Economics and Irregular Warfare

[Surferbeetle]

Surferbeetle, And a Merry Christmas to you and yours.

Same to you Bill

…however, my point has been and remains that building schools doesn't counter active insurgencies.

We were in Vietnam for ~30 years. Compulsory education in Vietnam appears to consist of the first five years of primary school. If the compulsory requirement was indeed five years during the conflict it then follows that both sides had a crack at influencing 6 cohorts of potential insurgents. I do not know of any sources which examine the capture rate of students by the two ideologies but is an interesting point to consider.

…IMO we need to focus on this first, then rapidly shift into infrastructure development as security conditions permit, and infrastructure development must be tied to political mobilization.

Bill, here is what I have lived:

1. During my year in Iraq, OIF1, we executed the 'three block war'. 24/7 security operations attempted to blanket the AO as me and mine ran seven day a week assessments and coordination meetings focusing on governance and economics issues for the first half of my war. During the second half of the war we dropped down to six days a week. We provided our own security throughout.
2. During my time in Central America me and mine ran six day a week assessments and coordination meetings. We provided our own security with augmentation throughout.
3. During my international engineering work we usually provide on our own security.

All of it is dangerous to some degree, but the need for security, governance (politics, electricity, clean water, etc.) and economics (business) does not stop just because some armed folks are fighting in one of the three blocks. Simultaneous lines of operation in economics, governance, and security will be provided by one side or the other; if we abdicate the field under fire how does this advance our objectives?

…To defeat an insurgency, which is political warfare at the grass roots level, you have to organize the populace at the grass roots level to counter the insurgents. Building a school and a road or giving out jobs without tying it to actively counter organizing politically against the insurgents is, again IMO, in COIN is simply a neutral activity at best.

I agree.

…In short I think you can be effective with your approach if you connect all the dots and tie those efforts to the greater cause. Bill

Like you, I am more than willing to play team.


I posted this one in another thread, but for completeness I will post it here. The ideas are pretty interesting and the math is mostly confined to the appendix.

The Coevolution of Economic and Political Development by Fali Huang of Singapore Management University

This paper establishes a simple model of long run economic and political development, which is driven by the inherent technical features of different factors in production, and political conflicts among factor owners on how to divide the outputs. The main capital form in economy evolves from land to physical capital and then to human capital, which enables the respective factor owners (landlords, capitalists, and workers) to gain political powers in the same sequence, shaping the political development path from monarchy to elite ruling and finally to full suffrage. When it is too costly for any group of factor owners to repress others, political compromise is reached and economic progress is not blocked; otherwise, the political conflicts may lead to economic stagnation.

This one does not pull too many punches regarding our reconstruction efforts. Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience