Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
Col. Jones, I have two main problems with your thesis:

To begin - a question: How do you reconcile the irreconcilable? How do you address, through governance, populations with mutually exclusive and irreconcilable desires? This is an issue I've brought up several times that you haven't yet addressed.

The Balkans is a case that illustrates the this point well. I would submit that keeping Yugoslavia together without oppressive force was not possible. Only the gun worked and you're right in the sense that the gun will usually only work for a relatively short period of time. I submit that there was no "good governance" that could have accommodated everyone and kept Yugoslavia whole. Tito opening a dialog with his people to improve governance would only have hastened collapse. Yugoslavia isn't an isolated case - there are certainly other "nations" that are only kept whole through the threat of force. That is a problem that I don't believe "good governance" can solve unless good governance includes dissolving governance altogether and restructuring political boundaries.

Your call for oppressive governments to hold talks on grievances with the populace might work in some cases, but would fail in states where internal irreconcilable differences exist.

Secondly, the most important aspect of governance is the ability to actually govern. The ability to govern requires the power to implement and enforce governance, whatever it is, and prevent competitors from implementing theirs. Without that power there can be no governance, much less "good" governance. "OK" governance backed by credible power to actually govern is going to beat "good" governance backed by weak power.

While I agree there is a lot of bad governance out of Kabul (strongly abetted by the constitution), the government, more fundamentally, lacks the capability to govern at all. The Kabul government couldn't become an oppressive regime even if it wanted to. It's complete dependency on the the US and other foreign powers is only the most glaring sign of its weakness. Weakness = bad governance, even when a government is trying to do good.

More on a deal with the Taliban tomorrow....
Bottom line is that one can't make sustaining any particular status quo a non-negotiable going in position.

The Balkans naturally broke into to sustainable parts based on the critical criteria of religion that shaped the "teams" when the violence there first erupted. Perhaps someday those states may come back together for reasons of security or economics as issues evolve and change. To have attempted to force a unified solution may have been impossible 10 years ago.

Forcing a unified solution in Iraq probably complicated things there, and is probably complicating things in Afghanistan as well. We get too wrapped around the axle on how we define a sovereign, functioning state and try to create conditions that meet a model that in truth, (controlled borders) we can't even meet ourselves.

Even in the US we had to begin with articles of Confederation for creation, and then evolve to a Constitution for growth and survival, and even that was severely tested in Civil War. It was all self-imposed, so we worked through it. Imagine if France would have forced a model on us as the price for their assistance against England? Anything forced by an stronger outside power would have lacked legitimacy and also damaged the legitimacy of our own leaders and we probably would not have made it.

So I would be cautious as to how we define "irreconcilable"; as we may just mean someone who refuses to share our vision for their country.

As to capacity for governance, that will come with time. Good Governance is not about effective governance. Like parenting, a young couple that starts off with Good Parenting will make mistakes, learn, and grow into effective parenting. We are too quick to over-value effectiveness of governance. Plenty of populaces around the world do very well and are very satisfied with ineffective governance. Our own model designed by the COIN-master Madison is designed to be ineffective on purpose to facilitate "Goodness."