Moral Impasses and Sociology
Dayuhan, your previous message was both well-reasoned and well-written. However, from time to time there are moral issues that reach the impasse level. During the 19th century they included paying tribute to the Barbary Pirates ("To the shores of Tripoli"), the British forcing the Hindus in India to stop setting widows on fire, and the suppression of the slave trade. Today in Afghanistan there are issues like forced marriages, coerced pederasty, the stoning to death of women, and allowing terrorist groups to operate freely in the area.
Could we be creating squeaky wheels?
Given my admittedly poorly informed point of departure my perception is certainly over-simplified, but when I see the DoD committing itself to USAID-type actions in response to military challenges I have to wonder whether groups and governments in heretofore unproblematic (from the US’s point of view) locales might decide that offering a military challenge to the US is more productive than remaining well-behaved.
Agreement with (and exception to) the difficulty of development
ganulv and Dayuhan,
Thanks for your comments - I think each time we have an exchange of perspectives it illuminates a little better what assumptions might be driving a conversation in different directions.
ganulv, you're spot on that governments, like individuals, will take the path of least resistance. It's just good business to economize wherever possible on costs of money or time or effort. I don't believe we could point to much in OIF/OND or OEF that indicate this dynamic in action, though, because God knows there are plenty of good, old fashioned hatreds and grievance behind the chaos there. In other lands it's entirely possible that regimes overinflate their relative instability if it will net them a larger share of the US national teat...I would, if anyone would trust me with a country. :p
Dayuhan, I'm especially interested in your comment because it really gets to the heart of the matter of responsibilities for the military. You questioned whether it's sensible to train armies for development...and so do I. Armies are designed to break things or, better still, to present a convincing enough capacity for breaking things that nothing ever actually has to get broken.
The screaming, glaring, invisible-in-plain-sight problem is, development must occur for stability to exist. In my country's case, that means the USG must have a development capacity if we are going to take on development. It doesn't mean DoD has to "do" it. I'm saying that every body should perform its role...and our gaping hole in capacity lies in the coordination of those bodies.
If DoS has development responsibility, can DoS carry that out in isolation? USG (the parent) has the responsibility to "teach" DoS and DoD to work together, like any siblings. In an effective system - which I don't believe is an impossible dream - DoS and DoD support one another like a well-oiled machine. Okay, maybe that is a dream, but it's not impossible.
The yin-yang, or soft-hard, or diplomacy-force of DoS-DoD has unrealized potential while our persuasion is poorly integrated with our coercion. May I give one real-world example of lousy coordination? During an assessment in one country which shall remain nameless I sought out the local PRT on a base which shall remain nameless. I wanted to gauge their level of integration and asked what sort of coordination they had with PRT HQ in the capital.
The response? "We don't coordinate with them. They give us a budget and trust us to use it on the right initiatives." In other words, everyone is doing his or her very best...but without coordination our very best results in excess redundancy, wide seams, and wasted resources. And let us not forget that one of our resources is human life.
Quick caveat - this was ONE PRT on ONE base. I have no idea whether it is indicative of the overall system and I would never presume to condemn such. I will, however, declare that this grievous dis-integration is prevalent over my quarter century in war and peace with the DoD, DoS and IC. It's been the one constant, in my observation, that thrives without regard for administration, economy or enemy.
Stability as justification.
Having spent time living in Guatemala near the end of their civil war I became well acquainted with the fact that a lot of dark things are done in the name of stability. I can understand how violence à la night raids in Baghdad in 2006 can have a place in producing stability; a decades long policy of shooting up malnourished peasants protesting being pushed off their smallholdings in the name of stability is harder for me to understand. Which is just to perhaps echo Dayuhan’s point that there are many hows, whys, and time scales related to stability.
A great run; limited vision - danger behind and ahead?
J.Robert DuBois,
You stated:
Quote:
The US has had a great run of making bad governments look good and persuading people to like the government we think they ought to like! Just look at all our success stories: Hussein, Mubarak, Saleh...
The choice of names reflects a contemporary focus on Arab and Muslim regions. Since 1945 the USA, sometimes with allies, has done a great deal of 'making' and 'persuading' in other places - nor where development was say in vogue. Places like Greece and Italy, later on and further afield Allende in Chile and Mobutu in Zaire. Many of these places no longer appear in focus.
It would be a mistake if the USA's perceptions of the places for 'making' and 'persuading' were limited to Arab and Muslim regions. Oh yes, what is missing in the calculus? Oil I nearly forgot.
Nor should we overlook the private sector, NGO's or communities. As illustrated by the UK population via charities sending abroad UK Pounds 4.0 billion p.a. or US$6.4 billion more than sent in official aid.
Constraints on strategically significant action
Hat tip to Zenpundit for re-directing me back to Robert Haddick's weekly column and the tip to a new website by Joseph Fouche. Where I found this appropriate to this thread.
Quote:
Reasons of state demand that strategically substantive and consequential action be taken from time to time. But the inertia of the system demands that nothing be done within the system to raise an inconvenient stir or distract the American public from its patriotic consumption. This places two constraints on strategically significant action:
It must be small enough to escape sustained public awareness.
It must be big enough to have real strategic effect.
Link:http://fearhonorinterest.wordpress.c...tegic-default/
Now will 'smart power' work within such constraints?