And happy holidays to you...
In Surferbeetle's ideal world a single school is part of a larger educational system or chain in which long-term concerns about an adequately educated populace, academic standards, teaching standards, dependable funding, building codes, safety codes, etc. have a place. Schools are a resource intensive activity which require timelines greater than 12 months.
Private schools flourish in Hawaii, even though families take on substantial debt (along with the associated risks), because parts of the public school system are unable to provide their charges the skills necessary to compete in and among a global workforce. The cost/benefit equation used by parents in Hawaii includes a time variable which is greater than 12 months.
In Iraq how many packs of kids did we both see roaming the streets and seeing and participating in things that kids should not see or do? Will these kids be constructively competing with our kids in the global workforce or will our kids be seeing them on future battlefields?
In short, focusing upon only the violence or school variables does not solve the multivariate cost/benefit equation associated with war.
Rand Guidebook for Supporting Economic Development in Stability Operations By: Keith Crane, Olga Oliker, Nora Bensahel, Derek Eaton, S. Jamie Gayton, Brooke Stearns Lawson, Jeffrey Martini, John L. Nasir, Sandra Reyna, Michelle Parker, Jerry M. Sollinger, Kayla M. Williams
Quote:
This guidebook is designed to help U.S. Army personnel more effectively use economic assistance to support economic and infrastructure development. The guidebook should help tactical commanders choose and implement more effective programs and projects in their areas of responsibility and better understand the economic context of their efforts. It describes key characteristics of the economic environment, the key players that soldiers are likely to encounter, and who may be involved in what sorts of assistance efforts. It also provides suggestions on what to and what not to do, with examples from current and past operations. Suggestions on providing assistance are grouped into the following areas: humanitarian assistance; infrastructure and essential services; agriculture; currencies, budgets, finance, and foreign trade; private sector development and employment generation; natural resource management; and the effects of the U.S. military on local economies. To write this guidebook, the authors visited commanders in Afghanistan, conducted interviews with returning U.S. military officers, drew on their own experiences in Iraq, Liberia, and the Balkans, and tapped the substantial literature about effective economic assistance.
Bench improvements & real stone soup
Hi Steve,
You've managed to bring in the techie factor (which I omitted since I was focusing on my current areas of interest) as well as pointing out that there is a spectrum of efforts dependent on the situational environment:
Quote:
from Steve
We could also discuss a five-year master plan for the AO on those same benches. Lets consider the demographics of who will be participating in these four separate events upon the multi-use benches.
1. Teachers/Teachers Assistants who are educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to educational system.
2. Judges/Lawyers/Police who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to judicial system.
3. Politicians who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to political system.
4. Engineers/Tech’s/Blue Collar Workers who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to engineering system.
Capacity building (aka raising/training a local technocrat army) allows us to focus scarce resources upon the systems which sustain benches or buildings as the situation dictates.
No disagreement as to any of this, which depends on how primitive or advanced the systems are - and on capabilities (scarce resources) that are available.
If you are so lucky as to have an intact civil administration (as in Malaya), the task (besides providing security) is to enhance what is already there - as well as the colonial power (UK) being willing to provide a nationalistic Narrative (Malayan independence taking into account the three major ethnic groups, Malay, Chinese and Indian) acceptable to the vast majority of the People.
If you have a society that is more urban and modernized - as well as used to centralized control - such as Iraq, more conventional methods (more similar to what we would use here at home) can be successfully applied. Both you and Steve the Planner have pointed that out.
With the benches, I was looking at a more primitive rural situation in what could be called a failed or largely failing state. In all three situations, the folks have to be "educated, vetted, paid, and supplied"; but what those quoted words mean will differ greatly.
You (engineer) and I (bio-chemist in a former life; and lawyer in present life) would be over-educated for the roles needed in a very basic situtation. We could adapt (I suspect), but we would need to adapt to the very basic conditions and problems presented.
