Imperialism, oil and western interventionism: analysis of the Libyan Civil War (2011 - 2020)

Abstract

In this article, we seek to analyze, from a critical perspective, the NATO invasion of Libya in 2011 and the civil conflict unleashed from there. This article has three major chapters: the first one aims to present the concept of “Imperialism” based on a Marxist theory. Then, a historical review of how Libyan territory inserts itself in the international system and the agenda of major Western powers from the discovery and nationalization of oil is elaborated. Finally, a situational analysis of the political-military conflict that unfolds in that territory is developed from the intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We start from the premise that Western imperialism was reconfigured in the 21st century, exposing its most violent and despoiling facet, especially after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Over the past two decades, countries rich in energy resources governed by openly anti-Western political groups have been a constant target of Western interventionism. Accumulation via spoliation, a strategy of capital that was intensified since the first oil crisis in 1973, appears as compensation for the chronic problems of over-accumulation that arose in the context of expanded capitalist reproduction. Libya, especially since the rise of Gadhafi in 1969, was involved in the epicenter of the anti-imperialist struggle of oil-producing countries and, in the context of the Arab Spring, it suffered NATO intervention, justified by the principles of defense of Western democracy.

 Keywords: Imperialism; Oil; Interventionism; NATO; Libya.