Foreign Internal Defense (Indigenous Forces)

[Bob's World]

Well, for one factor, while State is still in the lead we have not yet made the tragic decision to call the intervention a "War."

Once we decide to call our FID intervention War, we then shift to waging "warfare," and logically shift the lead to the military. Now we have converted the situation into something we must "win" and have sent in a bunch of pro-active professionals who will go to any length to achieve that win. It is in that effort to win that we lose sight of the big picture and begin to shift from helping a partner achieve stability to one of helping a partner defeat the threat. Defeating a threat that is a portion of ones own populace, and that represents a much larger portion that the threat emerges from; and waging war agaist ones own populace is bad business. Bringing in a foreign force to wage war against your own popualce is even worse. (Even if that foreign force is Eric Prince and his band of mercs.)

I would offer the question may be better asked not in terms of State Lead vs. DoD Lead but rather in terms of FID as peacefare vs. FID as warfare.