I have been reading Mark Moyar's new book, "A Question of Command" and have come to the initial thought that the lack of strong "military occupations" in both Iraq and Afghanistan were negative contributing factors to those campaigns. He covers several historical examples where strong military governance - executed by effective leaders was a strong factor in a successful counterinsurgency campaign. Strong military oversight of civilian functions during the early stages of an occupation in order to establish the illusive "Unity of Command" are important. The disaster that was the Bremer experiment in Iraq, or the empowering of the Warlord class in Afghanistan both can be argued to steam from a misplaced desire to utilize indigenous non-military leaders/agencies to fulfill the role of economic, political, social change agent.Originally Posted by Kevin23
Perhaps someone with more historical knowledge than me, could comment on the role of "military occupations" during/post WWII vs the hybrid model that were developed in Iraq and Afghanistan, where security was the primary role of the military and civilian authorities (both indigenous and foreign based) were the primary drivers of social, economic, and political change. Of particular interest might be how the Soviet's dealt with these issues, post WWII.
The thesis I would like to test would be something roughly along the lines of :
"The military is uniquely suited to conduct occupation operations in contested theaters, ensuring unity of command, where civilian organizations are likely to fail due to their inability to deal with risks from hostile actors such as insurgents."
Such a discussion could be very interesting in the context of analyzing Afghanistan. For instance, one might argue for greater military governance over areas where there is little or no central government presence, or where corruption totally mitigates the effectiveness of such a central government presence.
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