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"Africa: The Next Defense Market Opportunity?" discussed Forecast International's look at some very specific opportunities in that continent - one of which was Libya. Libyan ruler Muammar Gadaffi has shifted his country from rogue state status in the 1970s and 1980s, to a policy that completely disclosed the surprising progress of their weapons of mass destruction programs and sought normalized relations with the western world. In 2004 the European Union lifted a 1986 arms embargo against Libya, and in 2006 the USA restored full diplomatic relations. Many credit in part the influence of his son Saif al-Islam [BBC interview | TIME article], whose graduate degrees the University of Vienna and the London School of Economics reportedly included work studying transitions from rentier states and dictatorships to free market societies; he is currently working with Michael Porter to this end.
Libya's military has traditionally been Soviet supplied, alongside some equipment from France. The demise of the Soviet Union, the 1990s drop in oil prices, and Libya's pariah status all combined to choke military modernization - but Libya's new political direction, and the rise in oil prices, are changing that. Unsurprisingly, there have been widespread reports in recent days that France and Libya have signed a Memorandum of Understanding covering arms deals worth up to EUR 4.5 billion, including the first foreign sale of the Rafale fighter. Has France learned the lessons of Morocco and Saudi Arabia? Can the Rafale find an export home at last? Will the deals come to fruition?