The Arab Spring (a partial collection)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Assuming this model is correct, and while I'm generally critical of social models that claim one size fits all situations regardless of cultural differences, I have to admit that your hypothesis about the underlying economic changes needed to facilitate social (and then political) change tend to ring true based off my observations and studies.

Assuming it is true, then it seems to me that our COIN doctrine is deeply flawed because we fail to recognize this evolution from economic, to social, and then to political change. In fact we attempt to reverse this evolution by first imposing political change (installing a democratic government), then attempting to build the economy, and then hope the social change follows.

That doesn't seem like a recipe for success to me.

If your model is generally correct and my critic of our COIN doctrine is generally correct, then what is the right the end for our military involvement and how do we achieve it?

The short answer is, I don't know.

The model was designed to explain why things were not going as I thought they should in Afghanistan. I was a firm believer in the liberal COIN model. After about five years I have come to this.

You are completely accurate in that my model says that economic changes facilitate social changes that result in political changes. This is a general pattern based on human needs and therefore should be applicable despite cultural differences. That is not to say that cultural differences don't matter. When there is a stable agricultural economy with some trading AND there is a communal value system the model predicts that any one of several communal systems can be stable - anything from a theocracy to a monarchy - even communism can work. The model is built on the idea of political legitimacy being associated with societal values. But, on occasion, legitimacy can be built on personality - Weber's Charisma - which throws a wild card into the mix. I can only guess at the probability of stability, I cannot guarantee it.

The model is more helpful in predicting instability based on a mismatch of economic and social factors than it is on saying which side will win out. For example, under that same scenario (stable agriculture with some trading but limited manufacturing and a communal value system) both a monarchy and a communist system could be stable. In a fight between the two the model is generally silent on which one will win out. It cannot predict which one of two monarchs are likely to win under the same conditions if there is an internal power struggle between factions. Likewise, in a separatist situation where both sides have the same economic and social conditions it is just as unhelpful. What it can do is predict that the odds of installing a functional democracy in a society that is barely living above subsistence level with strong collectivist (tribal) values is next to nil.

As for our current doctrine, you are also completely accurate when you say it has things backwards. This is its fatal flaw. Further, the FM 5-34 also only allows for one form of legitimacy, one built on individualistic values. That won't work in a collectivist society. You have to build a network of client/patron relationships. You have to support what westerners see as corruption and human rights violations. A difficult sell politically. Arreguin-Toft's model of strong/weak state and direct/indirect conflict is accurate in that the only way to suppress a weak state counterinsurgency is through barbarism. I would argue that this is not because the state is weak, it is because the weak state tend to have a different value system. The same economic conditions that make them weak predict that they have communal values that respond better to a show of brute strength than a helping hand. That said, I do not believe you have to resort to barbarism to keep order, but I don't know what mix of tactics best supports stability and does not run afoul of Western societal sentiments.

It is really not the economic conditions that matter, although that has been the best proxy I can come up with. It is more quality of life which would include things like security in all its forms (food, peace and stability, the belief in a better future, that my children will live to adulthood, that I will not be killed or have my property taken from me, and a job that pays my bills and then some). That is the catalyst that causes the people to transition from worrying about security to caring about autonomy and ultimately demanding more freedoms. As long as you keep the people scared and hungry (Ala North Korea) they will embrace dictatorship. So, if we are promoting democracy, we need to promote economic security and then wait, perhaps a generation or two, for the society to change. We must also realize that by doing this we are going to create instability. We have to learn to help control that instability and assist the society in it's transition. We can't do it for them.

Back to the question, I really don't know how much help this theory, which I shall dub my theory of conditional values, can be to COIN strategy.

I would add one comment. It is clear that this is a social, not a military, theory. That does not mean the Army is off the hook. Do to the conditions in regions where there is instability the Army is probably the only element that can function in that environment. We are the Land Forces Combatant Commander - which I translate into the Army being the occupying authority. We don't like that. We prefer big tank fights. But big tank fights are probably not in our future. The world is going to vacillate between communal and individualistic values for some time to come. I believe that we had better figure out how to manage the instability that is part and parcel to those transitions.