The war in Tripoli will probably continue well into 2020 despite significant support for Haftar from the UAE, Russia, Egypt, France, and Sudan and new overt military support from Turkey for his enemies. Civilian casualties from the war will increase with the rising number of foreign fighters involved and any shift of the frontlines closer to Tripoli’s city centre. In fact, the war will most likely spread in Zawiya, Misrata, Sirte, and the Fezzan region.

Western states will continue to struggle to respond to the Libyan war while illiberal states — like Russia, Turkey, the UAE, Egypt, and possibly other interested ones like Qatar — seize the initiative to control Libya’s fate. Without Western leadership on an alternative, peaceful solution to the conflict, failed Libya policy will be a talking point for politicians — including far-right politicians such as Italy’s former interior minister Matteo Salvini and French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen — to undermine European leadership. European opposition to Turkey’s Libyan policy — including the late 2019 signing of a MoU in which the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) recognised Turkey’s disputed claims in the central Mediterranean — and the 2 January decision by the Turkish parliament to support military intervention in Libya, could provoke Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to unleash a new wave of Syrian migrants on Europe.

As the weather gets hotter and the electricity grid comes under renewed strain with residents and IDPs living in densely populated urban areas, the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) will need to explore new ways to meet electricity demand in 2020. Because oil production has been relatively stable despite the ongoing war, there may be funding available for the GNA to invest in new partnerships with international firms and governments to build out and possibly diversify the electricity grid and power sources.