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Thread: Modernization Theory is Hokum.

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default Modernization Theory is Hokum.

    OK, my next project is an attack on Modernization theory. Who is with me!?

    My argument is in two parts. 1st, Modernization theory (in its various incarnations from Vietnam to present) is wrong. Second, it is not the Army's job to engage in social engineering.

    Thoughts?
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 07-31-2013 at 03:42 AM.
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    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Not sure I'd say complete hokum, but it remains a very theoretical discipline, and open to nearly infinite dispute. Anyone trying to draw discrete conclusions from the theory, far more so anyone trying to base policy, strategy, or tactics on it is treading on very thin ice.

    I fully agree that it is not the Army's job to engage in social engineering, and I'd take it a step farther and say that any attempt by the US government to engage in social engineering, through any agency, should be viewed with great suspicion.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default You're gonna make me change my mind

    I fully agree that it is not the Army's job to engage in social engineering, and I'd take it a step farther and say that any attempt by the US government to engage in social engineering, through any agency, should be viewed with great suspicion.
    But governments do it all the time. They do it through inoculation programs that skew the population density. They do it through the tax code that favors married couples or by deciding who can marry who. They do it through any number of rules that regulate your life "for the better". They don't call it social engineering, but the result is the same.

    So is the social engineering the Army is directed to do just "the continuation of policy by other means"?

    Isn't it our policy to spread democracy?

    If it is, isn't it our job to mold the population of our target country/population; to till the soil so that it can accept the seeds of representative government?

    While I don't like it, I am not sure I can make a cogent argument against it.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 07-31-2013 at 04:40 PM.

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    Default I like ...

    the concept of the US being the shining light on top of the hill - without trying to build lampposts all over the world. But, that is contrary to the rhetoric of a number of Presidents that "Americans can do anything". Grrr..

    Regards

    Mike

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    Default I posted on this on an earlier thread

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    But governments do it all the time. They do it through inoculation programs that skew the population density. They do it through the tax code that favors married couples or by deciding who can marry who. They do it through any number of rules that regulate your life "for the better". They don't call it social engineering, but the result is the same.

    So is the social engineering the Army is directed to do just "the continuation of policy by other means"?

    Isn't it our policy to spread democracy?

    If it is, isn't it our job to mold the population of our target country/population; to till the soil so that it can accept the seeds of representative government?

    While I don't like it, I am not sure I can make a cogent argument against it.
    http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15993

    I think you had some nice comments too?

    Molding populations on the behalf of the other is a fool's errand, and, no, the military is not always instructed to do this. For instance, the President wanted options that would allow him to draw down in Afghanistan and focus on CT but the Army didn't want to do that.

    Even within the "spread democracy" examples the military got off track on theories like RMA which didn't leave enough troops for post conflict stabilization.

    How this turned into a conversation about the military building schools as its primary operation or tactical or whatever focus is beyond me.

    See, I shouldn't comment because it's too time consuming

    PS: Supporting the formation of a government is not synonymous with molding populations. Not everything is population-centric in this sense.

    Policy changes from administration to administration and according to national mood, so any operational focus on molding populations is doomed to failure. The military has an obligation to make the true costs of this fool's errand known to its civilian oversears which did not always happen in the examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq.

    How did such collossal intellectual confusion make its way into our collective national security complex psyche?
    Last edited by Madhu; 07-31-2013 at 06:20 PM. Reason: PS

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default Good Question

    How did such collossal intellectual confusion make its way into our collective national security complex psyche?
    That is a question that I would like to explore, but that is for another day.

    For those of you who want a short history of the modern version of moderinization theory I offer this:

    Modernization theory -- the belief that industrialization and economic development lead directly to positive social and political change -- has been a subject of intense scholarly and policy interest for more than half a century. It came back into vogue in Washington during the 1990s, thanks to the global spread of free markets and the third wave of democratization, and continues to inform much of U.S. policy toward the developing world. After decades of derision, moreover, a loose or weak version of it is experiencing a revival in the academy as well -- something that would assuredly delight or appall the bloodied combatants in the field's original theoretical battles. ...
    Has links to references.

    http://www.foreignaffairs.com/featur...ization-theory

    BTW Madhu, it was your linking Modernization to CORDS that made me think this migh be worth exploring.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 07-31-2013 at 07:18 PM.
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    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    But governments do it all the time. They do it through inoculation programs that skew the population density. They do it through the tax code that favors married couples or by deciding who can marry who. They do it through any number of rules that regulate your life "for the better". They don't call it social engineering, but the result is the same.
    I was sloppy; meant to say "any attempt by the US government to engage in social engineering outside the United States..." Social engineering attempts within the borders may not always be well advised, but they aren't entirely ridiculous.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    So is the social engineering the Army is directed to do just "the continuation of policy by other means"?

