Dayuhan,

Good governance and relations between security forces and the populace are two different things. In terms of governance, the dominant clans are still very much in control, and those leopards have not changed their spots.
A State's security forces are an element of governance, so I disagree that good relations between a State's security forces and its populace are not good governance, but I do agree with your last part of your comment.

Bob's World,

The same will be true in the Philippines, and the same will be true in Afghanistan. Too bad we have a policy of no true engagement at that level for fear that those governments will not support perceptions of US interests that are the true reason for our presence in the first place. Those interests having very little to do with nationalist insurgencies in either case. Until then, we keep sending out the troops to mitigate the symptoms at the bottom, and attempt to convince ourselves that we are actually addressing the true problem and producing enduring good for the affected populaces and nations of such engagement. There is little evidence of that being the case.
We claim to follow a 3D approach (Diplomacy, Defense, and Development), and I guess that is true, but these three approaches are still largely stove piped efforts that are occassionally fused at the tactical level due to the initiative of the action agents on point, but at the strategic level we're still drifting aimlessly. You are absolutely right that we all too often default to bottom up solutions by focusing on solving the problem with security forces, and these are problems that can't be resolved by security forces.

We not only need to reform our security cooperation/security assistance programs so we can cost effectively help produce capable security forces, we also need to revamp our strategy development and planning efforts that operationalize those strategies so we truly put first things first and put the military in a supporting role, instead of a decisive role, but I suspect that won't happen anytime soon.