Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
5. HVIs are the final refinement. This is the list of specific projects. At this point that platoon leader on the ground, or that USAID worker, etc should be able to show how their project maps all the way from HVI-HVT-CV-CR-COG as part of a comprehensive, yet focused scheme of engagement. Assessments must continuously refine this list and prioritize communities and projects for maximum effect.

Its a process. If it helps, use it, if not don't worry about it. If you employ some variant of this and it helps or doesn't, I'd love to hear about it as I continue to refine my thoughts on such things.
Again, though, where is the host nation government in this process? Is it just US Military, USAID, US Agencies involved?

If the key problem is, say, the lack of a road or a bridge or an irrigation system, it might be possible to address this with a project funded by AID and protected by the military, driven purely by US involvement. Rarely is it so simple. What if your driver of conflict is, for example, conflict over land between a migrant and an indigenous population? Or central government support for a regional governor that a segment of the population considers to be irretrievably hostile to their interests? Or a government's desire to extract resources that a portion of the population regards as theirs? Or a perception that government is taking sides in a longstanding clan or tribal dispute? Or... obviously this could go on and on, but the point is simple: more often than not the problems driving insurgency are not things that one set of Americans can draw up a list of and whistle in a group of American agencies to neatly solve. More often than not elements of host country government will be neck deep in the problem; they may not be at all sympathetic with the solutions we may propose. There may be a number of actors on the ground with conflicting agendas. Some of them may have agendas quite conrary to ours. The idea that "we" - by definition outsiders and not direct parties to the insurgency - can simply walk into a situation, identify "the problem", and develop a program among our agencies to solve it seems to leave out some realities that are almost always present in these situations.