    Isn't it our policy to spread democracy?

    If it is, isn't it our job to mold the population of our target country/population; to till the soil so that it can accept the seeds of representative government?
    This touches on another question. I've often pointed out on these threads that this is a policy that invites failure. People from the military side, not unreasonably, point out that they don't set the policy, they just have to try to implement it as best they can, whether or not it's pointless and self-defeating. Under those circumstances, it makes sense to talk about how best to execute a bad policy. At the same time, though, it's easy to get so deep in that conversation that we forget to mention that, at root, this is simply bad policy. If we lose sight of that, the chances of repeating these policies, perhaps under the guise of "the policy isn't the problem, we just need to do it right", increase.

    Part of the problem, to me, is that American policymakers have a real aversion to entering a small war with limited, pragmatic objectives. They want the objectives to sound noble and grand, like "spreading democracy". Limited, pragmatic objectives don't have the same ring to them.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    While I don't like it, I am not sure I can make a cogent argument against it.
    I try, with limited success.

    Re this:

    the belief that industrialization and economic development lead directly to positive social and political change
    Is to me not entirely unreasonable, though of course the extent, nature and pace of change are not going to be predictable, and "positive" is in the eye of the beholder. Our error, to me, lies in the assumption that "industrialization and economic development" are deliverable goods that can simply be "installed", like a spare tire or a light bulb, in an environment where they did not previously exist. This belief is not consistent with experience or common sense, and needs to be... re-examined, at least.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    This touches on another question. I've often pointed out on these threads that this is a policy that invites failure. People from the military side, not unreasonably, point out that they don't set the policy, they just have to try to implement it as best they can, whether or not it's pointless and self-defeating.
    Part of the "point" of this endeavor is to teach military people enough about this theory so they can recognize when it is pointless. Essentially, use the theory to prove that it is not applicable in this situations.

    I think I can do it, but I need to have a firm basis in the history of the theory and its evolution to where it is now. Boring background, but necessary.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    Default A little historical help

    Based on my research I have found that Modernization theory dates back to the late eighteenth century. The idea was that industrialization leads to changes in society. These changes are then attributed later with leading to modern democracy.

    The problem in my mind is that the industrial revolution seems to start in the mid 1700s while the changes that allowed for democracy can be traced back at least 100 years earlier people like Hugo Grotius and events like the Glorious Revolution. Yet by the time Modernization was reinvigorated in the 1950's it was tied to economics and a pair of symposiums, one of which produced "Some social requisites of democracy", one of the most downloaded articles around. But even from there the theory morphs. The CORDS version of it seems to be tied to Capitalism and Commercialism - the Iraq/Afghanistan version tied to institutional forms. The common thread is that as things get better people want cosmopolitanism and political change. The idea that somehow industrialization and/or capitalism has lead to democracy. But it seems the other way around.

    Anyone seen anything different?
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    Council Member Fuchs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Based on my research I have found that Modernization theory dates back to the late eighteenth century. The idea was that industrialization leads to changes in society. These changes are then attributed later with leading to modern democracy.

    (...)

    Anyone seen anything different?

    An excuse for colonialism was to bring civilisation to savages...

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    Default Hmmmm....

    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    An excuse for colonialism was to bring civilisation to savages...
    I guess it's true what they say -- the more things change the more they stay the same.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    It is possible, but it depends on circumstances, the resistance of natives to imported ideas, and how they perceive the source.

    The Vietnamese are quite receptive to new ideas that will improve their lives, they'd resist them if it came from a colonial or occupying force where the intent is to tighten control over their lives, as compared to the present policy of exploiting capitalism to advance the GDP, improve the lives of the proletariat and enrich the elite.

