James Madison - Greatest COIN leader in History
I debated starting this thread under "History" or "Futurists." I could still go either way, as the future of effective COIN lies in understanding the historic impact of James Madison and his work.
The United States was indeed, born of insurgency. The founding fathers, as insurgents all, then set about their new role as counterinsurgents, to shape a new form of government that was least likely to slip into despotism; while also ensuring that the populace was always well empowered to help keep the government on the straight and narrow as well.
James Madison is known as the "Father of the Constitution" and also as the "Father of the Bill of Rights." The US Constitution set a frame work for a government effective enough to run a major nation, but not so effective as to slide into despotism. To ensure that even more, Madison fought for the greatest COIN tool of all time, the US Bill of Rights. This document was designed specifically with COIN in mind.
Madison was also a Federalist with Hamilton, while at the same time a great friend and collaborator with Jefferson. He was able to see what needed to be done, and work with those who could help achieve it.
So, set your COIN manual aside; put your Kilcullen and Nagl back on the shelf. Reach for some really brilliant work on COIN, the works of James Madison. Once you can grasp why Madison's work is brilliant COIN, then you are ready to shape a context for other, more tactical works.
So, this thread is to discuss the work of James Madison, and why it marks him as the greatest COIN leader of all time.
Madison: a Conservative who wanted to support the Old Order
JM was hardly an insurgent looking to mix up the old order. He wrote the Bill of Rights because of the radicals' (in places like PA and NC, two very large "states to be" with powerful Anti-Federalist lobbies) reaction to the conservative bent the Constitution took. The only way that PA and NC agreed to ratify was if changes (the BoR) we made to the extend the revolutionary gains of the Rev to more people. The BoR was a compromise to bring more "radical" elements into the US polity. If you really want to read some good history on this, I suggest Bernard Bailyn, Gordan Wood, Jackson Turner Main, and Cecilia Kenyon. Drew McCoy's work on how Madison's political philosophy changed over the years is excellent. Madison was a man of the established and elite political order.
I label him a Great Counterinsurgent; not insurgent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John Grenier
Well, his effects were counter-revolutionary, so to say he was a great insurgent thinker is seriously ahistorical. If he was in fact an insurgent like you claim, he then in fact became like most insurgents in history: a failure.;)
So, the only failure here are your skills of reading comprehension. :)
All governments are counterinsurgents every day. The best COIN is done by governments in times of peace. It is only failed governments and their inextremis efforts to preserve themself that we typically think of as COIN. A limited perspective in my view.
No, I stand by my claim. Madison is the greatest counterinsurgent, as the main force in developing a family of governance structures uniquely born of insurgency, and therefore designed to prevent the same. ( But, for the record, all of the founding fathers were insurgents first, and they prevailed against the most powerful nation in the world. That's a win in any book)
Missed my point here too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John Grenier
The United States did not (in 1783-1787/89) have the same ethno-linguistic divisions that AFG has today. To expect the different AFG tribes and clans to come together and put aside their self interests to form a larger union is just fantasy, IMHO. We cannot impose our model of historical development on them -- it just will not work. To get AFG to agree to something as limited in unifying power as an Arts of Confed would be a miracle. The clans have no interest in the concept of "divided sovereignty" that made the Arts of Confed and the constitution work for Americans. Don't forget, also, that we had to have a civil war to decide whose version of the Constitution would dominate American political, social, economic, and cultural life. This all goes back to your original point about JM, and exactly why he was not an insurgent; everything he did (Constitution, Bill of Rights, VA/KY Resolutions) was to support and uphold the established political order that kept him and his peeps in control.
Not selling either the Art of Confed, or the US Constitution to AFG; merely noting that just as we dumped a bad form as we entered peace, AFG too could take advantage of a period of transition to dump their equally flawed constitution for one more apt to produce durable stability.
Everyone knew that Slavery was elephant in the room.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tequila
We Americans do tend to have a rather odd concept of our Constitution as a sort of magical document where Madison and the Founding Fathers somehow glimpsed a template of Good Government in the ether and then brought it back to America for enshrinement in perpetuity. A whole legal ethos in the U.S. - originalism - appears to be based on this concept.
