Russia Geo-strategic praesentia in Africa and Turco-Russian proxies in Lybia

The capability of Russia goes beyond the Eurasia. The new paradigm of the world politics became between the influence of the politician of Statesman style of Putin and the Businessman style of Trump, forming two different styles of conservative right wing government.

One part is using internet influences together the politics, comming with the style of something wave style, turn down for what, loutish speeches and using the influences and speeches to promote dissonace in world's unity, and form a new paradigm, evoking the NEOCON model of globalism, beneath the USA influences.

Other part evokes the strong statesman style, with the model that dictates throuth a new political theoretics and using classical realistic theretics, as Huntington and Machiavelian projection of power. This model uses more a hard speech but diplomatic behavior, but, strenght through joy and, also, promoting a new paradigm of globalism, but not imposing the Russophilia.

Libya has been consumpted by civil war since longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was killed in an uprising in 2011, followed by a NATO operation togetuer USA to disrupt the decades of government, just after the clash of Saddam. The descended was a proxy war in the regional geo-strategy and international powers joined this vacuum of government with the oil-rich interests in North Africa, as in Middle East.

The blocs soon jointed to the conduction of the warfare in country, promoting small conflicts and promoting, also, decision makers with think-tanks of how to conduct new politics. Esclataing war to reach for political regonciliation for the peace at region.

Libya was divided reconized by UN-Backed government of National Accord in the Capital, Tripoly, but western Libya self-declared a new republic militarized in Tobruk, backed by Khalifa Haftar, former General, who protrayed himself as the one who can restore teh stability and combat the militants that strenghtened influence by a new anarchic country, influenced by western cultural policy implementation.

This imbalance of the battle in Libya, Ankara sent his presence with diplomatic-military advisers to Tripoli, and joined with 2 thousand Syrian fighters to support Tripoli's government. This point advanced to a joined Russo-turkish Proxy War in Libya, promoted by Moscow and Ankara, the most active players in the country.

By this new-realistic stablishment, the government acted together in their interestes, but one part condemned other where they have their interests delimited. Russia has condemned the Turkey's decision to increase military assistance to Tripoli, while Ankara used force to break the linked mercanaries of Wagner in Libya.

The result was a proxy between two countries in Libya to promote international Turkish or Russian advance in the lack of power and international organisms in country.

This politic showed how failed was the politics of USA to disrupt the considered dictatorships without a plan to promote peaceful conditions and governmental assistance and, also, a failed politics of Trump administration, that don't get focused in peace, but economic warfare and exploration of proxy wars to promote presence and supremacy.

Following a historical paralel, the anti-western and anti-European feeling in there for the historical exploitation of resources, made new politics of Russia in Africa get more accepted, based in mutual assistance and military backed support with private military personal acting and companies acting directly in a joint business cooperation.

Recently a call for ceasefire between Putin and Erdogan showed that both countries are most interested in cooperation than rivals in international relations.

U.S. Vacuum: How Libya Is Descending Into A Russia-Turkey Proxy War

https://www.rferl.org/a/u-s-vacuum-how-libya-is-descending-into-a-russia-turkey-proxy-war-/30389900.html

Libya has been torn by civil war since longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi was killed in an uprising in 2011 following a NATO-led bombing campaign.

The conflict has descended into a proxy war as regional and international powers jostle to secure their own interests in the oil-rich North African nation.

The escalating war has hastened international efforts -- including a major conference hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on January 19 -- to reach a political reconciliation, although the prospects of peace appear far off.

Escalating Violence

Libya has been divided since 2011. The country’s west is ruled by the internationally recognized and UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in the capital, Tripoli. Eastern Libya is run by a self-declared administration based in the city of Tobruk that is backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

A former general, Haftar has portrayed himself as a figure who can restore stability and combat the Islamist militants that have grown in influence in the lawless country. His critics accuse him of carrying out a coup and wanting to create a military dictatorship.

In 2014, Haftar assembled former Qaddafi soldiers and, after a three-year battle, seized the main eastern city of Benghazi. He also captured the south with its crucial oilfields.

