross-border contagion, further corroding global institutions and international partnership. Pack draws on over two decades of research in and on Libya and Syria to highlight the Kafkaesque aspects of today' s global affairs. He shows how even the threats posed by the Arab Spring, and the Benghazi assassination of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, couldn' t occasion a unified Western response. Rather, they have further undercut global collaboration, demonstrating the self-reinforcing nature of the progressively collapsing world order.