Foreign Internal Defense (Indigenous Forces)

[Dayuhan]

I don't believe the military is the proper source for micro loans, civil governance training, policy solutions to the conflict ect. USAID, the DoS and the Peace Corps seems much more able in preventing a conflict.

Your thoughts?

On this I agree with you completely. I didn't realize that these activities are being packaged as part of FID, thought that term was mainly used for purely military activities. I should have known better.

We have to come to grips with the reality that in much of the world, including many places where insurgency thrives, "governance" is in the hands of highly regressive elite factions who are accustomed to using state resources for personal gain and using the coercive power of the state to support their own private interests. We are not going to change this by providing "development" assistance, whether through the military or through AID, DoS, etc, and in most cases we're in no position to compel these elites to change the way they govern. In these cases there's really very little point in trying to "counter" insurgency, by FID or any other means. Sometimes insurgency is a natural and necessary method of development: when those who rule refuse evolution, they get revolution. It has always been thus.