The 4 Most Destructive Conflicts in All of Human History Yes, World War I and II were awful. But that is just the beginning. by Peter Suciu

There are some lists that many nations would happily not be on – and this includes the deadliest conflicts in human history. The human toll has steadily increased in recent centuries, due largely because of the increased lethality of weapons. As men have made better devices for taking lives, the body count has tragically gone up accordingly. Yet, throughout history, there have been some devastating examples of human carnage.  

Here is a recap of the deadliest conflicts through human history. 

The Wars of Antiquity:

While it is impossible to chronicle the casualties of many ancient wars, in the 50-year long Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC, less than 80,000 were killed. By comparison, the century-long Punic Wars between the Roman Republic and Carthaginian Empire may have claimed as many as 1.8 million lives. 

The eight-year-long Gallic Wars that the Roman Republic engaged in during the 1st century BC saw upwards of a million casualties, while the Jewish-Roman Wars of the 1st century AD likely accounted for as many as 2 million deaths.  

Of course, those casualties seem almost insignificant to the carnage that occurred in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Three Kingdoms War (184-280 AD), which was a struggle between the Han dynasty states of Wei, Shu and Wu, saw the end of the Han Dynasty along with fighting, disease, and famine cost an estimated 40 million lives. 

Medieval Wars: 

The medieval period, or Middle Ages, was a dark time in human history due to both the spread of disease and nearly non-stop military conquests. Hundreds of millions perished from starvation and disease brought on by the conflicts, which included the Moorish Wars between the Moors and the Byzantine Empire, which saw some 5 million killed in a span of just 14 years in the 6th century. 

The Spanish Reconquista, which began in the early 8th century and lasted for nearly 800 years, accounted for 7 million dead. By comparison, the decades-long War of the Roses, which has been chronicled in numerous Shakespeare plays and saw the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, accounted for just upwards of 50,000. Of course among those were Kings Henry VI and Richard III, while the nobility suffered an unusually high rate of deaths. 

The Middle Ages saw one of history's longest wars – the Hundred Years' War, which lasted from 1337-1453 AD, and it accounted for as many as 3.3 million deaths. In comparison, in just less than a decade the An Lushan Rebellion (755-763), fought between the Tang Dynasty in China and Yan State, claimed as many as 36 million lives. The Conquests of Timur (1370-1405) also accounted for upwards of 20 million deaths. 

The centuries-long Crusades (1095-1291), which were known for brutality and all-out war on both sides, saw just some 3 million deaths but paled in comparison to the Mongol conquests (1206-1368).  

The tribe of nomadic horsemen from Central Asia conducted a hundred-year campaign of conquest that subjugated most of Eurasia. During the 13th century, the Mongol Empire systematically conquered modern-day Russia, China, Burma, Korea, all of Central Asia, India, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland. As an example of Mongol brutality, the Persian city of Nishapur was destroyed in 1221 AD by Mongol forces who reportedly killed as many 1.7 million people living in and around the city. In their conquest of Baghdad, then the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mongols embarked on a week-long killing spree that killed 200,000 to 1,000,000 inhabitants of the city. In total, the Mongol conquests may have accounted for some 40 million deaths! 

The 16th to 19th Centuries:

While it is easy to think of the wars between the Christians and Islam as having a significantly high body count, in fact the Christians did a very good job of killing each other from the 14th to 17th centuries. Some 4 million may have been killed in the French Wars of Religion in the 16th century, while the Thirty Years' War resulted in the death of 11.5 million – and has been considered as devastating for Germany as the 20th century's World Wars! It was fought between Catholic and Protestant states in Central Europe from 1618 to 1648. The war eventually drew in the great powers of Europe, resulting in one of the longest, most destructive and deadliest conflicts in European history. 

And while the Mongols are remembered for their barbarity in their conquest, the Spanish Empire's conquest of the New World was one that soaked the lands of modern Latin America in blood. Some 24.3 million were killed in the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, 1.5 million in the Mayan States, and more than 8 million in its conquest of the Inca Empire.  

The Napoleonic Wars, which lasted from 1803-1815, devastated Europe again and cost upwards of 7 million lives. It wasn't a single war but was rather a series of conflicts between the French Empire and the coalitions that fought it: including the War of the Third Coalition, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth and the Seventh and final coalition.  

