1 Attachment(s)
Legitmacy and Maslow's Hierarchy
Attached you will find a rough draft of a paper I have been working on dealing with the connection between political legitimacy and human needs. This may seem far afield from small wars but the point was to demonstrate where political legitimacy comes from and why it is not malleable. If the foundations are correct than you can no more change a target populations choice of legitimacy by bribing them with schools and hospitals than you can kill it out of them. Neither approach is going to 'win', although killing it out of them can force it underground for a long time.
It goes fairly deep into sociological and psychological ideas. There are no direct references to any current operations so it is dull reading. It is not for the faint at heart. Also my grammar sucks.
If anyone wants to peruse it and provide some feedback as to whether this is something than can be adopted for the field, might be handy for strategists to know, or could be shoved down the throat of an idealistic policy guru who is advocating intervention in a place we probably should not go, I would appreciate their your feedback.
All the best intentions fall on deaf ears
As well intended as the soldiers on the ground are, and how carefully the call for support is thought out and planned, the govt has some other plans (that's what we thought).
In the early 70s in South America our team assessed the need for electrical power and more ammo. On an abandoned air strip the 130 came in low and dumped two pallets of 6 volt batteries and a sierra load of 7.62 blank cartridges. We had asked for two 60kw generators and 10,000 rounds of 5.56.
Later in 94 with over 4,000 refugees dying a day from heat exhaustion and cholera, we sent out the call for water and antibiotics. The 7th SOS complied and yet another 130 buzzed low over the banana fields dumping a pallet of dry biscuits, flour and a pallet of warm baby clothes.
It was 40 degrees C. with 1,000% humidity :D
Later, much later, a C5 from California flew in fire trucks. At least we could now pump water (from a dead lake).
Seems it doesn't really matter that most of us "there" know what to do without even considering what Uncle Maslow would have thought :wry:
Two Sources of Civil conflict
I have come to the conclusion that there are at least two potential sources of social unrest. The first is a mismatch of legitimacy. The second is a feeling of injustice. The mismatch of legitimacy is tied to Maslow's hierarchy but the feeling of injustice does not depend on the level of need being satisfied. It is a static motivation, like religion. It is not hierarchical that I can determine.