However, they will draw the line on their own economic interest at the point at which they believe they have an international legal obligation. For example, in 1995, the Italian Guardia di Finanza seized 10 tons of military aircraft parts shipped to Libya in contravention to the U.N. arms embargo by British, American and Canadian companies. But attempts to get them to do more are problematic, not to mention unilateral attempts to impose by the extraterritorial reach of U.S. law what the U.S. failed to achieve in an international forum. In short, our friends are going to trade with countries of proliferation concern. Italy and Libya for instance, trade oil, gas, oil and gas equipment, telecommunications, construction, cars and hundreds of items ancillary to those industries.
Money is fungible, so any profits can be turned to military acquisition, including missiles.
The technology transfer is more indirect, but Libya is gradually acquiring expertise in a variety of related fields. It can turn some of this to some military applications. To fill the gaps, it can draw upon a vast network of people, companies and countries which exponentially expand its ability to buy, swap or steal whatever it wants. The question is whether a more flexible approach can gain us better cooperation from our friends on the missile proliferation and other matters which are really important, including planning for the near certainty that some countries of concern are going to acquire ballistic missiles and better ones after that. To conclude with another Italian example, the day may come when we want Rome's help on Apache, when we want to deny Libya something truly important, when we seek to thwart a restart of construction at Tarhuna, when we want Italian bases for some military mission or we want Italy to assume the role of Southern outpost of a European missile defense system.