As John Grenier points out, the Constitution is a document of its time, built out of the political compromises necessary to pull many very different interests and entities together. These compromises failed in the long term - the result was a massive civil war that nearly resulted in the breakup of the country. A long period of civil unrest followed that saw many state-level insurgencies where the losers of the civil war managed to reassert political control at the local level through a campaign of bloody violence abetted by corrupted/infiltrated security forces and sectarian militias. Peace was largely restored because these insurgencies achieved victory at that level.
So while the Constitution was not exactly a failure, I would hardly call it an unmitigated success.
So yes, the US was forged from insurgency, and tempered in civil war. We are the oldest enduring republic. It is the unique blend of compormises and protections that make our documents strong. Other countries and populaces have unique issues that divide and concern them. I would never argue that everyone must be like us; only that what we did worked, and that their is value in understanding WHY it worked and to capture those same components in their documents as well.
The Afghan constitution was not designed to preserve rights, it was designed to prevent warlords. As such it created a national ponzi scheme of leadership and patronage that robs the government of local legitimacy and robs the locals of their wealth, while literally Billions of dollars are sent to banks in Dubai by Afghan officials. Maybe it was the right constitition for its time, but now it is arguably the root of the current insurgency.
patronage and peacebuilding
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Originally Posted by
Entropy
I agree but still say it's a pretty big factor. As I've said many times now, Afghanistan isn't merely an insurgency - it's still in a civil war. And the Taliban aren't merely insurgents - they are the former power looking to regain what they once had.
I certainly agree that it is a civil war--as was Iraq for a time too.
However, the Afghan constitution per se has lots of wiggle room if the national leadership wanted to use Chapter 8 (especially Articles 2-3) creatively to devolve power and coopt local elements. That it doesn't do so is a function of both leadership choice and the (preexisting) social-political distribution of power.
Moreover, it is entirely possible for centralized administrations with centralizing constitutions to effectively coopt into the periphery in a decentralizing way--Morocco would be a case in point. The problem with Afghan patron-client structures may not be that they exist, but that they exist in such an inefficient, corrupt, and predatory manner.
As I've argued elsewhere, I don't think the development/peacebuilding/stabilization/COIN crowd has a good handle on this:
Quote:
...conceptually, the peacebuilding and reconstruction community has largely failed to deal with this, and that as a consequence there is a current and potentially growing disconnect in both theory and practice. How is it that patronage politics can be limited, contained, channeled, or attenuated in ways that create maximum benefits in terms of stability and legitimization, and the least damage in terms of corruption, inefficiency, inequality, and delegitimization? How is it that we encourage countries emerging from conflict to look more like Jordan and less like Yemen—both places where neopatrimonialism has played a key role in domestic politics, but with strikingly different developmental and institutional outcomes?
Why are patronage networks always the bad guy?
To quote BW: "....it created a national ponzi scheme of leadership and patronage that robs the government of local legitimacy and robs the locals of their wealth..."
Allow me to do some paraphrasing and intellectual thievery here (been thinking a few days about Mac McCallister's Agora post to which I'm starting to agree with more and more). Patronage is always eschewed as detrimental to good governance. Sure, JM wouldn't have approved, but that was the new nation of America under a completely different set of historical and cultural circumstances. How about if Kabul co-opts or install loyal (and effective) local patronage networks? Even during the Monarchy, hasn't the patronage network been one of Afghanistan's only effective governing tool primarily because of the limited direct reach of Kabul or 'illegitimacy' of the central government? Why do we keep thinking a central gov't under a republican/quasi-democratic Constitution will win hearts and minds and provide legitimacy? Because its all we know and that's the way its going to be come hell or high water apparently.
Rather than try and twist Karzai's arm to install NATO-approved Governors with a 'clean' record, why not allow him to install people who *he* knows can get the job done after we do the clearing and holding. By Karzai co-opting and controlling the already in-place patronage nets with a loyal governor or sub-district governor and extend that network to Kabul, we don't have to worry about forcing an alien government into the inner workings of the Afghan culture. The insurgency is flamed when we remove a traditional and effective patronage network and have someone installed with no popular means of economic support or 'MOUs' for his area. Development and rule of law/governance will come but it will have an Afghan face to it and the population will be more readily inclined to see legitimacy in a patronage network as long as it provides them with the bare minimums of security and economic development (or at least economic stability). A 'legitimate' and effective patronage network can erode the shadow governments simply by co-opting (strong-arming) the trade, production, kickbacks, taxing, etc away from illicit sources....after, of course, we provide initial clear & hold top-cover.
