Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Well, hardly more so than a puppet government that allows an occupying force to act as police, to shoot at everyone who closes in with their checkpoints, to bomb obscure vehicles from the air, to hire local militias of young gunmen, to employ foreign mercenaries who behave utterly disrespectful and value the countries' civilian's lives very lowly and which grants legal immunity to said foreigners.

So where exactly is my pet approach worse in regard to puppet government legitimacy than the generally practised one?
With all respect you are allowing yourself to be needlessly distracted.

There are many permutations on how this sepoy/askari system could be put in place and developed. It needs an open mind ... in fact a military mind that has studied the employment of such forces under different (governmental) circumstances and varying cultural milieux.