Reagan Bombs Libya

1986

After the fall of Nasser, a petro-dollar empowered strongman, Muamar Qaddafi, sought Libya’s day in the sun as leader of the Arab world. To prove his bona-fides Qaddafi became the leading source for state supported terrorism against the west. As Iran provided a new model for antiwestern resistance, Qaddafi took on an increasingly religious piety in his defamations of the West. Following earlier show-downs involving the Gulf of Sidra, the United States took swift retribution for Libya’s apparent involvement in a West German discotheque bombing that killed an American serviceman. Targeting was heavily focused on killing Qaddafi, and his personal residences were targeted. While he escaped death, Qaddafi’s international prestige was much tarnished.

Time: Late War
Side: US
Ops: 2
Removed after event: Yes

As USSR

An uninteresting event.  Usually it’s 2 Ops vs 1 VP, and usually that means the 2 Ops are more helpful (especially as you surely have more pressing US events to space).  Wargames and Final Scoring should factor into this generally straightforward decision.

As US

In some cute instances you can put a little more influence into Libya, boosting it to 2/2 and prompting the USSR to respond to 2/4, pushing this up to 2 VP.  But on the whole it’s not a particularly interesting event: sometimes you’ll want 2 Ops, and sometimes you just want 1 VP (particularly when concerned about Wargames).