ABSTRACT
Libya is positioned on the periphery of three worlds: African, Arab, and Mediterranean. Its location gives it flexibility as to how, when, and where it will play a regional role, but it also leads to uncertainty as to where it belongs. Before independence, the strategic position of Libya contributed to its visibility on the world stage, and after independence, it imbued its foreign policy with a global importance it otherwise would not have enjoyed. Qaddafi employed the revolutionary trinity (freedom, socialism, and unity) to signal the direction foreign and domestic policy would take with the freedom and unity legs central to the early foreign policy of the regime. The Qaddafi regime found it difficult to establish a credible relationship between foreign policy aspirations and real accomplishments. With the end of the Libyan uprising, diplomatic and commercial relations with Europe and the United States, which had expanded over the previous decade, continued to improve.