    Afghanistan requires a critical mass of urbanization to counter balance the warlords and tribal elders who are protective of the influence they command in their bailiwicks, and the Taliban who tap into a deeply embedded independent minded paranoiac patriarchal culture to justify and sustain their insurgency and eventual power grab. Outside of those who are directly bribed by the Americans (Karzai) and those with the most to lose (educated women), you won't have that required bedrock of support.

    In fifty years Afghanistan might be comfortable with accepting the benefits of civilization.

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    Default I am not sure ...

    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    It is possible, but it depends on circumstances, the resistance of natives to imported ideas, and how they perceive the source.
    I am not sure I totally agree with this. Being an outsider, particularly one that has already been demonized by the religious leadership (Infidels) means that you have a harder time selling your ideas where they differ from the ideas of the population. But if the ideas match those of the local population I think your job is much easier.

    An example is roads. Building a road is a "Muslim" thing to do. It benifits the Ummah (population in general). I had a local national tell my XO "you can build your road, but we don't want your religion or your culture."

    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    The Vietnamese are quite receptive to new ideas that will improve their lives, they'd resist them if it came from a colonial or occupying force where the intent is to tighten control over their lives, as compared to the present policy of exploiting capitalism to advance the GDP, improve the lives of the proletariat and enrich the elite.
    I am not sure about this. Vietnam doesn't like new ideas even if they come from within the country.

    Vietnam restricts social media posts

    "Personal electronic sites are only allowed to put news owned by that person, and are not allowed to 'quote', 'gather' or summarise information from press organisations or government websites,” local media quoted Hoang Vinh Bao, director of the Broadcasting and Electronic Information Department at the Ministry of Information and Communications, as saying.
    That is not unique to Vietnam, it is the nature of any like situated society (to a point).

    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    Afghanistan requires a critical mass of urbanization to counter balance the warlords and tribal elders who are protective of the influence they command in their bailiwicks, and the Taliban who tap into a deeply embedded independent minded paranoiac patriarchal culture to justify and sustain their insurgency and eventual power grab.
    This "urbanization" myth is exactly what I am talking about. Urbanization has existed for centuries. Most city-states were urban. Yet they were not modern democracies. Urbanization is associated with increased income and GDP, but not necessarily required by it. The changes that bring about a more open society are social.


    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    In fifty years Afghanistan might be comfortable with accepting the benefits of civilization.
    I am not sure what you mean by the "benefits of civilization", and no offense to the Afghans, but unless they find a way to harness and sell solar power or we make heroin legal, Afghanistan will look pretty much exactly the way it does not in fifty years. Without a steady source of income and a substantial rise in per capita GDP, nothing there is going to change.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
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    While current regimes and their immediate successors aren't irrelevant, when it's clear that they seem ineffectual or passively aggressively resistant to the policies you want to have implemented, the focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the next generation, which is a rather long term investment.

    This may sound trite, but you want to create a consumer society that wants to connect with the rest of the world, where the kids are indoctrinated to want to drink coke and eat at McDonald's. You might even say corrupting the national moral fibre. With it comes the drive to buy electronic toys and consume media especially stuff that turns out to be very relateable and easily pirated. Essentially, you want the populace to be want what the West has and to be able to live that lifestye.

    Gandhi disliked railroads for two reasons. It destroyed his non-existent nostalgic concept of how India should be, and identified it as one of the cornerstones of how the British maintained their rule over the subcontinent, and the facilitation of it's economic exploitation. While I wouldn't know of any community that doesn't welcome a better road system, if one is built, it will allow the world to have a deeper impact on rural life, and perhaps on the tactical side, make it difficult or impossible to set up ambushes or plant IEDs without immediately detecting them.

    The Vietnamese government might want to keep the lid down without curtailing economic development, but the Vietnamese themselves want everything the world can give them and get rich.

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    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
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    Default Long term investment

    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    While current regimes and their immediate successors aren't irrelevant, when it's clear that they seem ineffectual or passively aggressively resistant to the policies you want to have implemented, the focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the next generation, which is a rather long term investment.
    Here we agree. Assuming that non-destructive social engineering is possible it would have to be inter-generational.

    I define non-destructive social engineering as things other than genocide, internment camps, re-education camps, or extreme forms of forced change.