The American Civil War is now remembered as the bloodiest conflict in the history of the United States, and it claimed the lives of possibly as many as 1 million Americans. But it was far from the deadliest wars of the 19th century. 

The Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) began when Hong Xiuquan, a religious fanatic, led a revolt against the Qing Dynasty. That revolt started in southern China and spread as far north as Nanjing before it was stopped in 1864 by a Qing army led by Western military officers. The rebellion was eventually put down, but not before anywhere from 20 to 30 million people lost their lives. 

Even before the Taiping Rebellion ended, the Qing were fighting another uprising – known as the Dungan Revolt – against both the Hui (Chinese Muslims) and Kashgaria, who were supported by the British and Ottoman Empires. While it ended in a Qing victory, approximately 20 million died – mostly caused by famine and migration brought about by the war.  

Modern Wars of the 20th and 21st Centuries: 

The two World Wars accounted for the most deaths from a conflict in human history, with the First World War accounting for as many as 40 million, which includes those first victims of the Spanish Flu; while the Second World War "earns" the infamous distinction of remaining the deadliest conflict. In total, 60 to 80 million were killed between 1939 and 1945, with only about one-quarter of the victims being military.  

What is also notable is that those figures don't take in those killed in the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), which could add upwards of another 9 million to the butcher's bill, while the Second Sino-Japanese War – which was part of the greater Second World War – accounted for as many as 20 million deaths. 

Civil Wars of the 20th and 21st centuries have also been brutal and deadly. Some 11.7 million Chinese were killed in its decades' long civil war from 1927 to 1949, while the Korean War and Vietnam War (arguably both civil wars) saw some 4.5 million and 4.3 million deaths respectively.  

The high death tolls have sadly shown no signs of slowing down either; the Nigerian Civil War was responsible for as many as 3 million casualties. Moreover, the most recent Congo Civil War (1998-2003) earned the distinction of being the deadliest war in modern African history. Around 5.4 million were killed – with genocides accounting for a large number of causalities, while disease and famine also played a factor.  

Russia's New Project 955A Borei-Class Ballistic Missile Submarine Is About to Hit the Water What can it do? How powerful is it? by Peter Suciu

After completing its sea trials last month, the Russian Navy’s upgraded Project 955A Borei-class ballistic missile submarine Knyaz Vladmir is now ready to enter service with the Northern Fleet's 31st submarine division. The official handover to the Russian Navy is scheduled for June 12.

“The ceremony of raising the flag aboard the Knyaz Vladimir that will signify the underwater cruiser’s official inclusion in the Fleet’s combat structure is scheduled for June 12,” a source in the domestic defense industry told Russian state media this week. “The submarine will operate in the 31st submarine division."

The improved Project 955A lead nuclear-powered submarine completed its state trails late last year, but the delivery to the Russian Navy was delayed after faults were discovered. Tass has reported that those faults were removed and that the submarine held its final trials in the White Sea on May 12-21 before returning to Severodvinsk. The acceptance/delivery certificate for the underwater cruiser—the nomenclature for very large submarines that are designed to remain at sea for extended periods of time—was signed on May 28.

The Knyaz Vladimir—named for Prince Vladimir the Great of Novgorod and ruler of the Kievan Rus from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries—is the first of the advanced iteration of the Borei-class Project 955A. The strategic missile-carrying underwater cruiser represents the fourth generation of nuclear-powered subs built for the Russian Navy. It was floated out in November 2017, and the submarine was designed to be less noisy, while it features improved maneuvering, depth and armament control systems.

This new submarine will certainly bolster the Russian Northern Fleet’s submarine force. Currently, the Project 955 (Borei) lead submarine Yuri Dolgoruky along with the Project 667BDRM (Delfin-class) subs developed during the Soviet period are operational in the 31st division of submarine forces. Many of those submarines date back to the 1980s and are “becoming increasingly harder and more expensive to maintain with incremental updates.”

The Knyaz Valdimir has been seen as a major step forward in the Northern Fleet's modernization efforts. However, despite the age of those older submarines, all Borei-class submarines are armed with 533mm torpedo tubes, but the real striking power is in the sixteen Bulava ballistic missiles each carries. The missile boasts a 550 kiloton warhead and has an effective range of up to ten thousand kilometers.  

As with the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) operated by the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom and India, the primary purpose of the Borei-class is to bring ruin to an adversary’s cities, even if other nuclear forces are whipped out in a first strike. This is why the Russian Navy has sought to make the Bulava-equipped Borei underwater cruisers the cornerstone of its nuclear submarine-launched ballistic missile deterrent force for decades. 