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Real Stone Soup
Great story. Giap's PUFL teams did just that, but the soup resulting was political. That is, the first step was to infiltrate the community (preferably with former residents) and determine what the gripes were - and what little non-muscle things could be done. After developing the local Narrartive (which had nothing to do with Communism), the teams would then subvert the community and radicalize it against the local government factors and symbols. Of course, that meant killing off unpopular landlords, local officials and teachers, etc.; but only after the local community was more or less ready for those more drastic measures. From our standpoint, it was a Devil's Soup.
Regards
Mike
To add to the information overload ...
I happened on the following 2008 theses, which seem to bear on aspects of what we are discussing - especially how insurgencies and counter-insurgencies differ dependent on the environment and adaptations to it:
Michael R. Wilcheck, Risen from the Ashes: Phoenix and the Struggle against the Viet Cong Shadow Government.
Quote:
The Past in the Future: Phoenix Applications for the Present and Tomorrow
It has been said that those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. In studying Phoenix, the author believes that its story holds several important lessons that still remain applicable in today‟s world. There is no formula for fighting an insurgency that can be universally applied, nor will one ever exist. The very nature of an insurgency is unique to a specific time and place and specific to a people and their culture. Thus, when conducting counterinsurgency in foreign countries, it is essential that policymakers be well educated on the country where it is taking place. As was the case in Vietnam, a lack of understanding between Western-educated policy makers and a non-Western culture on which those policies are thrust can hinder counterinsurgency efforts from being as effective as they could be.
....
Robert Wall stated, “Phoenix represented the strategy that could have won the war.” Yet, it did not win the war. Although one may argue that Wall‟s statement may have greatly oversimplified the reasons for South Vietnam‟s eventual defeat, it is important that the United States learn from Phoenix so that America does not once again repeat Wall‟s words substituting another program in another insurgency. By learning from Phoenix and applying the universal lessons made evident through it, America can take positive steps to ensure an effective strategy does not once again fail.
Edward A. Brady, Urban and Rural Insurgencies: A Comparative Analysis.
Quote:
Chapter 4
Conclusions
A victory is not [just] the destruction in a given area of the insurgent’s forces and his political organization. It is that, plus the permanent isolation of the insurgent from the population, isolation not enforced upon the population but maintained by and with the population. - David Galula
The four historical examples studied in this paper display many of the traits commonly associated with insurgent warfare. Winning requires a political solution, not simply a military one. These struggles are protracted in nature. The ultimate goal of the insurgency is replacing the existing government. And both the insurgents and counterinsurgents battled for legitimacy throughout the various conflicts. Both the Anti-Huk campaign and the Battle of Algiers can be viewed as government victories. While important, France’s political defeat in Algeria came about by factors beyond the scope of this study. The Afghan insurgency is at a stalemate, which favors the insurgency. The Baghdad insurgency was tipping steeply toward an insurgent victory during the period studied. Based on this bag of mixed results, we will now review the most essential aspects of the four insurgencies here studied, to determine the similarities and differences of the underlying dynamics of urban and rural insurgencies.
....
This thesis historically analyzed two rural insurgencies and two urban insurgencies to determine the underlying similarities and differences between the two types of insurgencies. A systematic analysis of these four cases revealed two similar dynamics and two divergent dynamics. The first similarity is that insurgents must be able to hide in order to expand in the beginning and middle stages of an insurgency. The second similarity is that the ability to hide and grow depends on the relative capabilities between the insurgents and counterinsurgents to operate in insurgent base areas. The divergent dynamics are that the criticality of popular support to the insurgent and the density of high-impact targets for insurgents to strike vary between urban and rural insurgency.
Implications
Although the underlying dynamics of rural and urban insurgencies are very similar, there are also some important differences. These differences do not require diverse conceptual approaches. They may, however, require modifications in technique that current doctrine fails to address adequately. Therefore, the insights developed in this thesis should be carefully considered by doctrine writers to validate, refute, or amend existing COIN doctrines.
Best
Mike