Three thousand years ago the Cheshnuk dynasty of Libyan nomadic tribesmen ruled over a vast North African empire stretching from Morocco to the Red Sea. With his recent annexation ot neighboring Chad, openly claimed as part of Libya's “vital living space,” Colonel Qaddafi has taken the first successful step toward his much-publicized aim of recreating that empire. If his seizure of Chad is consummated by the planned political union between the two states, Qaddafi at last will be able to strut around as a latter-day duce, lord and master of four million people and an arid mass of sand and mountain the size of Western Europe.

Undoubtedly the colonel has a problem. Libya is a vast country, rich in oil, but with a population of only a million and a half–scarcely adequate for a would-be successor to Garnal Abdul Nasser or the Cheshnuk emperors.