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

[Ken White]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

Perhaps I am misreading history but I don't see fights to effect regime change followed by an attempt to alter the character of the next government as an aberration.

The history IMO is unsettled but that is certainly one valid reading of it. A question is whether it is not an aberration but merely a current fad. R2P for example, has about as many detractors as it does supporters and it is possible for that meddlesome wind to shift...

It is more palatable to a liberal mindset to justify war as a quasi-religious fight to spread "democracy" (by which they really mean individual liberties or more correctly individual rights like women's rights).

A less arguable assertion -- but one which, to say the least, has a proven track record of less than stellar success. The cracks in the theory are starting to show and grow.

It is, for better or worse, the future.

Perhaps -- or we could get a bit smarter. No one has done that at all well and the US due to its political system performs more poorly than most. That "liberal mindset" that assumes it knows what is best -- usually for others but not the set mind's self -- is steadily working itself into a state of disrepute. the question is how quickly that fad is replaced by a return to pragmatism. We'll have to wait and see.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Ken White

The history IMO is unsettled but that is certainly one valid reading of it. A question is whether it is not an aberration but merely a current fad. R2P for example, has about as many detractors as it does supporters and it is possible for that meddlesome wind to shift...

I appreciate the open mind ... and you are right, only time will tell.

Can we afford to wait to find out that this was all a bad dream or do we start examining what kind of fighting force, strategies, and tactics we would need to actually engage in such fights -- all that DOTMLPF stuff?

Originally Posted by Ken White

A less arguable assertion -- but one which, to say the least, has a proven track record of less than stellar success. The cracks in the theory are starting to show and grow.

True, the cracks are there. And expectations will need to be curbed. But I don't think the mindset will change. And as I said, it is quasi-religious. People don't need much reason to fight over ideals that are held that dearly. It is almost a moral imperative. There was a time not too long ago when millions of people dying in country on the other side of the world would not even be news. Now R2P stretches the limits of international law in an attempt to enforce individual human rights in countries that don't necessarily feel compelled to abide by them. Countries in which we have limited or no real strategic interest other than the interest in maintaining the global systems themselves. We stretch the law to protect not just the lives of people on the other side of the planet but their rights.

Originally Posted by Ken White

It is Perhaps -- or we could get a bit smarter. No one has done that at all well and the US due to its political system performs more poorly than most. That "liberal mindset" that assumes it knows what is best -- usually for others but not the set mind's self -- is steadily working itself into a state of disrepute. the question is how quickly that fad is replaced by a return to pragmatism. We'll have to wait and see.

Baring an economic collapse, which will reign in all this egalitarian sentiment and force people to only be concerned with their own ingroups, I don't see the vector of Western social philosophy changing. How fast these changes affect the way we do business is hard to say. I believe it has changed them more than we realize. Fourth Generation Warfare my not be a change in the way we fight wars at all but a change in the way Western society interprets the appropriate time, place, and method to conduct war. It is a shift in the way WE view war as a political tool rather than anything really new in the way our enemies, or anyone throughout history, has actually conducted war against an overwhelmingly large and powerful opponent.

Too many ideas for one post. Time for a bourbon.

[Madhu]

....which is a good thing because I kind of like this civilian control of the military thing.

I guess my questions relate to the "once they decide you should go, how to operationalize?" factor.

So, it's a given that there is a certain amount of intellectual rot and hubris in the foreign policy community and even in the military defense literature (every scholarly literature has some rot, it's inevitable), but what does one do?

I understand that some have argued we need to re-engineer the army along pop-coin lines or that we need a SYSAdmin force or something like the colonial constabularies. I don't care for that idea, plus, I don't think it would work given our republican sensibilities and our democracy with changing administrations.

What other ways could we have done things after the 2002-2003 period when we thought we had the Taliban beat, but basically they were just licking their wounds elsewhere. I am aware that some governance stuff is popular with some scholars, like we should have written a different constitution.

