This book applies Boyle's functionalist, Fullerian, and anti-Hobbesian framework of analysis for international law and organizations elaborated above in order to develop a comprehensive history and critique of American foreign policy toward Libya from when the Reagan administration came to power in January of 1981 until today in the immediate aftermath of the Obama administration's orchestrated NATO War against Libya, that is for over the past three decades. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the repeated series of military conflicts and crises between the United States and Libya over the Gulf of Sidra and international terrorism during the eight years of the neoconservative Reagan administration. Chapter 4 explains and analyzes the Lockerbie bombing allegations and dispute by the United States and the United Kingdom against Libya that started with the realist Bush Senior administration, continued through the neoliberal Clinton administration, and was finally wound up by the neoconservative Bush Junior administration in order to gain access to Libya's oil.
Then in 2011 the neoliberal Obama administration directly took over Libya's oil fields under the pretext of the so-called Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. Chapter 5 analyzes and debunks the doctrines of R2P and its immediate predecessor "humanitarian intervention" in accordance with the standard recognized criteria of international law. Chapter 6 then takes this debunking analysis and applies it to the U.S./NATO war against Libya under the R2P rubric during the neoliberal Obama administration in 2011. In the Conclusion, Boyle reflects on where the world stands today after September 11, 2001 and the consequent American "global war on terrorism" for which the oil-laden Libya had always been designated to be a primary target starting since the late neoliberal Carter administration and primarily because of that oleaginous reason alone.
It took three decades for the United States government spanning and working assiduously over five different presidential administrations (Reagan, Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush Junior, and Obama) to overthrow and reverse the 1969 Qaddafi Revolution in order to reconquer and resubjugate Libya, its oil fields, and its people, as well as to re-establish an American neo-colonial outpost in North Africa for the express purpose of projecting power onto that continent where all human life itself began - the cradle of civilization. This book tells the story of what happened, why it happened, and what was wrong with what happened from the perspective of an international law professor and lawyer who tried for over three decades to stop it and to promote a better future for Libya and the Libyans as well as improved, peaceful and better relations between them and the United States.