Quote Originally Posted by KingJaja View Post
David,

Can I put it a bit more bluntly? The US simply lacks the understanding/context to form an effective military partnership with many African states.

Why is this so? You cannot understand a nation from the comfort of a fortress-like embassy in the capital. The US will either get played or have to depend on the judgement of former colonial powers like Britain and France (who might have their own agenda).

How does the US break this vicious circle? Don't know.
Over the past few decades I have come to believe that our Department of State really doesn't mind driving blind. They're not an organization that habitually questions their assumptions. They push whatever their agenda is and seek the most expedient means to pursue that agenda, and in many cases do so without even trying to understanding of the context and how this will play out over time. Of course even if they wanted to gain understanding, that understanding will remain elusive if they don't navigate outside of diplomatic circles. This is not true for all embassies, but it does reflect the culture of most. The classic book, "The Ugly American" still accurately represents the culture of our country teams in too many cases.

The military is little better as this particular example points out. We too quickly rush to the easiest path so we take a "by, with, and through" approach. Any willing surrogate will do, and then we'll fool ourselves into believing we're on the legitimate path to victory regardless of how flawed our surrogates eventually prove themselves to be.

If we continue to rush in without first gaining understanding it is probable that we'll continue to create new problems, sometimes more problems, than the ones we attempted to solve. I think the only way to move beyond this haphazard approach is to make a concerted effort on gaining a holistic understanding of these issues in collaboration with multiple others (our views need to be challenged to see if they stand up to the sniff test). How we organize to do this is the million dollar question. Another issue in my opinion is that we all too often have policy influenced by think tanks in D.C.. They should be voice, but over the years they gained excessive influence.

The good news for us is that all we're all collectively stupid. I haven't seen any other powerful nations do it any better than we do, so relatively we're not that bad, but that shouldn't be our standard.