North Korea Is Now Applying Its Very Own Maximum Pressure Watch out, South Korea! by Bruce Klinger

Pyongyang is putting pressure on South Korea through increasingly acerbic means, including aggressive missives, breaking off communications, and threatening to take future steps against its “enemy” to the south.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, is behind these actions. She recently was made responsible for overseeing North Korea’s relations with the South, adding weight to speculation that she has been chosen as her brother’s successor.

Last month, Pyongyang demanded that Seoul prevent activist groups from sending anti-regime leaflets via helium balloons into North Korea. South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s administration quickly capitulated by declaring that the leaflets were “harmful to national security.”

Police then prevented South Korean groups and North Korean defectors from launching balloons carrying leaflets, rice, and Bibles. Seoul acknowledged that the activists were exercising their right to free speech, but vowed to submit legislation to “crack down” on the leaflet flights.

Despite South Korea’s acquiescence, North Korea has cut  all communications with Seoul, including senior-leader links between the South Korean presidential Blue House and North Korean Central Committee, as well as military hotlines intended to defuse situations in the East and West Seas and the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in the North Korean city of Kaesong.

Pyongyang has made multiple promises to sever additional ties with its neighbor.

The regime threatened to scrap the 2018 inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement, which Moon had hailed at the time as a major step in improving relations with Pyongyang.

Pyongyang declared it may dismantle the North-South Korean industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Kim’s regime also said that its South Korean-related projects will be transformed into “projects against the enemy.”

South Korea’s Overtures

These hostile threats come after the Moon administration had sought to improve relations with North Korea by making security concessions to reduce tensions. For example, the Moon administration willingly agreed to constrain some military training as part of the inter-Korean Comprehensive Military Agreement.

Last month, Seoul was considering the removal of sanctions it had imposed on North Korea in 2010, after the regime sunk a South Korean naval vessel, killing 46 sailors. Pyongyang has never apologized or acknowledged its deadly action.

The Moon administration discussed allowing North Korean ships to transit through South Korean sovereign waters.

The Moon administration also repeatedly offered economic incentives to Pyongyang, despite the fact that the regime continues to reject U.N. resolutions requiring it to cease missile and nuclear tests and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs.

The U.S. government became so concerned by the Moon administration’s unwise generosity that it reached out directly to Korean banks, business, and government agencies to remind them of the parameters of U.N. sanctions and U.S. laws.

The push to sever inter-Korean ties is being led by Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong.

It is ironic that the Moon administration is willing to go to such lengths, and to restrict domestic free speech, in order to engage with a regime that refuses to engage in dialogue. Meanwhile, Kim Yo Jong is advocating the cessation of all inter-Korean communications.

Pyongyang’s reversion to diatribes and diplomatic threats can serve several purposes. It could be to lay the groundwork for missile launches or the unveiling of a new strategic weapon, which the regime had previously vowed to do.

A Sister’s Growing Authority

Domestically, the manufactured crisis can distract from economic travails brought on by the regime’s failed policies, international sanctions, and self-imposed isolation measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kim Yo Jong’s increasingly prominent role in recent months suggests the regime is burnishing her credentials as a successor to Kim Jong Un. His recent extended absences from public view resurrected speculation of health issues.

The inclusion of her statement in the authoritative Rodong Sinmun newspaper, usually reserved for those of the North Korean leader, and subsequent mass public rallies in support both reflect her growing authority.

Pyongyang seeks to heighten pressure on Moon to continue downplaying regime misbehavior, offer more economic benefits, and work toward reducing international sanctions.

The regime has been increasingly disdainful and insulting to Moon. In January, North Korea dismissed Seoul’s “frivolous” and “presumptuous” attempts at playing mediator between Pyongyang and Washington.

Last August, a North Korean ridiculed Moon’s offer of peace and reconciliation contained in his Liberation Day speech as “remarks that make the boiled head of a cow provoke a side-splitting laughter.”

North Korea may seek to justify forthcoming regime actions. Kim Yo Jong denounced the leaflet campaign as a hostile act that violates the peace agreements that banned hostilities against each other, which the Korean leaders signed during a summit meeting in 2018.