What I wonder is did we take our eye off the ball and off of the enemy? Did we go to fast from the kinetic aspects and focusing on the insurgency to the "root causes" governance aspects? I know Robert C. Jones would say that is exactly backwards, and I am sympathetic to his arguments, but the thing is, I'm not sure we can effect the sorts of changes he suggests very well as a part of expeditionary COIN. Even if we had done a better job of balancing out Pashtun representation and Norther Alliance representation in the early period of 202-2003, the other Taliban animated by ethno-religious feeling or even just plain old criminality would have been there. Would it matter? Could we even do such things? Why is the military focused on that stuff? Why not a palette of options?

Once again, I just don't know. Just asking around from people that have actually done some of this stuff.

[Madhu]

Maybe this is all really working but it is hard for me to tell from my outsider vantage point?

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/coin-center-interview

Maybe it's working after a fashion? I fervently hope so.

[Dayuhan]

Originally Posted by Madhu

What I wonder is did we take our eye off the ball and off of the enemy? Did we go to fast from the kinetic aspects and focusing on the insurgency to the "root causes" governance aspects?

The idea of governance as a root cause of insurgency is not entirely wrong, but like most ideas, when it's applied without full consideration for context or without realistic assessment of the capacity of those attempting to apply the idea, bad things can happen.

Two problems:

First, looking at "governance" as a root cause of insurgency in post regime change situations overlooks a blue whale in the drawing room: regime change itself. When a domestic government is removed by external force and a subsequent government installed by the same force, the way that government governs is only a small part of its legitimacy problem. Very few people appreciate having governance of any sort imposed on them by foreigners, and thinking we can step around that hurdle by providing better governance is unrealistic. We're likely to find that the issue isn't governance, the issue is us. We're also likely to find that our capacity to serve as mediator between a government we installed and any other interests or factions is very limited, as we are (not unreasonably) perceived as anything but neutral.

Second, our interest in undercutting insurgency by improving governance has to be tempered by realization that our ability to conjure up good governance in other countries is intrinsically limited. The idea that good government can be "installed" and nations "built" by outside influence is inherently perverse and needs to be retired permanently. Good government isn't built or installed, it grows, through an organic, evolutionary process that often involves conflict. That process cannot be circumvented. If we feel that we must go about removing regimes we think inappropriate, well then I suppose we must, but we need to do it with full knowledge that we cannot simply install a functioning democracy afterward... a construct that calls up weird visions of a vast DoD warehouse with rows of crates labeled "Democracy, Functioning, One", all ready to be slapped into place like a light buld or a spare tire. Forget it. "Government in a box" is not going to happen, locally or nationally. If we want to try to get rid of bad governments and create better ones, we need an honest assessment of what we're trying to do, and of what it will require. I'm not sure we've had much of that lately.

[Madhu]

I guess a link to this interview belongs in the thread:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...fernando-lujan

(I left a rambling self-referential and possibly borderline nonsensical comment. Typical.)

Cheeky thought: Is the Barnett Gap-Core model kind of modernization theory or one of its off-shoots, too?

That's the problem with trying to study an intellectual "meme", you start to see it everywhere.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Madhu

Cheeky thought: Is the Barnett Gap-Core model kind of modernization theory or one of its off-shoots, too?

I think you might have to stretch it a bit to say that the Gap-Core model is a kind of modernization theory. It is probably closer to Huntington's "Clash of Civilization" than it is to Lipset or Lerner's Modernization theories. In my opinion Modernization involves a change in the nature of the society based on changes in either social complexity and/or economic growth associated with industrialization. It assumes a teleological progression towards a common cultural standard (which happens to be Western Capitalist Liberal Democracy). The Core-Gap distinction does not care what political or economical system you use -- all that matters is, are you tied into the global economic/communications systems. Under modernization China will eventually transition to Capitalism and Democracy. It is therefore a potentially unstable area that could see revolution in the future. Under Barnett we don't really need to worry about China, they are plugged in. They will not risk screwing up the system they are a part of. The two ideas are actually not in conflict, they are separate ideas. But they do identify the potential for future conflicts in different areas for different reasons.

