DevilsAvocado said:
I don't know how you come to the conclusion that Gaddafi's "1%-budget" could ever win a war against EU (
without US assistance)... personally, I believe the simple answer is that Obama just wanted to avoid earlier blunders... (
and let the French fighter jet pilots look at the map first, to hopefully find the right target 
)
That isn't what I said. What I said was that
they can't do it without us. And that means only what it says: not that they can't
win without us, but to do it
well, they need us.
The issue is that when military spending is small, the spending must be put to good, general purpose use. If you aren't spending much money, you can't be spending it on small but expensive special purpose systems/units. Stealth bombers, EW, etc.
Who was in charge of the operation was a significant problem:
THE Western allies appeared last night to have accepted a US compromise in which the military and political control of the Libyan no-fly zone would be split between NATO and foreign ministers.
Accepting the power sharing compromise offered by President Barack Obama, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said NATO would not take the "political leadership", but would have a planning and operational role to enforce the UN-backed no-fly zone.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/deal-puts-nato-at-head-of-libyan-operation/story-e6frg6so-1226027088954
The U.S. initially had strategic command of the military intervention, coordinated missions between coalition members and set up Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn on the USS Mount Whitney for the tactical command and control in the area of operations.[12][13] but passed complete military command of the operation to NATO and took up a support role on 31 March 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Odyssey_Dawn
France was actually the first to intervene:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
Have a look at the specifics of the forces that certain countries committed - Here's some of what the US committed:
Three E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS)
Three E-8C battle management/command and control aircraft
One EC-130H electronic warfare (communications jamming) aircraft
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USAF EC-130J broadcasting to Libyan naval forces, warning them to remain in port
One EC-130J psychological operations aircraft
One RC-135V/W Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft[60]
Two AC-130U gunships[57]
Four KC-10A Extender Aerial Refueling Tanker/Airlift Aircraft
Twenty KC-135 Stratotanker Aerial Refueling Tanker Aircraft
Six A-10 Thunderbolt ground-attack aircraft[49][57]
Global Hawk unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle
Lockheed U-2 Reconnaissance aircraft[61][62]
Predator/Reaper UAV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Odyssey_Dawn
You've probably never heard of a lot of them because they are special purpose aircraft that few countries have. And that's to say nothing for the
aircraft carrier we committed, which we don't even call an aircraft carrier because it is too small (much larger than WWII carriers, but much smaller than our current carriers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kearsarge_(LHD-3 )
Europe has only one aircraft carrier, France's Charles De Gaulle (not committed), which is about the same size: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_aircraft_carrier_Charles_de_Gaulle_(R91 )
And:
The NATO air campaign to oust Muammar Qaddafi began with French Mirage jets destroying a column of his tanks on the outskirts of Benghazi seven months ago.
Yesterday, it was a French Mirage jet that fired to block Qaddafi’s escape from Sirte in a four-wheel drive vehicle. Libyan fighters then moved in and killed the man who had ruled their country for 42 years.
The French involvement in the war’s denouement was symbolic of the leading role President Nicolas Sarkozy has played since Libyan rebels first sought outside help for their revolution.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-20/french-air-power-begins-ends-nato-air-campaign-over-libya.html
France led, but our involvement was both larger and involved types of forces that the other countries involved simply don't have. I recall some discussion of this at the time, but am having some trouble finding it. It's a complicated issue and I'm not sure fully explained, why France (and the UK) took the lead, but our involvement was still bigger. There may have been some arm-twisting, some not wanting to be left out, and perhaps even some begging, but I'm not finding the discussions. Here's the best I can do for that:
As the military action against Libya to give teeth to U.N. Security Council resolution 1973 began, one question kept nagging away: Why, precisely, were the governments of Britain and France in the lead? Why were their armed forces taking part in the military action, and why had their diplomats done the grunt work in the negotiations that led to adoption of the resolution?
It is not an easy question to answer.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2060412,00.html