Of course, North Korea committed far more egregious violations by launching 26 missiles last year, the highest annual number of violations of U.N. resolutions ever. This year, Pyongyang has already launched nine missiles in March alone, setting a new monthly record.

The regime may attempt to capitalize on growing tensions between Washington and Seoul over stalled negotiations to determine the amount South Korean will contribute for the cost of stationing U.S. forces on the peninsula.

Recent reports that the U.S. will remove a significant number of troops from Europe, and President Donald Trump’s previous vows to do the same from South Korea, give North Korea an opportunity to drive a wedge between the allies.

The Korean Peninsula, which has been quiescent in recent months, is likely to become tenser in coming weeks and months.

China Has Way Too Much Power Over Zoom. These Activists Learned the Hard Way. Zoom confirmed Wednesday evening that the video conferencing company removed a U.S.-based account after it commemorated the Tiananmen Square Massacre. by Chris White

• Zoom reinstated the account of a Chinese activist who was blocked after he created an event commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Zoom has not explained why he was reinstated.
• Zoom is susceptible to Chinese manipulation as much of its infrastructure is located in the communist nation, foreign policy expert Christian Whiton told the Daily Caller News Foundation 
• Reports of Zoom’s decision to block and later reinstate the account come after researchers found that the company was routing calls through China’s servers. 

Zoom confirmed Wednesday evening that the video conferencing company removed a U.S.-based account after it commemorated the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Zoom removed the account to comply with local law inside China, which prohibits discussion about the three-decade-old massacre, the company said.

The company acknowledged removing the account of activist Zhou Fengsuo, a former student leader of the Tiananmen protests in 1989 who organized the May 31 event through a paid Zoom account associated with a nonprofit he founded called Humanitarian China.

Zoom’s move reveals a huge problem the U.S. has in dealing with China’s massive censorship network, according to Zhou. “I was shocked and disappointed over what happened,” Zhou told The New York Times on Thursday.

Roughly 250 people based in the United States attended the event before Zoom shut down Zhou’s account on June 7.

“Just like any global company, we must comply with applicable laws in the jurisdictions where we operate,” a Zoom spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday, according to Axios, which initially reported on the removal.

“When a meeting is held across different countries, the participants within those countries are required to comply with their respective local laws,” the spokesperson added. “We aim to limit the actions we take to those necessary to comply with local law and continuously review and improve our process on these matters. We have reactivated the US-based account.”

Zoom has not replied to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment addressing why the company reinstated Zhou despite initially removing him over concerns related to China law. Zhou, meanwhile, wants answers.

“We can’t stand that an American company put Chinese-style restrictions on users in the U.S.,” he told the Times. The deeper problem is China’s byzantine censorship network, called the Great Firewall, which “enslaves the Chinese people” and is “the fatal flaw for an open and free internet,” Zhou noted.

China’s Great Firewall allows the country’s officials to control what people see and read online, effectively sheltering Chinese citizens from observing what’s going on abroad. Foreign companies must abide by strict censorship rules dictating what can be said. They’re required to provide data to censors who police China’s version of the internet.

Zoom began allowing unpaid users in China to join meetings but not host them. Such a change paved the way for a user in the U.S. to host a meeting allowing users inside China to join.  Zhou said he advertised the Tiananmen event on Chinese social media two days before it occurred.

Zoom faces growing scrutiny regarding its ties to China, which prohibits discussion of the protest and the government’s violent response to the demonstrations. The company acknowledged in April routing calls through Chinese servers.

Foreign policy analysts argue that Zoom’s work inside China is making the company susceptible to manipulation.

“Encryption experts have said its security is dubious, and it has relied on programmers and encryption keys located in China,” Christian Whiton, a senior fellow for strategy and trade at the Center for National Interest, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “[I]t is now clear that the company’s reliance on China means it is susceptible to Chinese political pressure.”

Whiton added: “This episode will only deepen suspicions about Zoom the company hoped to overcome.”

Other experts are making similar observations. China is prepared to force companies like Zoom into self-censoring to avoid coming down too hard on them in a publicly, according to Dean Cheng, a Chinese political and security affairs expert at the Heritage Foundation.

“From the Chinese government’s perspective it’s not just about Zoom,” Cheng told the DCNF. “Ideally from the Chinese perspective, the next company that comes along won’t even issue licenses and accounts to known dissidents,” he added, referring to China potentially pressuring Zoom over Zhou’s account.

