Libya is often described as a failed state, a fractured nation divided by geography, ideology, and foreign influence. But this framing misses the deeper, more corrosive reality. Libya is not collapsing because it lacks institutions or national identity. It is collapsing because those institutions have been weaponized in a shadow war over money, contracts, and influence-an internal conflict that has become the country’s true system of governance. What passes for political competition is, in reality, a relentless scramble among armed factions and their political patrons to control the state’s revenue streams. It is in this unseen battlefield, not along front lines or ideological divides, that the fate of Libya is being decided.

In western Libya, the appearance of state-building masks a far more predatory ecosystem. Over the past decade, ministries, public agencies, and state-owned enterprises have morphed into personal fiefdoms for factions that operate more like organized crime families than political actors. The Government of National Unity (GNU), formed with the promise of reunifying the country and preparing it for elections, instead became the apex of a patronage architecture where power was measured not by official titles but by the ability to place loyalists in revenue-producing institutions.

For years, one figure embodied this system: Abdulghani Al-Kikli, better known as Ghneiwa. As the longtime commander of Tripoli’s Security Support Apparatus, he did not govern through public authority but through control over payroll manipulation, contract approvals, and illicit enrichment schemes. His sphere of influence stretched across ministries, municipal offices, and the boards of state companies. Ghneiwa perfected the art of institutional capture, transforming public agencies into mechanisms designed to funnel money into the pockets of a chosen elite.

But in a system where the spoils are finite and the number of claimants continuously grows, power inevitably becomes temporary. Ghneiwa’s rising influence alarmed his partners, who depended on the same revenue streams he was increasingly........

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