This is a fantastic thread. I am definitely going to follow-up on some of the posted links.

@ TheCurmudgeon - I think you're right about the democracy bit. I've got more to post on that, but for now, more quotes on modernization that might be helpful to this discussion:

From a paper I linked above (History of Insurgency - How PME forgot history, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 2009, JE Gumz)

Another glaring historically transcendent assumption in the current COIN literature is its reliance upon mobilization, modernization, and development leading to democratic forms of governance and free market economies as the answer to insurgency. In this sense, we are truly returning to the Vietnam War yet as with most modernization theories, history is jettisoned to the side as an obstacle to be overcome. As many have argued, modernization theory tends to flatten difference and place countries on a universal trajectory of develoment. Thus, in the section on logical lines of operations in FM 3-24, some of the goals include 'support and secure elections,' 'support broad-based economic opportunity (micro to macro development) and 'support a free market economy.