Well to introduce myself, I am a CPT in the US Army. I have some fellow friends in Afghanistan and Iraq who are commanders, BN S3A, or BN/BDE S4s. I have heard from them including my personal experience the diffculties of having to develop a local community. It seems the Joint and highest echelons of the US Army leadership anticipate (based upon current doctrine) that our officers have to develop the local communities in their AOR, but have not provided them the know how in either the schools or manuals.
I'm concerned about the long term effect this may have especially in countries that are not developed such as Afghanistan. Imagine a company or battalion commander who has significant amount of CERP funds and all of a sudden is investing these funds in a tiny community, the impact is major in a positive sense but also negative too. Its a double edged sword.
Security will always be the most important line of operation, but economics is always going to be second most important (or at least it should be with the framework of COIN). If the military wholeheartedly adds irregular warfare to the spectrum of operations, it needs to find ways to educate its officers and prepare them for not only the security challenges, but the cultural challenges which includes economics as well. Each society views property differently as they do with capital, wealth and many other economic terms....these are all related to COIN, stablization, reconstruction, etc. We and the force need to be aware of this and understand the dynamics of economics to be successful.
If a community relies on the US to provide financial resources, can the local, provincial or national governments support them if the US leaves? If not, then all that was done was for nothing.
Thanks for the replies and hope to hear some more....
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