RUTHFULLY YOURS

U.S. engagement there has been minimal since a 2012 terrorist attack killed four Americans, including the ambassador, and traumatized the Obama administration. In America’s absence, over half a dozen powers are struggling to control Libya’s future, carving up its territory, and subsidizing militias and warlords as they compete for control over its oil and gas. No end to the war is in sight.

On one side Turkey and Qatar, with some discreet Italian cheerleading, back the Tripoli-based warlords and affiliated tribal leaders whom the United Nations has anointed the “legitimate” government of Libya, the so-called Government of National Accord, or GNA. On the side of the challenger coalition of tribal leaders and warlords stand France, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The latter coalition is led most visibly by Khalifa Haftar, a rogue field marshal who heads what he calls the Libyan National Army.

No higher principles are at stake. Neither side stands for anything more noble than its own security and power. The GNA isn’t fighting for freedom, Islam, U.N. legitimacy or any cause greater than its right to make as much money as possible selling hydrocarbons while taxing the human traffickers and arms smugglers operating in the country’s chaos. The rebels want pretty much the same thing.

In the most recent fighting, the beleaguered GNA has been able to beat back Mr. Haftar’s forces, driving them from the outskirts of Tripoli toward the central coastal city of Sirte, which the government vows to recapture. If Sirte falls, the GNA will be poised to take control of economically valuable oil facilities, starving the Haftar forces of the revenue they need to carry on the war.

But Mr. Haftar’s patrons aren’t taking their recent setback lying down. Russia and Syria are sending seasoned mercenaries from the Syrian battlefields to defend the oil. Despite a U.N. arms embargo, both sides continue to receive supplies.

It is hard to predict what will happen next, other than that the innocent and the weak will suffer horrifically as the factions and their sponsors roll the dice. But the importance of this war is less about who wins than what it reveals about the state of the world.

The first point is that the U.N. is increasingly losing its moral legitimacy and political relevance. That France and Russia, both permanent members of the Security Council, feel no qualms about supporting the rebels against the U.N.-backed government speaks volumes about the place of international law in the world. The 2011 Western intervention in Libya was intended to take international law to new heights by enshrining the “responsibility to protect” civilians from mass atrocities. Instead, cynical and lawless calculation is enshrined as the new normal.

The war also reveals the West’s growing divisions. Two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies (Turkey and Italy) back the GNA. Two more, Greece and France, stand with Mr. Haftar. A fifth, Britain, tilts toward the Turks. This isn’t how healthy alliances work.

Another casualty of the Libyan war: any sense of a joint foreign policy from the European Union. Few places in the world matter more to Europe than its Mediterranean neighborhood. But France, Greece and Italy are pursuing their independent courses in Libya as if the EU didn’t exist. This isn’t what emerging power blocs look like.

The war also underlines the weakness of the Sunni Arab world and its need for a strong relationship with Israel. That the Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia can’t control political developments in nearby Libya illustrates the depth of the Arab crisis. These states also failed to steer the course of the Syrian war or prevent Lebanon’s collapse. They need allies to balance both Turkey and Iran, and as the U.S. withdraws, Israel is the only real option they have.

All this—plus the growing evidence that Vladimir Putin’s financial and political troubles are growing in the wake of the Covid pandemic and the oil-price collapse—helps explain the boldness of Turkey’s recent policy moves. Ankara has crossed the EU by exploring for gas in waters claimed by Cyprus. Its alliance with Qatar puts it in direct opposition to Saudi Arabia and its friends. Its support for Hamas angers Israel. Its purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system infuriated the U.S. And by threatening to turn Hagia Sophia (one of the holiest sites in Eastern Orthodoxy) back into a mosque, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is picking a quarrel with Russia. Under normal circumstances this would look like a suicidal policy mix, especially for a country with a weak currency and other economic problems. But Mr. Erdogan clearly thinks he sees a Mediterranean power vacuum, and he’s seizing the chance to fill it.

Finally, the Libyan war shows that a “post-American” world, one in which the U.S. retreats from its post-World War II policy of global engagement, is unlikely to be peaceful. Zero-sum power games, weakening institutions, cynical power grabs: More of the world will start looking like Libya and Syria.