Modernization/Development Theory, CORDS, and FM 3-24?

[TheCurmudgeon]

there is nothing wrong with enforcing our interests and demanding acceptance of our goals. The wrong-headedness comes in when we decide that we are so fed up with our opponents that we will try to change them. By way of analogy - imprisoning a murderer vs. rehabilitating him and releasing him back in the hope he is reformed and useful. We can't seem to help ourselves from slipping from enforcement to rehabilitation. But just as with murderers, no one seems to know exactly how rehabilitation works or how long it takes.

You missed the third option, the death penalty, or regime change.

This is where there is a real ideological divide between us all. Those that see export of democracy as imperative, those that see export of liberal political systems as imperative, and those that seek neither. The true tension of the discussion is with which of these ideologies rests the burden of proof. Do the exporters have to prove to the non-intereference crowd that it should be done? Or do the non-intereference crowd prove to the exporters that it shouldn't? and so on.

In my case I am not trying to prove the rightness or wrongness of either policy, interference or non-interference. I am a Soldier. I don't make policy. I see my job as being able to logically argue that, "yes Mr. Secretary, The military can change that regime and replace it with a liberal democracy. It will take fifty years of occupation and $500 Billion for the first ten years. Here is why. We also might have to kill a substantial part of the population either directly or indirectly. Are you sure you still want to pursue this option?"

The thing to remember with all three cases is the huge human toll. There is more than an ounce of discomfort with the proposition that these countries did much of anything worth emulating. Russia killed between 30 and 50 million people between 1905 and 1953 (not counting the 25-30 million from WWII). In that time the country went from looking like it was stuck in 1600’s to mid-20th century. That upheaval is titanic. China lost ungodly millions, again, apart from the benevolent Japanese occupation. And the Japanese, after upending their entire society, wound up killing and losing millions in endless wars of expansion as they sought to feed the economic machines they were modernizing with.

I was not making a moral argument. I was only noting that you could accomplish rapid modernization if you are willing to pay the price. It is that price I am trying to calculate.

Besides, how many people died while France was trying to get it right? How about Yugoslavia? How many do you think will die in Libya before they get it right.

When they say “socioeconomic” to what extent to they distinguish it from cultural change. It seems that is the logical implication of this finding.

Socioeconomic deals primarily with the set of norms, rules, and laws associated with the monetary and other systems of exchange in goods and labor to including labor and property rights and laws. Culture encompasses the entire social structure including all its norms, rules, laws and institutions.

I personally define culture as one societies set of solutions to the problems of meeting its members needs, wants, and desires while maintaining a cohesive social unit.

The point they are trying to make is that it is a multistage process. First you change the socioeconomic system to a level that allows for a change in the value structure of the society. That change in value structure creates a drive to change the political structure. It does not work the other way around. Changing the political structure does not create either the value set or the socioeconomic changes required to maintain that democracy ... so the democracy fails.