Hmm Maybe a change in gaddafi's tactics is necessary. Maybe have more oriented towards encouraging pan-Arab revolutions and proxy wars.
The Idea:
Perhaps Gaddafi turns to Western advisers, like Saddam Hussein with Gerald Bull & co, only on a wider scale? Simultaneously, however, he invests heavily in the cultural ideals of Pan Africanism and Pan Islamism, with grand festivals, and a complete overhaul of the school system. A central, Gadaffi approved curriculum is written, which entirely indoctrinates the young generation into worshipping The Third Universal Theory.
The Divergence:
From the (very) late 70s, Gaddafi (through creation and sponsorship of Third Theory revolutionary groups, and sometimes direct military intervention) had a number of ideologically aligned governments in surrounding nations - most infamously, when Third Theory rebels assassinated Haile Selassie, and seized control of Ethiopia. In his famous "The Tyrant is Dead" speech, in 1976, Gaddafi proclaimed that
"...though far from Libya - Ethiopia's liberation is ours, too. For we are all Africans, beneath the sun."
The Colossus of Africa:
By 1980, there operated no less than six internationally recognised 'Third Theory' nations, in Africa, along with almost a dozen breakaway regimes involved in ongoing civil war, and even very small Third Theory groups active in the Middle East. The international community looked-on with interest as the so-called 'African Revolution' engulfed the continent. There was no country in North and Central Africa which had not, at least in some way, felt the effects of Gaddafi's Third International Theory. The United States, though initially hostile to what it considered Libyan Expansionism, re-negotiated trade with Gaddafi's government, when the proposal of a number of exclusive oil deals, involving US firms, and newly liberated territory. Indeed, nations which had once pumped black gold beneath a Communist banner, now found themselves threading petrodollars to the United States, via Libya - the heart of the revolution.
Africa's Great War:
Gaddafi was careful not to allow America too much power in his new Economic Empire, but too late came his
"Dream of a Modern Africa" declaration. Already, rumblings of dissent rocked Libya. Some accused Gaddafi of betraying his pan-African cause, by allowing Western powers to once again drain the continent's resources for their own gain. In an attempt to once-again demonstrate the strength of the now veteran Libyan Armed Forces, Gaddafi orchestrated a direct, overwhelming military intervention in the Congo, where a multi-sided civil-war had raged for several years.
In what has since been called (somewhat pejoratively)
Gaddafi's Barbarossa, tens of thousands of Libyan, Nigerian, and Tunisian soldiers crossed the border, with hundreds of armoured vehicles, and the first generation of home-built Libyan fighter-bombers. Initially seizing hundreds of kilometres of territory, the jungle conditions proved incredibly trying for Libya's soldiers. Worse still, for Gaddafi, a ceasefire between most of the major Congolese groups saw an estimated 100,000 armed Congolese fighters (and foreign volunteers) turned on his advance positions. In response, Gaddafi and his African Allies (henceforth referred to as the Third Universal Theory nations - or TUT) passed conscription laws in their respective territories.
The next two years would see the bloodiest single conflict in African history. By some anecdotes, more landmines were produced between 1981 and 1983 than in the entire preceding century, and three times the napalm used in Vietnam was dropped, there. Entire areas of forest - standing since time immemorial - ceased to be. Ethnic tribes vanished into nothing. Tanks churned in the mud, and stuck. Monkeys watched in mute fear as trenches and concrete emplacements sprang from once-fertile ground. The African War had begun.
The Fall of the King of All Africa:
Counting the horrific civilian casualties, over a million lives were lost. These facts alone would likely have been enough to turn even the most doe-eyed, tolerant Western liberal (the leading foreign supporters of Gaddafi's pan-African ideals) against him. The jilted Soviet Union, by 1983, was all but entirely funding the Southern African states which stood against him, and smuggled weapons to any and all rebel groups within TUT nations. Biafran nationalists rose, once again, and Nigeria withdrew from the conflict in the Congo, entirely. Panicking, Gaddafi pushed for a coup, within Nigeria but not only did this fail - but it eventually resulted in a Soviet-backed counter-coup. Niger also pulled-out of the TUT alliance (though never officially renounced its Third International Idea dogma and, together with The Gambia, retains the 'Green Revolutionary Flag', as-of 2016). Eritrea issued a declaration of independence in December of 1983. Ethiopia attempted to negotiate a "reduction in military commitment" in the Congolese conflict. When this failed to yield results, the Revolutionary Council of Abyssinia drew-up a
Status quo ante bellum agreement with the anti-TUT coalition, in return for a statement of absolute neutrality, and a promise to reintroduce democracy within a two year period.
With hundreds of thousands of troops trapped by the vanishing land-route to the Congolese Front, and his allies beginning to desert him, Gaddafi might have been reasonably expected to have scrambled for a peace settlement. Whether this might have been possible remains a topic for the authors of Speculative Fiction, however. In January of 1984, the highest-ranking Libyan General on the Congolese Front issued an unconditional surrender. Simultaneously, word reached Gaddafi that NATO had entered secretive talks regarding embargo, and possible military intervention against Libya and the remaining TUT-nation combatants (The Gambia, Greater Morocco, and Cameroon). In an act of supreme stupidity, Gaddafi ordered the commencement of
Operation Al-Mukhtār.