“For China, self-censorship — people choosing not to challenged China from the get-go — is much better than China having to crack the whip,” Cheng concluded.

Why Generals Should Not Be So Political Bad for the chain of command and civilian-military relations. by Giselle Donnelly

Key Point: The Constitution exists for a reason. Generals can have opinions, but they also are subordinate to the chain of command.

Interviewed by CNN host Jake Tapper over the weekend, retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell was asked whether he agreed with the denunciations of President Trump issued by James Mattis and John Allen, both retired Marine four-star generals and, in Mattis’ case, Trump’s first defense secretary.

“You have to agree,” replied Powell. “I’m watching them closely, because they all were junior officers when I left, and I’m proud of what they’re doing. I’m proud that they were willing to take the risk of speaking honesty and speaking truth to those who are not speaking the truth.” Herein lies the rub: The current crisis in civil-military relations — and, regardless of how one regards Trump, the parade of partisanship on the part of the most senior, experienced, bravest, and otherwise wisest military men of the last 30 years ought to be disturbing — can truly be said to be Powell’s in the making. The model of a modern political general was cast in Powell’s image and has shaped the behavior of Mattis, Allen and their like, including Michael “Lock-Her-Up!” Flynn. This “Powell Generation” has behaved with increasing disregard for the norms of apolitical professionalism that have long constituted the ethos of the American officer corps.

Powell reminded Tapper that he’d “been out of the military for 25 years now,” so it might seem a stretch to lay such a heavy charge on Powell. But two of the signature moments of his tenure as JCS chairman are worth recalling, and can be understood at greater length by re-reading the prescient critique by Richard Kohn, the leading historian of American civil-military relations, published in The National Interest in 1994. The first telling tale is to be found Powell’s iron-fisted and manipulative grip on the planning for Operation “Desert Storm,” the Iraq war of 1991. Indeed, by Powell’s own admission, he positioned himself as the “arbiter of American military intervention overseas,” a role the Constitution reserves to civilians. Quoth Powell:

[Our] military advice was shaping political judgments from the very beginning. … We were able to constantly bring the political decisions back to what we could do militarily. And if there’s one story that is going to be written out of Desert Storm and [the invasion of Panama,] Just Cause and everything else we’ve done, it’s how political objectives must be carefully matched to military objectives and military means and what is achievable.

 When George H.W. Bush — a distinguished World War II veteran and deeply experienced diplomat — was succeeded by the young and supposedly “draft-dodging” Bill Clinton, Powell pressed his advantages. He first published an op-ed in The New York Times warning against US intervention in the Balkans, a move Clinton had pondered and would eventually make. But the subordination of civilian control to military “objectives” was brought to the point of crisis over the issue of “gays in the military.” As Kohn correctly summarizes:

Powell had for a year taken very public stances in support of the existing policy on excluding homosexuals, in spite of the comparison with earlier discrimination against African-Americans and the heat he must have taken from civil rights advocates and allies in the African-American community. General Powell must have felt very strongly indeed on this subject, for he virtually defied the President-elect, never denying publicly the rumors in November-December 1992 that he might resign over the issue, doing nothing to scotch rumors that his fellow chiefs might do the same, doing nothing to discourage retired generals from lobbying on Capitol Hill to form an alliance against lifting the ban. General Powell and the Joint Chiefs then appeared to negotiate publicly with the President at a meeting in late January 1993 – and privately through the Secretary of Defense, the press, and Congress – for the compromise finally forced on Bill Clinton last summer. On this issue, the military leadership took full advantage of a young, incoming president with extraordinarily weak authority in military affairs. Nothing did more to harm the launching of the Clinton administration than “gays in the military,” for it announced to Washington and the world that the President could be rolled.

Colin Powell was and remains an American hero, but his legacy includes a seriously corrosive effect on the trust between soldiers and statesmen that is essential for the health of civil-military relations. The great fear of Americans in the 1770s was the fear of “standing armies;” in the Declaration of Independence, King George III was excoriated for “keep[ing] among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures,” and “render[ing] the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” And the singular purpose of the American Constitution was to provide the nascent nation with a military that was sufficiently powerful to defend its newly-won liberty from external adversaries, yet sufficiently republican to protect domestic liberty as well by placing the final say over the armed forces firmly in civilian hands. America’s armed forces can have no other “objectives” than those set for it by Congress and their commander-in-chief.