In April, Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army launched an offensive against the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Haftar's forces have been unable to reach central Tripoli but have gradually advanced to its suburbs.

The clashes around Tripoli have killed more than 280 civilians and some 2,000 fighters, while at least 140,000 people have been displaced, according to United Nations figures released in December.

Internationalized Conflict

Since NATO pulled back from Libya following its 2011 intervention, a host of regional players have looked to fill the vacuum, providing military support to their local proxies.

Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have backed the 76-year-old Haftar, a former ally of Qaddafi.

The United Arab Emirates has deployed jets and drones to aid Haftar. Russia has sent weapons, while there has been an influx of hundreds of mercenaries allegedly from the Kremlin-linked Vagner private security firm. Moscow has denied sending private mercenaries to support Haftar. With greater support from Russia, Haftar’s forces have made a renewed push to seize control of Tripoli.

There are also up to 3,000 mercenaries from Sudan, Niger, and Chad fighting for Haftar.

Established by the UN in 2016, the GNA is officially supported by the United States and other Western countries. But practically, Tripoli’s only foreign backer is Turkey, which has provided armored vehicles and drones to Sarraj.

Addressing the imbalance on the battlefield, Ankara this month sent dozens of military advisers to Tripoli and has deployed up to 2,000 Syrian fighters to support the government.

Russia-Turkey Proxy War

Moscow and Ankara have become the two most active international players in Libya.

Russia has condemned Turkey’s decision to increase its military assistance to the Tripoli government. Meanwhile, Ankara has slammed the presence of Russia-linked mercenaries in Libya.

The result, Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based political analyst said, was an “increasingly overt Russia-Turkey proxy war” in Libya.

“There is a danger that Turkish military personnel embedded with GNA units could be wounded, killed, or captured in clashes with Russian-supported LNA units and the growing number of Moscow-supported Russian mercenaries in Libya,” said Jenkins.

Wolfram Lacher, a Libya expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said Turkey’s military intervention is likely to aggravate the conflict.

“It’s possible that Haftar’s foreign backers will respond to Turkey’s increasing intervention by boosting their assistance to Haftar [and] escalating the war further,” Lacher said.

Competing Economic Interests

Turkey has allied itself with the GNA to advance its strategic and commercial interests, analysts said.

In November, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Sarraj signed a military cooperation agreement and a separate deal on maritime boundaries that would give Turkey drilling and pipeline rights over a large swath of the Mediterranean Sea between the countries. The deal has been widely criticized.

Large reserves of gas have been discovered in the eastern Mediterranean and Erdogan has said he envisages joint energy-exploration activities with Libya there.

Libya, which has a long Mediterranean coastline, controls vast oil reserves and produces 1.3 million barrels a day despite the war.

Ankara’s tensions with Egypt, which is run by the military, is viewed as another reason for Turkey’s troop deployment. Erdogan was an ardent backer of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government that was overthrown by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in 2013.

“Erdogan believes that he needs the GNA to survive in order to try to legitimize Ankara’s claims to natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean,” said Jenkins. “This agreement is designed not only to try to legitimize Ankara’s natural gas claims but to create a barrier to Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel jointly exporting eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe.”

Russia wants more influence in Africa. It’s using disinformation to get there.

Facebook says the oligarch behind the Internet Research Agency is involved.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/03/russia-wants-more-influence-africa-its-using-disinformation-get-there/

By Shelby Grossman 

Dec. 3, 2019 at 8:00 a.m. GMT-3

In October, the Russian government hosted the first Russia-Africa Summit. More than 40 African heads of state arrived in Sochi to “identify new areas and forms of cooperation,” as Vladimir Putin noted in his greeting to participants.

A week later, Facebook announced that it had removed three networks of pages and accounts engaged in a long-term influence operation spanning eight African countries. Facebook, which had proactively identified a majority of the pages, attributed this operation to companies run by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a man with close ties to Putin. Prigozhin is also the Russian oligarch U.S. authorities accused of bankrolling the Internet Research Agency — which the New York Times referred to as the “notorious Russian troll factory.”

