Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
Obviously each population considers its own grievances to be legitimate, but addressing those grievances can cause another population to turn to violence. For example, consider the institution of slavery in the US from before Civil War and through the Civil Rights Act. Was there, for example, some kind of "good governance" which we might have instituted sometime before the Civil War that would have avoided that conflict? Was there any possible kind of "good governance" that could have brought us to where we are today in the 19th century? Was rebellion in the south a failure of governance? I don't think so. In fact, I suspect that had the feds tried to impose something like the CRA immediately following the Civil War, then we likely would have faced a post-war insurgency. So the question is, what can governance do when populations have irreconcilable differences?
I would say yes. Slavery gave the south a competitive advantage over the North. Before it's abolition if the Government would have arranged a fair compensation war could have been avoided. That wasn't done and war followed. Lincoln was assassinated before reconstruction could be completed and extended southern suffering for some time, during which the KKK was formed and prospered until finally MLK arrived and the civil rights act.


As it relates to countries with multiple oppressed populations inside loose borders, yes your actions can create violence between those groups while trying to do the right thing so to speak. But this goes back to Basic Green Beret Stuff, that type of population analysis should happen during step1-psychological preparation of the targeted population.

Finally there is nothing in the Jones model that says your are going to end up with some standard democratically/capitalist style government. Your survey of the population may indicate you should pursue a very different system of government.

We used the Special Warfare model twice in A'stan very successfully and then blew it by not finishing the mission.