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A Strategic Question and Three Insights
Often, I find, when faced with difficult, often emotion-laced, problems, it is better to ask questions than it is to offer suggestions. To that end, the embedded slide is from a recent presentation I gave.
In an age of strategic uncertainty, it is far too easy to rely heavily upon what one is very good at, or comfortable with. When one then designs their metrics around those "comfort programs" one can easily mislead one's self over time that doing something well -and locally suppressing the symptoms of a problem for some period of time in some discrete place in the process - is the same as doing good.
But when one steps back and looks at the larger picture over a longer period of time, the flaws of this tactical logic become increasingly apparent.
Learning from an older empire?
As is the SWC way, you look at something different and find an item you missed. In this case the comments on a SWJ article on Vietnam:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/pri...rimary-sources
Amidst was this comment, which fits here:
Quote:
No question the British Military ran solid counter-insurgent operations from the start. Done well, this will indeed suppress virtually any insurgency. We've seen this most recently in Sri Lanka, and time and again in recent years in Algeria and the Philippines. None of those cited examples, however are resolved like Malaya is. Dare to ponder why.
The British realized that the cost of their pre-WWII model of colonial control exceeded the benefits in the post-WWII environment; so they gave up on that political construct and adopted a new one that shifted their role from one of master and protector to that of mentor and protector. Big difference. IMO it is this sea change of political / policy context that is critical.
For the US during the Cold War, and now during what we (ridiculously IMO)call the "War against al-Qa'ida" we still cling to a perspective that is far too controlling in nature and that also has costs (and higher order effects in terms of trans-national terrorism) that far exceed the benefits. We have not yet learned the lessons that the British learned before us (at least judging by the recently released National Strategy for Counterterrorism).
School is in session, however, so we still have time to learn before the bell rings.
Capacity building's first appearance in doctrine
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Posted by Bob's World
Strongly agree, and it seems we're using it now to almost re-engineer our strategy without changing the ends. That will fail, and it will be blamed on design. Military planning processes work when you have good planners, not when you have poor planners or worse yet poor policies. We always want to blame the process, that is the wrong target.
Not open up another debate on Vietnam at this time, but the domino theory wasn't unfounded. For different reasons Laos and Cambodia fell under communist rule, and Thailand faced a communist insurgency that was defeated. Our design for containing communism was arguably wrong. Additionally, China was the smaller player, the USSR provided the bulk of support to North Vietnam.
@ Bill or others - I've asked this a couple of times before, but when did capacity building show up doctrinally? This is related to the period right after the end of the cold war and related to the UN and its work, isn't it? When did the military first start using the term?