Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces' (CDF's) recent visit to Libya and his meeting with the Commander-in-Chief of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces is creating and reinforcing the optics that Pakistan's military continues to be the primary foreign policy actor. However, seen pragmatically, CDF's visit to Libya and his engagement with the Libyan military leader reflect the Pakistani military's preference for a professional military engagement designed to further both Pakistan's and Libya's state interests.

I am going to talk about five key areas to endorse the significance of this visit: the current state of Libyan politics, the leadership role of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the role of external powers in Libya, the strategic benefits of the visit and how critics may view the military-to-military engagement between Libya and Pakistan.

Today, Libya is a politically divided country. There is a UN-backed government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli led by Prime Minister Abdul Hameed Dbeibeh. He exercises executive authority formed in March 2021 through a UN-facilitated process (Libyan Political Dialogue Forum), but this authority is politically contested and territorially constrained. PM Abdul Hameed leads with a hybrid governance model through which the civilian government operates under militia-controlled and enforced security arrangements. The PM does not control Eastern Libya, where FM Haftar enjoys political and military influence. The legitimacy of PM Abdul Hameed's government is procedural (UN-backed) rather than electoral, as elections have not yet been held in........

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