Modernization Theory is Hokum.
OK, my next project is an attack on Modernization theory. Who is with me!?
My argument is in two parts. 1st, Modernization theory (in its various incarnations from Vietnam to present) is wrong. Second, it is not the Army's job to engage in social engineering.
Thoughts?
You're gonna make me change my mind
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I fully agree that it is not the Army's job to engage in social engineering, and I'd take it a step farther and say that any attempt by the US government to engage in social engineering, through any agency, should be viewed with great suspicion.
But governments do it all the time. They do it through inoculation programs that skew the population density. They do it through the tax code that favors married couples or by deciding who can marry who. They do it through any number of rules that regulate your life "for the better". They don't call it social engineering, but the result is the same.
So is the social engineering the Army is directed to do just "the continuation of policy by other means"?
Isn't it our policy to spread democracy?
If it is, isn't it our job to mold the population of our target country/population; to till the soil so that it can accept the seeds of representative government?
While I don't like it, I am not sure I can make a cogent argument against it.
I posted on this on an earlier thread
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Originally Posted by
TheCurmudgeon
But governments do it all the time. They do it through inoculation programs that skew the population density. They do it through the tax code that favors married couples or by deciding who can marry who. They do it through any number of rules that regulate your life "for the better". They don't call it social engineering, but the result is the same.
So is the social engineering the Army is directed to do just "the continuation of policy by other means"?
Isn't it our policy to spread democracy?
If it is, isn't it our job to mold the population of our target country/population; to till the soil so that it can accept the seeds of representative government?
While I don't like it, I am not sure I can make a cogent argument against it.
http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15993
I think you had some nice comments too?
Molding populations on the behalf of the other is a fool's errand, and, no, the military is not always instructed to do this. For instance, the President wanted options that would allow him to draw down in Afghanistan and focus on CT but the Army didn't want to do that.
Even within the "spread democracy" examples the military got off track on theories like RMA which didn't leave enough troops for post conflict stabilization.
How this turned into a conversation about the military building schools as its primary operation or tactical or whatever focus is beyond me.
See, I shouldn't comment because it's too time consuming :)
PS: Supporting the formation of a government is not synonymous with molding populations. Not everything is population-centric in this sense.
Policy changes from administration to administration and according to national mood, so any operational focus on molding populations is doomed to failure. The military has an obligation to make the true costs of this fool's errand known to its civilian oversears which did not always happen in the examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.
How did such collossal intellectual confusion make its way into our collective national security complex psyche?
Much too much research ... and a question
OK, this is going to take a little more effort and will become a long term project.
However, what I have noticed is that each of the colonial powers (including the US) looked at the issue of how to deal with the indigenous population differently. The US had two models, internal and external. Internally we were interested in assimilation – forcing the indigenous population to become good American citizens (over their dead bodies if necessary). Externally, modernization did not become an issue until the start of the Cold War.
The French saw social change through the lens of their own revolutionary period (1789 -1871) and the related social revolution. They expected the peoples of Indochina to go through a smiliar transitional period (yet seemed to fight them tooth and nail when they tried).
The British seemed to simply view the locals as a lower form of life at least until the 1850s but from there on I am not sure. I have a book on sociological theory that talks about the odd dichotomy in British Social theory where there was one theory for them and another theory for everyone else in the world well into the twentieth century.
I am curious if anyone knows how the Germans and the Spanish viewed their colonial subjects in the period from 1850 to 1940. Was there any obligation based on sociological theories, or ethical obligation, to help their colonial subjects modernize?
Nation specific Attitudes.
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Originally Posted by
TTucker54
Also regarding how the Germans might have viewed their colonial subjects. it might be helpful to review the Herero Rebellions and the Maji-Maji Rebellions.
It might also be helpful to re-look Eugene Fishers experiments during this time. ))
Thanks for the information. After a little more research it was interesting to see how the attitudes and activities during that period well before WWI were recreated in the Nazi ideology, including conducting medical experiments on a population deemed eugenically inferior. Another country-specific response to how to deal with unruly indigenous peoples.
None of them are right ...
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By Gian Gentile
Best Defense counterininsurgency critic
In general terms I would deconstruct the manual as it is now and break the singular link that it has with a certain theory of state building (known as population centric COIN). Once broken up I would then rewrite the doctrine from the ground up with three general parts: 1) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered on post-conflict reconstruction; 2) would be a counterinsurgency approach centered around military action to attack insurgent sources of military power (sometimes referred to as counter-terror or CT), but not linked to an endstate of a rebuilt or newly built nation state; 3) would be a counterinsurgency approach -- perhaps call it COIN light -- that would focus largely on Special Forces with some limited conventional army support conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID).
OK, so I still don't like Gentile. First, number 1 is not COIN. COIN and post-conflict reconstruction are not synonymous. 2. Assumes the insurgency has reached the point of civil war. Afghan insurgency often never gets to this level, although specific operations clearly meet the criteria. Iraq I leave to others to debate. 3. I prefer but... and it is the big but ... none of these attemept to determine why the insurgency is occurring. They are tactical solutions to strategic problems. This puts us right back to where we started. They are no solution at all.
evolution versus adaptation
OK, I am back on this project although it has morphed. The following two paragraphs are critical to understanding my arguments so I am looking for input. I am hoping that they can stand alone, but if you need the build up to them it includes a description of human pre-state (pre-civilization) society and how that society changed after humans were able to produce a surplus of food on a regular basis. The ultimate goal is to show that different forms of government are the appropirate adaptations for differing "environmental" conditions.
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It is common to say that society evolved. Tribal societies are seen as “primitive” while “modern” societies are seen as more “advanced”. This is a misnomer. It creates the impression that humans have evolved over the last few thousand years – that the remaining hunter-gatherers and nomads are a lesser form of human being even thought they have passed through the same number of generations as any other group of people on the planet. The truth is that neither society nor the humans who created it have evolved. The humans have adapted to their environment. A resource rich environment allows for a higher population density and provides greater opportunity than a resource scarce environment. The higher population combined with resource availability provides the potential for greater specialization and technological advancement. Technological advances solve the problems of human survival. They meet the needs of the human society. Each of these technological advances creates a new environment for each succeeding generation. Each of these changes results in additional adaptations that are reflected in changes in society. All of these adaptations are intended to help the members of the society meet their needs. The needs of the population do not change, but the ones that are left unfulfilled – the ones that are most important to the population – change with the population density, resource availability, and each technological advance.
Let me provide an example. Two children are born in the year 1990: one to an Amazonian tribal group and one to an American family in Fairfax, Virginia. The Amazonian child will grow up in an environment where food is not consistent, disease is common, the jungle is full of peril, and it is likely that at least one or more of his siblings will not grow to adulthood. Members of the Amazonian tribal group are deeply dependent on each other and the child grows up with an appreciation of that dependence. The needs this child is most concerned with are basic survival and security needs and his society is designed to fulfill those needs. The American child grows up in a world free from want for what he needs to survive. He will most likely never be concerned with his next meal and never thinks that any of his brothers or sisters will not live to a ripe old age. Most of his concerns revolve around his individual identity. He is not truly dependent on anyone other than his parents and does not grow up reliant on anyone. In his environment, individual autonomy is the need he is most likely to be concerned with and his society is designed to fulfill that need. When seen this way it becomes evident that society has not evolved. It has adapted to fulfill the needs that are most important to its population. It has adapted to maximize its need fulfillment of its population based on the environment the society inherits.