Between dissertating, data collection, and side projects, blogging has been pretty lite here lately. I'll try to keep up with the occasional updates so as not to dissappoint our loyal reader…
France drops arms to Libyan rebels. What's particularly interesting about this event (a couple days old I admit) is the notion that the French are reported to have made the arms drops on their own and without informing NATO allies. France has been one of the more belligerent of the NATO allies involved in the operations in Libya, so this isn't too surprising. I'm just wondering what this says about the dynamics between NATO allies. Without going into too much depth on the issue I think there are two immediately apparent possibilities: 1) NATO is ill-suited for serious coordination and control of ally behvior during military operations, or 2) Given the pattern of escalation that has we've seen so far (recall the French and British deployments of attack helicopters to Libya) having a "loose cannon" of sorts can be advantageous. That said, this latter point does not necessarily preclude the first point. That is, NATO may very well be poorly equipped to seriously coordinate allied actions, but having a loose cannon can still be desirable so long as it happens to mesh well with the preferences of those states involved.
As we can imagine, however, some states have protested France's actions on this matter.
