Nation-Building Elevated

[M-A Lagrange]

Steve,

Thanks and sorry for the bad English and spelling… (Have a ####ty computer at work. Luckily, I also suffer from insomnia and a recent computer at "home").

Now let's make the last move: the link between State building and war: COIN.

There again, I'll come back to CvC. What is the aim of war? To impose a political dictate to an opponent disagreeing with you (Sorry Wilf, I do not have the book with me).
How do you achieve it? By imposing either a policy to an enemy or by imposing a government favorable to your views.
This drives us back to the article at the beginning of the threat: "winning peace".

Basically the new paradigm of war is that for modern armies, the technological, the firepower, manpower and training difference is so huge that the conventional confrontation phase (Shock) is no more a problem. Cf Iraq, Afghanistan…
What are the new strategic phases are the "hold" phase and the "build" phase.
Hold should be the imposition of a monopole of violence by a new actor creating the condition to build a Weberian State. That's basically what nobody is good at. Especially when you face two main oppositions:
- First, one or several bodies not willing to let you be the new owner of the monopoly of violence. Cf Iraq and the "insurgency" led by Sadam Husen in a first time then the civil war that followed when there were no traces of the former State apparatus. All the Shia/Sunny conflict in Iraq is based on that competition between the US and each communities/cite (in Greek in the text) to have the monopoly of violence on a limited piece of land. In addition to that, you had the Al Quada threat which was willing to challenge the US on its capacity to be the external owner of the monopole of violence. (It's a resume).
- Secondly a context/cultural opposition (mainly Afghanistan) based on the opposition of Stateless societies to State society. Basically the tribes/warlords/druglords being opposed to any kind of centralized State.
In some extend Radical religious ideology can be more or less assimilated to Stateless actors (that's what they what to make us believe). But as JMM demonstrated in fact, the Caliphate or what ever else form of Religious Government is a Sate based society.
This is where State and Nation building enter in the game.

The confrontation is no more based on military legitimacy but on people legitimacy. War among the people is not only a war taking place among the people as a theatre of operation but the battle for the domination of the people as define in CvC trinity.
Some simplistic minds take it as reversing CvC: the use of force to establish/legitimate leadership on people.
The problem is unfortunately more complex as the CvC trinity is not dissociable, works in both senses (there is always a looser) and is the root of the cite.
So you have to challenge the previous cite by a new cite model.
This is where my personal obsession for Foucault comes from. (The critic of elections as a technical tool to build democracy like Weberian State).

State Building/Nation Building and COIN:
COIN, as the Surge, is based on State building: build a State apparatus that will have the characteristics we want (Elite, copycat administration, rule of law as primary policy…)
Population centric COIN is based on COIN + the new end of Modern State: the responsibility to protect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/20...m11701.doc.htm, http://www.operationspaix.net/IMG/pd...e-16-Final.pdf...).

The main challenge of Nation building is to build this responsibility to protect while State building is to build the State Apparatus that will allow to develop/impose (pick up the one you like) an economy that will support it.

PS: you also made me touch the very limits of my underground culture. I love South Park but was much unaware of the underpants gnomes business model. Too much time in field I believe and not enough in front of TV.

M-A