The French are grabbing the headlines with up to 20 sorties, but despite appearing to hang back, the US is doing the heavy lifting in the enforcement of the UN no-fly zone over Libya.

Their Odyssey Dawn operation  launched 110-112 Tomahawk land attack missiles at over 20 air defence systems; communications and SA-5 surface to air missile sites. F-18s supported by C-17s and a C-130 arrived at Aviano in Italy.

 No bomb damage assessment will be possible until it is light over Libya. No Reaper or Predator unmanned planes are currently deployed.

The naval task force in the Mediterrranean consists of 11 US ships (of which 3 are submarines) 11 Italian, 3 UK (one submarine which also launched Tomahawks, HMS Cumberland and HMS Westminster), and one each from France and Canada. But the French carrier Charles de Gaulle isalso  reported to be on her way.

French aircraft - believed to be Rafales - were in the first wave. There is an unconfirmed Gaddafi regime claim to have shot down a French plane.  As part of Op Ellamy British Tornado GR4 bombers from RAF Marham flew overnight direct to lauch Storm Shadow stand off missiles and up to 18 Typhoon fighters from RAF Coningsby and RAF Leuchars. Antique 3 VC-10 refueling planes are being positioned at the sovereign base of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. 2 Nimrod R1s, destined for the scrap heap as recently as a fortnight ago, and 3 Sentry AWACS have also been deployed from there by the RAF.

Denmark and Norway are both sending six F-16 fighters, probably to the US base of Sigonella in Sicily, , and Spanish F-18 Hornets are also expected to be in operation, as are the Dutch. 6 Canadian CF-18s were refuelled in Scotland en route south. No info yet on the specifics of Arab involvement.

By Laurent Rathborn, UK Defence Forum Researcher

The moral question over how Europe and America should respond to Gaddafi's attack on civilians has been at least partially answered; aircraft from multiple nations are attempting to keep the peace, and so far seem to be succeeding. What happens next, however, depends on a number of factors and the response that NATO forces will adopt in the face of ongoing violence. Unlike Iraq in the mid-90s, this no-fly-zone (NFZ) has been set up right in the middle of a civil war. Legitimised by its bid to throw off a tyrant who, like Saddam Hussein, has little compunction about murdering his own citizens, this is almost a textbook example of an uphill struggle for democratic freedom, supported by a regional body – the Arab League - which asked for outside help in restoring sanity.

Unlike Iraq, where the no-fly zone was imposed after the brunt of the fighting had stopped, this conflict is still hot. Several ways forwards for NATO forces are now possible, but will depend on Gaddafi's next moves. In the immediate term, there must be an active effort to prevent what happened at the end of the first Gulf War; a deliberate punishment of civilians by Saddam's helicopter corps. Whereas all reports indicate that Gaddafi's air forces are now no longer a factor, it will take constant monitoring to ensure that revenge attacks are not perpetrated by ground forces in the future for what NATO is doing in the present.

Libyan government forces have thousands of square miles of desert to hide in, and the language used in Resolution 1973 explicitly forbids foreign occupation. However, as noted by UK government ministers, in strict legal terms, a ground force does not have to be an occupation force. The situation as it exists at the moment is very fluid, and all efforts will be concentrated on stopping government forces punishing civilians and disabling the infrastructure that enables them to do so. Strikes to this effect have already been carried out, but NATO forces will eventually run out of military targets. Once they do, several options may present themselves. The following are listed in order of aggression:

Actively target the Libyan leadership by military means. Emplace a NATO-backed, UN-approved government;Actively target the Libyan leadership in order to place them before the International Criminal Court, which is investigating multiple human rights abuses by the regime;Quarantine the east of the country from government forces via heavy NFZ activity or troop emplacement while seeking a political settlement that may end in partition or the creation of a transitional rebel-led government. Allow the internal prosecution of former regime elements;Continue to quarantine the air and wait for the rebels to win;Retreat, and let affairs come to their own conclusion.

The last of these is unlikely, but is included for the sake of completeness in the light of complaints by the Arab League that the intervention goes too far and was not what it had envisaged when it asked for international help. There are feelings amongst some commentators that those expressing legitimate revolutionary sentiments in Libya have now been disenfranchised by NATO's actions. They miss the more immediate point that people expressing revolutionary sentiments would have been overrun by now without intervention. Whether the democratic protests and rebel action can still be called legitimate is a talking point for political philosophers; what matters now is what NATO, the democratic rebels, and the Arab League can achieve.

Distinct interests sparked the European involvement in Libya. The United Kingdom and France have issued vociferous calls for intervention in Libya for the past month, ultimately managing to convince the rest of Europe — with some notable exceptions — to join in military action, the Arab League to offer its initial support, and global powers China and Russia to abstain from voting at the U.N. Security Council.

U.S. President Barack Obama said March 21 that the leadership of the U.S.-European coalition against Libya would be transitioned to the European allies "in a matter of days." While the United States would retain the lead during Operation Odyssey Dawn — intended to incapacitate Tripoli's command and control, stationary air defenses and airfields — Obama explained that Odyssey Dawn would create the "conditions for our European allies and Arab partners to carry out the measures authorized by the U.N. Security Council resolution." While Obama pointed out that the U.S.-European intervention in Libya is very much Europe's war, French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91) and Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi (551) arrived in waters near Libya, giving Europeans a valuable asset from which to increase European air sortie generation rates and time on station.

Before analyzing the disparate interests of European nations in Libya, one must first take stock of this coalition in terms of its stated military and political goals.