As mentioned the other day. The US and Israel have interests in Libya. Turkey and Russia do as well. I’ll try to bring something from my former site about a deal made between Turkey and Libya- it’s mentioned in the World Politics piece below and it is the agreement that annoyed Greece and Egypt to no end!
In turn, in the current situation of the extreme fragmentation of Libya, the United States could easily influence almost each of the parties to the conflict, using the carrot and stick method.
An entity that agrees to accept and accommodate Palestinian Arabs would receive generous financial and political support, including international recognition.
Recent clashes between pro-government militias in Tripoli once again threatened to unravel Libya’s tenuous frozen conflict. Yet beyond the headline-grabbing instability, a quieter power struggle is unfolding, one in which Turkey and Russia are emerging as the most consequential actors, with both Ankara and Moscow utilizing the country’s stalemate to entrench their own influence.
Still, the political and military fault lines that divide Libya are increasingly shaped by Turkey and Russia, who have settled into what analysts characterize as a “managed rivalry” or “adversarial collaboration,” as previously seen in other theaters where their interests simultaneously collide and overlap, such as Syria and the South Caucasus
Turkey’s Outreach
Turkey’s military intervention in 2020 decisively shifted the balance in Libya’s civil war, repelling an offensive on Tripoli launched by Haftar in April 2019 and setting the stage for the United Nations-brokered ceasefire that ended the fighting between the Tripoli and Tobruk governments later that year. Since then, Turkey has remained the GNU’s key patron, supplying military equipment such as Turkish-made armored vehicles, drones, air defense systems and artillery.
The Turkish parliament has continued to renew the military mandate for its forces in Libya, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan citing risks to Turkish interests if the GNU were to come under renewed assault. That deep level of support was almost certainly the decisive factor allowing Dbeibah and the GNU to retain the upper hand amid the recent unrest in Tripoli.
While Turkey’s military intervention had guaranteed it a seat at Libya’s political table, Ankara has also secured oil and gas exploration deals with successive Tripoli-based administrations, beginning with a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the GNA in 2019 and later ratified by Dbeibah’s government in October 2022.
Although the Tripoli Court of Appeal ruled against the deal in February 2024, the GNU ultimately overrode the court’s decision. That underscores how Ankara’s outreach to Tripoli’s powerbrokers has advanced its maritime and energy interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, even as Turkey’s offshore territorial claims sparked tensions with Greece and Egypt, which said they infringed upon their own sovereignty.
Russia’s Ambitions
Russia’s engagement in Libya has also been consequential, but was previously subtler.
Moscow has become more open in its ties to Haftar, particularly following the fall of former dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria. In May, both Khalifa and Saddam Haftar traveled to Moscow for Russia’s World War II Victory Day celebrations, where they met senior officials and discussed expanding military cooperation, for which the elder Haftar expressed his gratitude.
The deepening relationship comes at a time when Moscow is looking to reassert its Mediterranean presence following its loss of influence in Syria, which had guaranteed it an Eastern Mediterranean naval base in Tartus. In February, satellite imagery showed Russia’s development of the Maaten Al Sarra airbase in southern Libya, where it had shipped S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. Around 1,000 Russian military personnel have also relocated to Libya from Syria.
I’ve read that Russia has been looking for option in Libya, but, there are also news reports such as the one below;
Libyan PM resists Russia’s move to reinforce military bases in country
Russia’s move to reinforce its military base in eastern Libya after the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria is facing resistance from the country’s UN-backed government.
The prime minister of the Tripoli-based government, Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, said he rejected any attempt to turn Libya into a centre for major-power conflicts, stressing that the country would not be a platform for settling international scores.
“We have concerns about moving international conflicts to Libya, and that it will become a battlefield between countries,” Dabaiba said.
Libya has been a battlefield between countries for some time now, sadly. Thanks to the US led NATO destruction/destabilization and brutal murder of Gaddafi. And I mean BRUTAL!!
Back to World Politics
Russia’s growing influence with the LNA would likely make approval for building a naval base easier. Haftar’s forces depend on Russia for their logistical networks and reportedly even require Russian approval to use certain military installations, indicating how much leverage Moscow has established over him.
Yet rather than being an unconditional ally, Russia arguably views Haftar as a means to an end, a tool to maintain influence in Libya and extend its reach into Africa. Still, the fact Haftar and his son have engaged with Ankara, too, shows that the family is willing to leverage the competing powers to gain recognition. Thus, Russia and Haftar’s ties can be deemed a “marriage of convenience.”
Indeed, like Turkey, Russia has also looked to the rival camp to hedge its bets. Moscow’s outreach to Tripoli has gained momentum over the past two years, with a delegation traveling to Tripoli to meet with GNU officials—including Dbeibah—as recently as April. Beyond potentially allowing Moscow to use western Libya as a launchpad for power projection deeper into Africa, this balancing act advances Russia’s energy interests, as Russian firms are now in talks with the Tripoli-based Presidential Council, which is aligned with the GNU, for exploration deals.
Russia’s entrenched role serves as a geopolitical bargaining chip, compelling European powers to engage with Moscow and advancing President Vladimir Putin’s stated vision of a multipolar world order. There is also a potential risk of Russia of weaponizing Libya’s energy sector; Haftar has previously blockaded oil facilities to pressure Tripoli, a tactic Moscow could exploit to disrupt or manipulate European energy supplies.
Even short of active sabotage, a future Russian naval base in Libya would almost certainly raise alarm in European capitals. Yet all of this would likely be consolidated within a frozen conflict, one increasingly sustained by competing Russian and Turkish involvement.
Marriage of Convenience aka RealPolitik
Meanwhile, Washington has largely disengaged from Libya’s conflict, aside from recent inflammatory suggestions that it would relocate migrants and even displaced Palestinians from Gaza to Libya. Both proposals were swiftly condemned, in part due to the country’s lack of security and high risk of human trafficking.
With Western involvement waning, any U.N.-backed efforts to unify the rival administrations under a single government, push for domestic reform or hold elections will almost certainly require Turkish buy-in. Persuading Moscow to scale back support for Haftar and relinquish its strategic foothold in the Mediterranean and Africa, will prove far more difficult.
I’m not so sure western involvement has waned- That all said, Libya is definitely a nation to watch.