The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Dayuhan]

HN must be out front. Sorry not to state something so obvious. In fact, best if the HN is doing this all by itself, all the time, and never requiring any outside assistance what so ever.

Which goes to my points that COIN is no more and no less than the continuous process of governance by the HN for its own populace.

Having this same discussion on another thread, I guess that's not too unusual.

It may be obvious that the HN government must be out front, but it seems equally obvious to me that if the HN government had the will and capacity to be there, there wouldn't be any need for our presence. If we're in the picture, the HN government probably lacks that will and capacity in the first place.

This is why I caution severely any (and this is most) who think they are doing COIN when they go to another's country. To take such a perspective on your role is to set yourself on a course of inappropriate actions and mission creep. And I don't see the fact that one invaded and removed the existing government as an excuse unless you also annexed the country and claimed it as your own and intend to keep it as such. Otherwise, you are back in the FID role again and need to work diligently to not take on too much of the role of the sovereign, nor to create too much of a perception that the new government draws its legitmacy more from you the invader than from the populace of that land. Tricky business all around.

A very tricky business. In our current case, the perception that the host government draws its legitimacy and existence from us is already there. We choose between trying to take on responsibility ourselves, and possibly undermining the government we wish to succeed, or passing responsibility to a government that often has neither the will nor the capacity to use that responsibility to achieve what we believe to be the necessary goals. It's a thin line to walk and in some cases there may be little or no space between those poles.