Abstract
In February 2011, antigovernment protests in Libya, inspired by the wave of resistance
across the Middle East known as the Arab Spring, were repressed by the Libyan government’s violent counterinsurgency. The United Nations Security Council approved
intervention by Western forces to assist the rebels in their cause. At the same time,
media reports identified another foreign intervention in Libya, one which since 2004
had been providing an altogether different form of “counterinsurgency”: The Monitor
Group, a strategy and management consultancy connected to the Harvard Business
School, had been working with the Libyan government since 2004 to promote a positive image of the country throughout the world.1