Defining Insurgency

[Bob's World]

Mike,

Nice pull. I had plucked the word empowerment out of the NSS, and I too put it into the search function on WhiteHouse.Gov while writing my paper. What you've laid out here is very helpful.

A couple of the best examples of what this means for foreign policy are the President's recent speech to the UN on 23 September; from that speech:

“The common thread of progress is the principle that government is accountable to its citizens. And the diversity in this room makes clear -- no one country has all the answers, but all of us must answer to our own people.”

(I would argue that we currently enable many governments to ignore their populaces, and that this more than any factor gets to the roots of GWOT)

And also his clear deliniation between the government of Iran and the people of Iran when he sign the Iran sanctions: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-...-sanctions-act

[Pete]

That being said, words like "empowerment", "self-determination" and "good governance" can mean different things to different people. Colbert King brought that out earlier this year in President Obama, Marion Barry: Two takes on 'empowerment' (WP) ...

After his career of 30 years as a newspaperman in Washington DC my Dad said Marion Barry is a chameleon -- during the '60s he pretended to be a sharecropper, later he'd dress like a big businessman, and even later he professed to be a black nationalist.

[jmm99]

just so long as you understand that, from a political policy standpoint, I don't want either a new "New Frontier", a global "Great Society" or any other "Wilsonian" schematic (i.e., to make the World safe for democracy).

Some revision seems needed in the "Realist" view(s) of foreign policy; but that is another post.

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

FDR had four points, I think they are sound:

FDR’s vision centered famously on his “Four Freedoms;” freedom of religion and speech, and freedom from fear and want. Over the course of his final years, FDR worked to shape his full vision for the world which would emerge from WWII, adding:

• The Four Policemen – Recognizing the U.S. could and should not attempt to maintain stability around the world on her own; he envisioned a team made up of the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, and China. Each would have regional responsibilities, but also keep an eye on each other and work together where necessary to help keep a peace that supported the interests of all. He saw this as a more suitable replacement to a revival of the old League of Nations as promoted by Winston Churchill.

• The End of Colonialism - Enabling these societies to achieve independence through an evolution of governance, rather than revolution against governance; all under the watchful eye of the four policemen.

• The Right of Self-Determination – FDR recognized "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live."

Realities are that FDR trusted Stalin more than he should have, and underestimated how much Churchill strongly distrusted the man and equally strongly wanted to re-establish control over lost colonies. Anyway, we slid into Cold War, Containment, let the Euros retain their colonies, and then fell into two generations of post colonial insurgency, now to be followed by a generation or two of post-Cold War insurgency. I think if FDR had lived, the Grand Strategy would have been a happy medium between his idealistic vision and what we ended up with.

(hey, I'm just an observer, you can't make this stuff up!)

[slapout9]

In that great big book that West Point puts out on Strategy in Chapter 16 I believe, you may find what empowerment means as far as what Government is supposed to do. There are basically 2 responsibilities.... to provide Protection and Prosperity. The same reason that people join gangs I might add. The 2 primary means to do this is a Sovereign military and the right to print Sovereign Money!!!!! Sovereign money is money created by the Government that is issued DEBT free, something we seem to forget we have the power to do, but choose not to. It is the reason that China is and will continue to kick our A?? economically anytime they want to. Strange that a communist government would use a Democratic idea to beat usthen again maybe not so strange. They are masters at Economic Insurgency.