On January 21st, 1984, Libyan Aircraft soared over the Malta, dropping what remained of Gaddafi's commando forces over the Island's capital. A simultaneous attack by Morocco was supposed to have been commenced, upon Spain's overseas provinces - Cetua and Melilla. Morocco, which had been given only two hours' notice of the plan, and which was still in negotiations over the return of 30,000 prisoners of war, began to hurriedly draw-up reserves. Gaddafi, in a streak of mania, appeared before cameras to proclaim that he was merely securing Africa's borders against Imperialist aggression. However, the unprovoked attack upon a European nation (and the impending strike against Spain) succeeded only in forcing America to officially sever diplomatic ties (and, by extension, the last financial bonds between TuT, and the outside world).
A team of British, French, and Italian troops quickly and easily overpowered the Libyan forward garrison, three days later, and Malta was announced as liberated by the 28th. Morocco's attack upon Spain's overseas territories never occurred. The Moroccan officers attempted to surround the port-towns, only to find them fortified by angry Spaniards. The Revolutionary Council of Greater Morocco ordered the attack to take place on the first day of February, but initial skirmishes proved costly, and the subsequent counter-attack saw the toppling of the Moroccan government (and independence for Western Sahara) two months later.
Cameroon came under-attack by the anti-TUT coalition on the 3rd of February, and surrendered almost without a fight. Cameroon had been a very reluctant participant in the war - contributing scarcely 6,000 fighters, and a few dozen armoured vehicles - and had been kept in the fight only by the presence of its wealthy, powerful neighbour, Revolutionary Nigeria. With no further obstacles in their way, the Anti-TUT forces moved northwards, supported by Soviet military advisers, and a blank cheque, with a stipulation that certain territories be turned over to Russian interests, once the war was done.
Egypt, which had been a cautious trading partner of TUT, and Libya, abruptly ceased contact. Sources within Egyptian political circles informed Gaddafi's agents that Egyptian troops were moving to secure its Western Borders, during what it called "a period of Anarchy in Africa".
A Country Denied:
Frantic calls for help from his remaining friends, and a declared
"International Police Action against the Rogue State of Libya" from NATO went unread. With his last gambit failed, and enemies on all sides. Muammar Gaddafi chartered a small, nondescript ship from Tripoli, and slipped off in the direction of the Suez Canal, before the NATO blockade could tighten the noose around Libya, and strangle Gaddafi's dream, forever. The following morning, his Council found his chambers empty. The Gaddafi clan, evacuated to a bunker near Bani Waled, was ignorant of his intentions, too. Tripoli surrendered to NATO forces, even as Soviet-backed Southern African and Congolese troops reached its southern border, in mid-February. The date of surrender is sometimes erroneously given as March 2nd (to disparage Gaddafi by coinciding with the anniversary of his revolution). However, though it is true that isolated military elements in the South fought until early March, the official date of surrender to International Peacekeepers is February 26th. A formal ceasefire was organised between Libya and the anti-TUT coalition on March 5th.
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was found dead, aboard the aptly-named shipping vessel -
'The African Dream' - on the 17th of March 1984. The ship was impounded by Greek Naval Authorities, when it was found adrift off the shores of Crete. Of its skeleton crew, there was no sign (though bloated corpses of several Berbers were fished out of the sea, a few days later), but Gaddafi's corpse lay where it had fallen - outside his cabin. A loaded pistol was clutched in his hand, with a full, unfired magazine. The cause of death was determined to be three gunshot wounds to the back of the head, almost certainly inflicted with a .22 calibre handgun. Mossad, like a dark vulture, had been circling Gaddafi for some time, it seemed.
Whatever your opinions on Gaddafi, and his ideas of Pan-Africanism - it is undeniable that the present reality for the continent is a cruel joke - an inversion of his dream. With the disillusion of the Soviet Union in 1988, the South African Federation (SAF) - a bloated thing that stretches from Mozambique to Mauriatnia - finds itself penniless, overnight. Its member-states (almost exclusively feeble Post-Communist regimes) fall to ruin. The hermit nation that calls itself The Gambia espouses the long-dead values of a tyrant, and brutally suppresses its own people. The Republic of Biafra alienates the SAF (the only international body to recognise its existance), by under-the-table oil deals with America, in return for the preservation of its purgatorial state of semi-actualisation, whilst surrounded by Nigeria - a country which still proclaims it a terrorist state. In 2014, NATO vowed to reduce its peacekeeping presence in Africa to 8,000. De-mining in the Congo will not end until 2043. An entire generation of young men and boys sleep beneath the roots and soil of Africa.
A long time ago, a man, walking through North Africa, wrote some words on a piece of paper:
"I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”"