 

Washington Needs to Act Fast on Libya, Before It's Too Late The United States must appoint a Special Envoy for the Eastern Mediterranean to devise a negotiated solution to the Libya conflict. by Thomas Trask and Jonathan Ruhe

When the leader of Libya’s official government declared his Tripoli stronghold liberated last week, it was at a press conference in Ankara with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan. Curiously, Erdogan’s Russian counterpart has provided much of the support for the opposing side in Libya’s civil war.

This underscores how Libya is escalating into a destabilizing proxy war, worsened by America’s often confusing and consistently hands-off approach. Increasingly, the United States can no longer afford such an attitude, which exacerbates the fighting and offers Turkey and Russia strategically valuable footholds in the Eastern Mediterranean.

It is fitting that “leading from behind” was first voiced as U.S. policy toward Libya, as detailed in our new report by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. According to the U.S. embassy in Libya, Washington “is proud to partner with” the UN-backed, Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj—despite it being an Islamist-dominated regime with little hope of uniting the country.

At the same time, the United States has not articulated clear policy toward the rival Tobruk-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of Gen. Khalifa Hiftar. Reflecting this equivocation, American diplomats have led no charge to address the fighting. Instead they mostly echo European initiatives for a ceasefire or, most recently, have begun coordinating policy with Turkey.

Turkey and Russia are pouring into this vacuum. Last year thousands of Russian mercenaries helped Hiftar nearly capture Tripoli, backed by weapons and airpower from France, Egypt, UAE and others. Fearing the collapse of a fellow Islamist government, Erdogan significantly boosted military support for Sarraj. In exchange, Turkey secured a bilateral pact ostensibly recognizing its vast offshore territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Erdogan’s intervention has been momentous, enabling GNA forces to reverse much of Hiftar’s gains from last year. Russia and others are escalating their military support for the LNA in response.

These events are driving Libya to a strategic inflection point. As long as the United States remains aloof, the only question becomes how—not if—the conflict poses growing challenges to American interests and regional stability.

Backers on both sides could simply keep flooding reinforcements into the country, producing an ever-bloodier stalemate. By worsening the security vacuum and physical destruction inside Libya, this would enable Islamic State to regrow and worsen the spread of coronavirus countrywide—either or both of which could drive renewed refugee flows toward Europe.

Or Turkey and Russia could tacitly divide Libya between themselves. This reflects the country’s deep divisions between western and eastern halves, and could mimic the Astana process they initiated to determine Syria’s fate without U.S. input. The two already are in close contact, including discussing plans for a settlement.

Such an agreement would logically appeal to both Ankara and Moscow, in no small part because it would create so many problems for the United States and allies.

A sphere of influence in Libya would represent Erdogan’s first success in propping up the Muslim Brotherhood around the region – a policy which has threatened most every U.S. Middle East ally. Equally important, it would encourage further gunboat diplomacy by bolstering Ankara’s claims, however illegitimate, to the energy-rich waters between Turkey and Libya. This would directly threaten energy development by Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt, all of whom Washington sees as helping reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas.

De facto partition of Libya could appeal to Moscow for the same reason. As with Syria, Libya also provides a valuable beachhead ringing NATO’s southern flank, especially if Russia installs advanced air defenses or other weaponry. Moreover, and unlike Syria, Libya would give Putin another potential lever over European energy.

Either outcome—stalemate or Russo-Turkish collaboration—shows the need for long overdue American leadership on Libya and the broader region.

The United States must appoint a Special Envoy for the Eastern Mediterranean to devise a negotiated solution to the Libya conflict. Among his or her top priorities would be limiting Ankara’s support for the GNA, including leveraging the option to redeploy U.S. military assets out of Turkey.

A complimentary priority is to curtail Russian support for the LNA. Diplomatic, energy and security cooperation among U.S. regional partners is crucial. By fully supporting the new Egypt-led alliance that includes Greece, Cyprus, France and UAE, as well as growing Greek and Cypriot ties with Israel, the United States can help build up its regional partners as a counterweight to both Russia and Turkey.

While increased U.S. diplomatic presence would shift the balance of influence at Ankara’s and Moscow’s expenses, the United States also should strengthen bilateral military ties with Athens, including increased U.S. rotational deployments and perhaps even permanent basing in Greece.

American policymakers will need to act quickly, however. As events of just the past few weeks show, Libya can go from afterthought to crisis before Washington takes notice.