Bob, my shots are directed at your argument, not you. I think the argument that we "need" to always address the underlying root cause is dangerously misleading. Sri Lanka is another example of where the world is continuing to pay for bad British decisions (not unlike most of the Middle East). Tamils were imported to Sri Lanka to work the tea plantations and given some degree of preference. This gets at my opposition to the "its the tribe stupid" strategy (if you dare call it a strategy). When your policies drive a wedge between peoples, the underlying issue is hate and greed, not poor government (governments can contribute to the level of hate as Hitler's party did, but it can't extinguish the level of hate / greed, as we saw in our own reconstruction efforts in the south after the Civil War).

There was no amount of good governance after the conflict started that would bring the conflict to an end in Sri Lanka, and one side had to win, or the people would have continued to suffer for more years if the war continued to drag out without a decisive victory (no matter how short lived it may be).

War amongst peoples is rarely if ever rational, it is based upon emotion, not simply some government policy. Those colonized hated their colonizers. After the colonizers left there were (and many continue) many battles for power, but not so much over failed governance, it was just that some other group wanted to be charge so they could steal from the people.

The issue wasn't good governance and very few people are fighting for it, they're fighting for their tribe, group, religion, region, etc.

Every conflict is different, but I would argue in wars amongst people very few are about good governance for the collective whole, but rather what's in it for their group. We can support this baboon level of society by playing tribal games, or we can try to instill western forms of government, but I suspect both will backfire. What will work, has been proven to work, is defeating our enemies in battle, and we all know that victory (all victories) are short lived affairs.