    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    This may sound trite, but you want to create a consumer society that wants to connect with the rest of the world, where the kids are indoctrinated to want to drink coke and eat at McDonald's. You might even say corrupting the national moral fibre. With it comes the drive to buy electronic toys and consume media especially stuff that turns out to be very relateable and easily pirated. Essentially, you want the populace to be want what the West has and to be able to live that lifestye.
    I think this was the idea behind the Vietnam era modernization theory. They thought commercialism was the cure for communism. I think commercialism comes AS A RESULT of other, more fundamental cultural changes.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    They thought commercialism was the cure for communism.
    They were very likely right, in the long run. They misjudged the time frame, and they mistakenly believed that commercialism, or modernization, or industrialization, or development, can be inserted into another country, rather than developing organically.

    Industrialization, modernity, commercialism do change societies. I don't think there's much doubt about that. We cannot reliably predict what changes will result or how long it will take them to emerge, and we cannot externally impose or engineer commercialism, modernity, development or industrialization.

    I don't think anyone can point to a case, anywhere, where meaningful "development" was engineered from the outside. Countries do develop, but they cannot "be developed" by an external force.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    I don't think anyone can point to a case, anywhere, where meaningful "development" was engineered from the outside. Countries do develop, but they cannot "be developed" by an external force.
    Sure they can, even without colonization.
    It's just not worth the effort, for the self-sustaining indigenous forces for development are almost free by comparison and more powerful by orders of magnitude.

    The question is thus not one of how to push a foreign country to modernity, but whether there's a trigger for making it move towards a certain development direction on its own and how to identify and activate it.

    Compare *shameless self-promotion* my text about Germany's post-WW2 recovery, for example */shameless self-promotion*.


    A trigger for an average African country - say Zambia - could be to find a way how the powers that be can profit of giving women much more relevance in the non-subsistence economy. Add the Japanese custom of wifes managing family finances (an awesome limiter on alcohol and cigarette consumption as well as whoring), maybe through some African-made movies, bank regulations and the like. This could lead to substantial economic growth.

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    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    A trigger for an average African country - say Zambia - could be to find a way how the powers that be can profit of giving women much more relevance in the non-subsistence economy. Add the Japanese custom of wifes managing family finances (an awesome limiter on alcohol and cigarette consumption as well as whoring), maybe through some African-made movies, bank regulations and the like. This could lead to substantial economic growth.
    I'm sure it could, but the probability of these changes being successfully introduced or imposed by an outside power approaches zero.

    The re-development of Germany and Japan post WW2 may have been supported by external resources, but it would be an enormous stretch to say they were "developed" purely through external intervention, and any comparison to efforts to externally impose development, modernization, etc in environments where these did not previously exist will be strained beyond any possible utility. Re-modernizing and re-industrializing a modern industrial state that has seen the physical basis for modernity destroyed by conflict is a fundamentally different problem than modernizing and industrializing a state that has never known modernity and industry. The former is, essentially, a problem of engineering and finance. The latter is not.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

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    Simply put, you have to convince them it was their own idea.

    As for Germany and Japan, besides the fact they were well on the road to Westernization and modernization pre-War, the shock of their loss and utter devastation of their respective countries and economies, combined with the determination to recreate themselves, generously supported and protected by the United States with a national culture that enshrined perfectionism and a work ethic, it seems the effort was worthwhile.

    This may be less effective in regions that has seen conquering armies transit to more welcoming climes, and the populace with infinite patience can wait out the invader.

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    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by condottiere View Post
    Simply put, you have to convince them it was their own idea.
    Good luck with that. It's harder than it sounds, especially if you've got a whole bunch of armed men running around the place at the time.

    It's sometimes suggested that outside powers can promote these agendas by finding and supporting local groups that support those agendas. That often backfires: the support invariably becomes publicized, and what might have been perceived as local folks with a progressive agenda come to be seen as agents of foreign powers.

    PS: I confess that the thought of Germany being "well on the road to Westernization" amuses me intensely. It was hardly necessary for the West to Westernize Germany; being intrinsically of the West, it was already "Westernized". Speaking of "Westernizing" Germany would be like speaking of "Americanizing" Ohio.
    Last edited by Dayuhan; 08-04-2013 at 01:32 AM.
    “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

    H.L. Mencken

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