[TheCurmudgeon]

My last response (and some rum) brought up another thought -- that the idea that modernization is teleological (destine to happen) means, to certain people, that those of us who have passed through the trials and tribulations of industrialization to enter Valhalla somehow owe those who are striving to get here an obligation to help them along the way. Similar to the evangelical nature of some religions (read Christianity), if we are 'saved' then we owe an obligation to our fellow humans to save them. If they are all going to pass through those difficult stages of social development on the way to where we are don't we have an obligation to pull them through the tough times with as little pain as possible? Or is it our 'right' as a society that has made it to watch the rest muddle though ... like watching a drowning man from our position of safety on the dock without throwing out a life preserver?

Just a thought. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves...

[Bill Moore]

http://nationalinterest.org/commenta...ghanistan-7207

The Future of Violence in Afghanistan

The failure of the American effort in Afghanistan should force a rethinking of the counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine that has become canonical in Washington. This doctrine emphasizes building strong central states, attracting popular support through services and development and using military forces to control local populations. It is state building at the point of a gun: the government, as monopolizer of violence and focal point of politics, stands at the center of these efforts. Vast sums of American money and huge numbers of U.S. troops have been invested in trying to create a violence-monopolizing central state in Afghanistan.

In practice, successful monopolization tends to be a long and often brutal process of repression, co-optation and social control. The history of state formation in the United States and Western Europe shows that international war, internal violence and extraordinary degrees of resource extraction are intertwined with violence monopolization. Resistance must be overcome, citizens must be homogenized, key elites must be bought off and incorporated, and society must be penetrated and dominated by state institutions. The people in the state’s crosshairs may rebel or defy this project.

Unfortunately, this strategy has become conflated with counterinsurgency writ large. Many regimes have avoided thoroughgoing monopolization in the face of social violence because of its economic and political costs. Monopolization is difficult enough on a state’s own territory but becomes prohibitively challenging for overseas interveners.

[TheCurmudgeon]

The article it interesting in that it places stability above monopolizing violence. From that perspective I see it as a step in the right direction in places where a single state may not be a viable solution. But it is a bit cavalier about the violence that is tacidly supported by the govenment that is trying to remain in power against an insurgent group.

When pursuing political favoritism, states repress clearly antistate insurgents but tolerate or actively sponsor paramilitaries and militias, armed wings of political parties that support the regime, politically connected criminal networks, and pro-state militants. Nonstate violence is directed to the advantage of the state: some groups are cracked down on, others are treated with benign neglect and others are supported.

By this does he mean supporting groups like the shabiha in Syria. I don't think that really promotes stability.

Containment is a common strategy of violence management, especially in large states with turbulent peripheries. This strategy seeks to hold social violence below a certain threshold but does not commit the massive resources necessary to destroy all nonstate armed groups, whether insurgents or pro-state forces. Some violence is accepted as a given cost of political rule; it is “priced in” to expectations about what governing coercion requires. State forces cut deals with insurgents to limit conflict, including ceasefires, collusive bargains and the communication of red lines above which nonstate violence will trigger retaliation. Pro-state armed groups and criminal networks are loosely controlled but have significant latitude.

This sound realistic, but it begs the question, "whats the point?" If all your government is trying to do is survive and you are not interested in the territory the groups hold, why continue to bargain over it? Unless the fear of that group provides you a distinct advantage in maintaining repression in the area you control in response to this non-state enemy.

