“Two Libyas” and an Elusive Sovereignty (3/5)

Since the Arab Spring of 2011, Libya has not been undergoing some unfinished transition but has settled into a lasting state of political dissolution. Far from paving the way for a reconstruction process, the brutal disappearance of Muammar Gaddafi's regime, on the contrary, triggered a long sequence of fragmentation, where armed violence progressively replaced the state as the organizing principle of power, as in Sudan.

This series offers a structural reading of the Libyan war as a stabilized and coherent system in itself, embedded in regional and international rivalries, and now capable of eliminating any political alternative that does not fit its logic.

The notion of “two Libyas” frequently recurs in analyses of the Libyan case, serving as a metaphor for the country’s territorial fragmentation. Yet the formula is misleadingly imprecise, suggesting a seemingly clear-cut – even nearly symmetrical – political division between a West dominated by Tripoli and an East structured around Benghazi. Such a depiction, however, dangerously oversimplifies a far more troubling reality: Libya is not split between two competing sovereignties, but stripped of sovereignty altogether. The institutions that claim to embody it do not, in practice, govern. They survive by delegation, under armed protection, in a state of constant dependence on forces that are external to – or hold authority over – them.

In the West, the Government of National Unity led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh – and recognized by the international community – exists within a kind of enduring legal fiction. It enjoys diplomatic recognition, formal access to Libya’s overseas assets, and a seat at the United Nations – yet such recognition does not give it any real capacity to enforce decisions across the territory it is supposed to govern. In Tripoli, to govern means to bargain incessantly with armed groups that control neighborhoods, roads and key institutions. The executive decides nothing. It survives by playing Scheherazade – negotiating its own reprieve day by day – operating through a loose coalition of civil and armed actors who remain autonomous on the ground (the Special Deterrence Forces, of Salafist persuasion; the Stability Support Apparatus, structured around local militia leaders; the Misrata factions; the Tripoli Brigades; and others).

This perpetual bargaining has reduced the state to a hollow, procedural shell. Ministries operate only intermittently; public policies exist mostly on paper; budgets are swallowed up by informal redistribution mechanisms designed to preserve fragile armed equilibria. The Central Bank – often portrayed as the country’s last remaining backbone – has itself become the object of rival attempts at capture and cross-cutting pressures.

In the East, a Relative Order

In the East, sovereignty is no more secure, despite the appearance of military hierarchy. Khalifa Haftar’s authority rests on a patchwork of tribal loyalties, security structures and external support. It imposes a degree of order, but one that is military rather than institutional. It does not rest upon an autonomous administration, but upon a chain of command and a war economy. The claim to sovereignty there encounters a fundamental contradiction: how can a power so structurally dependent on external patrons for its survival exercise full sovereignty? Strategic decisions – on war, the economy, or diplomacy – are invariably shaped by the expectations and red lines of regional and international backers. Eastern Libya does not truly govern. At best, it manages its dependency.

Unsurprisingly, the coexistence of these two poles produces no stabilizing equilibrium. On the contrary, it creates a system of mutual obstruction and contained – if persistent – disorder, all the more acute because neither camp is strong enough to enforce a lasting unification, nor weak enough to be sidelined. Libya thus settles into a configuration in which division itself becomes functional, enabling local actors to maintain their positions – and external actors to project influence without taking on the burden of any genuine state reconstruction.

Oil, a Driver of Fragmentation

This lack of genuine sovereignty is more evident in the management of resources. Rather than fostering national cohesion, oil has become one of the major drivers of fragmentation. Terminals, fields and pipelines are controlled – or blocked – according to local calculations, and production can be halted at any moment as a political lever.

As for the revenues, when they do circulate, they serve to sustain patronage networks rather than any national project. The Libyan paradox is that the country possesses ample resources to finance its own reconstruction – yet remains structurally incapable of converting them into sovereignty. In this setup, rent does not strenghten the state; it paradoxically perpetuates its dispersion, a dynamic reinforced by the institutional architecture itself.

Governments succeed one another, agreements pile up, dialogue processes multiply – each presented as a decisive step towards reunification – yet, in reality, none alters the balance of power on the ground. Libyan institutions are nothing more than ghostly, hollow transit points where promises made on all sides are never fulfilled.

In this landscape of desolation, the very notion of legitimacy has lost any operative meaning. Electoral legitimacy is invoked, only to be neutralized; revolutionary legitimacy is exhausted; security-based legitimacy is contested. What remains in practice are partial, local and provisional claims to authority, anchored above all in capacities for coercion. Its corollary – sovereignty, understood as the ability to decide and to compel within a given territory – dissolves amid this proliferation of competing sources of power. In Libya, authority no longer coheres; it fragments, negotiates and endures, but rarely governs.

A Festering Stalemate

Territorial fragmentation is not frozen in place. It is fluid, adaptable – perhaps even reversible in the short term – yet, like the wider dynamic, persistent in its logic. Zones pass from one authority to another without altering the overall structure of the conflict. Cities change hands, alliances are reshuffled, yet the absence of a unifying center remains the constant. It is precisely this fluidity that makes the Libyan predicament so resistant to attempts at resolution.

There is no stable front line on which a lasting ceasefire could be imposed, nor is there any single actor capable of bringing the entire country into a binding political process. Every initiative runs up against a simple reality: no one can commit everyone, and everyone can obstruct anyone.

External actors are, of course, accused of fueling division. It is true. Yet in truth they merely exploit an existing configuration – backing one camp, then another, and adjusting their level of engagement, without ever making a serious attempt to restore a sovereignty they consider unrealistic in the short term. Libya thus becomes a space to be managed – and, indeed, another festering sore within this part of Africa. As for solutions…

The civilian population finds itself trapped in a double bind. On the one hand, it depends on weak institutions for essential services; on the other, it lives under the constant pressure of armed groups. In a context where politics has withered as a collective horizon, it is hardly surprising that exile becomes a personal strategy of survival.

To speak of “two Libyas” is to miss the point entirely. A more accurate description would be of a country administered in pieces, where the state is little more than cardboard, sovereignty a hollow claim, and war an inexorable curse. This is neither a temporary nor accidental arrangement, but the product of a decade of compromises, patchwork fixes, and misguided rational calculations.

As long as this architecture remains unchallenged, any reunification will be purely formal. Libya may change governments, sign new agreements, or convene yet another conference – but it will not regain genuine sovereignty as long as violence remains the gateway to power, and dependence on external actors its principal mode of operation.

Next article:

Libya as a Regional Festering Sore

Read on the same topic:

– 2011, Libya in the post-state era (1/5)

– The Libyan Conflict: An Excessive 'Militiafication' of Politics (2/5)