This was a big operation

The operation targeted Libya, Sudan, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Congo, Ivory Coast and Cameroon. We analyzed the networks targeting the first six of these countries — an investigation involving 73 Facebook pages and seven Instagram accounts. These pages had “likes” from more than 1.7 million accounts, though some of these likes are probably from the same account. The accounts posted at a high rate — with over 8,900 posts in October alone.

There were patterns, and familiar tactics

We saw consistent tactics across these Facebook pages. Some of these tactics were familiar to those who have studied Internet Research Agency activity: pages set up to resemble local news sources, posts duplicated and cross-posted to amplify engagement, and attempts to leverage original, country-specific memes to damage opposition leaders and Russia’s rivals on the continent, such as France.

But other tactics were novel. At times, the Russian disinformation companies employed local citizens as content creators, making it more difficult to trace pages back to their origin. And there were franchise-like centers — the two largest were in Egypt and Madagascar — directing teams of page administrators who produced steady streams of local-language content.

Our team at the Stanford Internet Observatory worked with Facebook to identify and analyze these materials. As we show in a recent white paper, it is no accident that, as Russia sought to increase its influence in Africa, Prigozhin was running influence operations there. Here’s what we found.

It’s all about gold, oil — and great power politics

What were these pages supposed to accomplish? Russia tends to conduct government-aligned influence operations in service to some kind of geopolitical aim. We also looked at the larger question of what Russia’s — and Prigozhin’s — aims in Africa are. Russia has recently expanded its presence in Africa in a return to Soviet-era foreign policy priorities, and a search for new economic opportunities to allay the effects of Western sanctions levied after the annexation of Crimea.

Prigozhin and his companies — which include mining concerns and a private military company known as the Wagner Group — play a key role in this expansion. As Kimberly Marten has argued in an article on the Wagner Group, using Prigozhin’s companies to pursue foreign policy aims around the world allows the Russian government to benefit from their actions when it is convenient and to disavow them when it is not. No less significantly, in Russia’s informal, connection-based economy Prigozhin’s firms provide a channel for wealth to flow across the line theoretically separating Russia’s state interests abroad from private citizens like Prigozhin.

The Prigozhin-linked Facebook pages we analyzed are connected to a skein of interests, including mining rights, military contracts, fragile alliances and Russia’s foreign policy priorities. Prigozhin’s companies work in all of these areas — our analysis of this Africa influence operation suggests these pages and networks were expressly designed to boost support for their activities in the targeted countries.

This support could have many layers. On July 2, a post on one of the pages targeting Madagascar lauded the KRAOMA mine’s new Russian partners. It referred to cooperation with Ferrum Mining, which Russian investigators have tied to Prigozhin. Another Prigozhin project, a website called Afrique Panorama, published an article calling Ferrum’s work with KRAOMA “perfect” and shared it on its Facebook page.

These activities mesh with our understanding of what happened in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, when Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency was a crucial, informal-but-deniable part of a broad Russian effort to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

The stakes are similarly high for both Russia and Prigozhin in Africa, where great wealth and trade relationships hang in the balance. To this end, our findings suggest this influence operation was designed to boost the political figures with which Russia has aligned itself, such as President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in the Central African Republic.

Detecting disinformation has grown difficult

Our research focuses on the implications this influence operation has for understanding and combating disinformation. What happened in Africa suggests that Russian-sponsored operations are evolving — and likely to be harder to detect in the future as these efforts become more intertwined with the communities they are targeting on open platforms like Facebook.

These operations also target more opaque channels like WhatsApp and Telegram. As bad as the effects of disinformation campaigns in the United States have been, they have the potential to be more harmful in the developing world, where data usage costs can make verifying stories more difficult.

At the same time, we observed many social media users responding skeptically to the content on these pages. Users in Mozambique commented on an untrue story denigrating the opposition and posted comments like “fake news!”

In another example, we noted pages designed to beef up support for the son of deceased Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. Libyans responded with comments like “it looks like you never lived in Libya under Gaddafi, otherwise you wouldn’t post these imaginary things.”

This suggests that the impact of these operations has limits — and that not all social media users passively consume hyperpartisan content.