By Richard Outzen, retired U.S. army officer
Experts have come to recognize that international competition in the Internet era includes a continuous struggle to define conflicts and outcomes through messaging on social and mass media. When actors define a situation by publishing messages – data, images, words for framing and narrative – they are competing to shape interpretations among target audiences. This battle of narratives, or contestation, is not primarily a search for truth or reporting of fact; it is the interplay of stylized stories that incorporate facts and interpretations to persuade for political purposes. Armies, diplomats, and corporations help states determine outcomes in international relations, but so, too, do narratives.
Developments in Libya during 2020 exemplify how narrative contestation can complement or eclipse other tools of statecraft during interstate conflicts. At the beginning of 2020 one side in Libya – Khalifa Hafter’s LNA, backed by France, the United Arab Emirates, and Russian mercenaries – sought to convince world leaders that only the fall of Tripoli could bring stability. The other side – The Government of National Accord (GNA), backed by Turkey and recognized by the United Nations – sought to defeat Hafter and to convince Libyans and world leaders that only a compromise settlement could end the war.
Turkish intervention in Spring 2020 led to Hafter’s defeat, a new ceasefire, and calls to resume negotiations. The LNA and its allies unleashed a blistering critique of Turkish actions, arguing that Turkey’s role was illegitimate and illegal, and the Turks should have no role in Libya’s future. The stakes were high: if major international players saw Turkey and the GNA as theproblem and Hafter as the solution, their military success would be irrelevant. What happened instead was military de-escalation, a UN-brokered agreement, elections, and a unity government.
Formation of the Narratives
France, supported by Egypt and the Gulf, attacked Ankara’s role in Libya as a “dangerous game,” a tragedy for which Turkey bore “historic and criminal responsibility,” and as a risky intervention likely to backfire. Egypt, Greece, and the Gulf monarchies (minus Qatar) issued a Cairo Declaration calling for Libyan unification on Hafter’s terms, with departure of Turkish and Turkish-supported forces. Turkish President Erdogan was portrayed as irresponsible, dangerous, and extremist.
Ankara’s counternarrative relied on three key factors: assertion of Turkey’s historical ties to Libya, UN-conferred legitimacy of the GNA, and portraying Hafter and his backers the real aggressors. Image 2 below shows an image popular in Turkey and Tripoli – Ataturk in Tripolitania during the 1912 war against Italy.
Projection of the Narratives
The U.S. Department of Defense Africa Center’s study of messaging by both sides in the Libyan Civil War noted that foreign disinformation campaigns created a “fog of disinformation” around the fighting. The LNA relied on a Russian-supported disinformation campaign designed to obscure, confuse, and overwhelm Libyan digital spaces. Saudi and Emirati networks of fake Twitter accounts began lionizing Hafter in 2019. Egyptian firms and the Russian Wagner group employed digital experts familiar with Libya to sow disinformation resonant with local audiences.
GNA backers, notably Turkey and Qatar, relied on traditional state-backed television and media. Two factors made this effective. First, given mounting empirical evidence linking Hafter to mass killings and other abuses, the GNA/Turkey felt less need to manufacture outrage. Second, local Libyan influencers – individuals, academics, and militia affiliates – already provided rebuttal of the more outlandish pro-Hafter, anti-GNA/anti-Turkish messaging. Turkey also benefited from the impressive visuals associated with drone strikes against Hafter’s forces.
Turkey and GNA published images of effective drone attacks on LNA forces to bolster the counter-narrative of professional, precise defensive operations.
Reception of the Narratives
Because key international players ignored the characterizations of Turkey as the real villain in Libya, the United States and Russia, Italy and the United Kingdom and Germany continued to treat Turkey as a partner in resolving the conflict, and dismissed the Cairo Declaration. By August, the “rogue Turkey” narrative had petered out. Washington-based think tanks panned the Cairo Declaration and attempts to bypass the UN, while other observers ridiculed Macron’s statements of execration against Turkey.
Miskimmon, Roselle and O’Loughlin provide a useful framework for analyzing narrative contestation. For a narrative to dominate in a contested information environment, it must outperform rival narratives in formation, projection, and reception. The chart below applies the framework to narrative contestation in Libya in 2020.
| Aspect of Narrative Contestation | French Narrative | Turkish Counter-Narrative |
| Formation/Content | Turkey portrayed as aggressive, irresponsible, and extremist; no legitimate role in the future of Libya. | Turks focused on historical ties with Libya, on UN recognition of GNA government, and on LNA as actual aggressor/war crimes perpetrator. |
| Projection | Russian-supported disinformation campaign, supported by UAE/Egypt, plus public statements from Cairo/Paris. | Turkey/GNA relied on traditional state media plus local non-government influencers. Utilized string of impressive military victories, enabled by Turkish drones.\ |
Reception | Failed to persuade significant portion of GNA supporters in Libya or international actors outside. | Libyan and European social influencers (e.g. Wolfram Lacher, Emadeddin Bali) and European leaders maintained critical, but balanced approach toward Turkey and the GNA. |
Verdict
The narrative to anathematize the GNA and Turkish intervention failed. A friend of Turkey became interim head of government, while Hafter was marginalized, while key international actors moved toward a compromise settlement that did not exclude Turkey. The key takeaway from Libya’s 2020 battle of narratives is that sometimes “less is more” – a torrent of disinformation and malediction won’t convince skeptical observers when your armies are losing territory and moral high ground at the same time.
For an in-depth analysis of Turkish narratives and recommendations for U.S. public diplomacy, Click Here.
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. They do not express the views of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication or the George Washington University.
Main photo: Macron, the Russian Wagner Group, and other Hafter patrons constructed a narrative based on the extremism of the GNA and Turkey.
