I was doodling some thoughts this morning on this dynamic, and this is an effort to organize them visually. The idea being that there is a zone of "purgatory" that occurs between the time that old forms of governance are "defeated" (that could be a Genghis-like effort to consolidate governance over a state-less region of tribal centers of governance or it could be an intervention such as the US most recently in Iraq or Afghanistan) and such time as the new government comes to be accepted by their own populace (and similarly by neighboring governments and populaces as well). This acceptance being broadly described as "Legitimacy."
I think one major handicap to current US operations is that we don't fully recognize or appreciate this zone of Purgatory, or how the very fact of our intervention makes such a purgatory even stronger and more difficult to overcome.
Bookmarks