I realize this is getting off topic but patronage networks aren't inherently a bad thing, especially when they're effective and they are able to maintain order. It's also been effective in Afghanistan for an extremely long time. Did they ensure the democratic and civil rights of 100% of the population? No. Was there corruption, graft, and political backwardness? Yes. Will it look like an American or NATO solution? No. Did they provide at least a modicum of security and economic stability and maintain the status quo in a very volatile region of the world at very volatile times in recent history? Yes.
I'm not saying historical reversion is ever a good thing (that's what the Talibs want; atavism, right?) but understanding what works and more importantly, what they know works for them, is more critical than a forced adoption of democracy with a vanilla solution nationwide. My $.02.
Good Governance isn't about making people happy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ken White
Uh, forgive me but a number of folks here have, over the last couple of years offered considered and consistent responses to your thesis. As nearly as I can determine, you haven't cared other than superficially what any of them had to say.How very nice of you to condescend to admission that at one point you too were ignorant... :wry:No one has attempted to order you to do anything. Several have acknowledged the logic of your focus and some of your prescriptions while disagreeing with other prescriptions and your one size fits all approach. You offer counter argument which is predictably poor governance and / or lessons the American Revolution and picking on poor old George III. :wry:
Consider the possibility that some of us also progressed from accepting the common wisdom to omniscience -- then realized that the world and humans are not really that simple and that common wisdom exists for valid reasons. Many of us also realize that common wisdom is merely a broad guide and is not definitive...Is the implication here that a Civil War and an Insurgency are mutually exclusive?Nor am I...
Webster:
Belligerency: 1 : the state of being at war or in conflict; specifically : the status of a legally recognized belligerent state or nation.
What does that definition add to the clarity?
I submit it adds nothing. You Lawyers can get wrapped up in word games but no one else much cares. Most Lawyers know that there are varying definitions and vernacular uses of words but tend to strongly adhere to the definition that best serves them in presenting their case...
Specifically, groups of people who do not object to the governance of a State but who simply wish to seize power for themselves, crooks and / or various other non-state actors can precipitate an insurgency, engage in belligerent conduct (if not a de jure 'belligerency') or participate in a civil war -- or they can do both at the same time.
Over-define your 'rules' and you will inhibit your ability to respond to the actual problem. You continually carp that the US is still in the strait jacket of 'Cold War responses' yet propose replacing that strait jacket with your own design. ;)Using that rationale, the Taliban were the government, they must not have provided good governance because the Northern Alliance objected, we helped the NA overthrow the Talibs and now they want their power, such as it was, back. Apparently Karzai is seen as unable to provide good governance, the Talibs are seen as unable to provide good governance, the US / NATO / ISAF are unlikely to be seen as capable of providing good governance -- thus there is no solution to the problem as you define it. Yet, I suspect a solution of sorts that satisfies no one will appear.
'Good Governance' as you use it appears to be a code for 'making everyone happy' (I know you have explained that's not the case but you keep getting back, indirectly, to that premise as you do in your last couple of sentences quoted below...). Not going to happen. Thus we all suffer from bad governance. The issue is, per Ed McMahon, "How bad is it?"Uh, yes, we can agree on that last. If we had good governance and made everyone happy, they wouldn't do that... :rolleyes:
Like I said, the key is "How bad is it?" and as many have pointed out to you for some time, recognition of many subtle variations in the cause of insurgencies is necessary. There's never a one size fits all where humans are concerned...
The Tea Party crowd isn't happy under Obama; and the Liberals weren't happy under Bush. Our current "COIN" approach of focusing on development to buy off the populace appears to be rooted in trying to make people happy to win.
No, creating a perception of legitimacy has little indeed to do with making people happy, it is just gaining their acceptance that you deserve to be there. The Tea Party in large part accepts that Obama deserves to be there. Similarly creating perceptions of Justice under the law for all groups as little to do with making people happy; nor is treating all groups with respect or providing them with a structure that gives them the same hope that the liberals and Tea Parters use to sustain themselves between elections.
No, good governance has nothing to do with trying to make everyone happy. It has to do with creating governance that represents everybody equally, is from a source they recognize, and is within their power to change within the law.
The US Constitution and Bill of Rights provides such a construct. The current Afghan Constitution does not. I see it as a deal breaker flaw that we are ignoring in favor of doing just such efforts to try to "make people happy" instead. I am actually quite against trying to make everyone happy.