... and probably our favorite: Divide-and-Rule

Monopolization, favoritism and containment all assume a coherent state structure that can—when directed—try to repress other actors and control society. But some leaders must manage violence without having this capacity. They may sit atop fractured regimes, divided or unreliable militaries and ineffective police forces, and they face a broad set of warlords, insurgents and other armed groups. This is a dangerous world. Rulers can respond with a divide-and-rule strategy by playing off different forces against one another. Leaders act as brokers trying to build and maintain coalitions of control. Warlords, insurgents, criminal actors and many other specialists in violence become wrapped up in building new orders.

Might be better if you tried to unite-and-rule, but whatever works.

All of these accept a level of violence in exchange for some stability. They present interesting options. How politically acceptable they would be to a US audience I am not so sure of. We don't really mind violence, as long as we are the ones doing it. Of course, if we are not overtly present (wink, wink), then most Americans won't care.

[Dayuhan]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

If they are all going to pass through those difficult stages of social development on the way to where we are don't we have an obligation to pull them through the tough times with as little pain as possible? Or is it our 'right' as a society that has made it to watch the rest muddle though ... like watching a drowning man from our position of safety on the dock without throwing out a life preserver?

Do we intervene to help others through tough times and throw out a life preserver, or do we intervene to advance our own perceived interests... or shall we pretend that the two are the same?

If we're going to appoint ourselves to escort others through an accelerated (and conveniently non-disruptive) process of modernization, that would suggest that we're very confident of our abilities to diagnose other people's problems and to prescribe and implement solutions for them. Do we have that confidence? On what is it based?

[Ken White]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

... the idea that modernization is teleological (destine to happen) means, to certain people, that those of us who have passed through the trials and tribulations of industrialization to enter Valhalla somehow owe those who are striving to get here an obligation to help them along the way...

"us" is rather more inclusive than warranted, I think. I feel no such obligation and do not believe a majority of Americans do so. No question there are many that do believe that and some are in positions of power. Too many perhaps...

That said, there is little question that attitude has held sway in our foreign policy. To our general detriment, I would argue. We have little real good to show for that outlook.

...don't we have an obligation to pull them through the tough times with as little pain as possible? Or is it our 'right' as a society that has made it to watch the rest muddle though ... like watching a drowning man from our position of safety on the dock without throwing out a life preserver?

Rather facile and quite slanted Hobson's Choice there. That's a false dilemma, there are many other options. The answer to your question is that we do not need to stand idly by nor do we have such an obligation. We have choices and we owe the American public a sensible selection of which to pursue on a by case basis. There is no one size fits all.

Just a thought. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves...

Why, thank you. Such magnanimity is seldom seen, always appreciated.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Ken White

"us" is rather more inclusive than warranted, I think. I feel no such obligation and do not believe a majority of Americans do so. No question there are many that do believe that and some are in positions of power. Too many perhaps...

I guess the "us" would be the US, Great Britain, France, and other Western (sorry Australia) powers. The ones that voted in the Security Council for intervention in Syria.

Originally Posted by Ken White

Rather facile and quite slanted Hobson's Choice there. That's a false dilemma, there are many other options.

True, but I have found that when I am subtle I tend to be misinterpreted as a war mongering interventionist. It is difficult to make a point sometimes without taking the example to the extreme.

Originally Posted by Ken White

The answer to your question is that we do not need to stand idly by nor do we have such an obligation. We have choices and we owe the American public a sensible selection of which to pursue on a by case basis. There is no one size fits all.

I agree that one size does not fit all. THAT is one of the few hard and fast rules I will stick to.

But the question is not really one of obligation. It is one of emotional attachment almost to the point of addiction. It is particularly acute in America as a nation whose identity is tied to an idea more than it is tied to a common heritage. To deny that the drive for freedom, liberty, and democracy are universal is to question the validity of the American experiment. To fail to assist others in that cause can be FELT to be a violation of those principles. It is an emotional addiction that "we" (not you) rationalize by any number of legal and political theories. Unlike others here I don't see this compulsion as going away based on our recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am not that much of an optimist.

If we look at American's emotional need to justify our experiment, then Modernization is the Holy Grail. It rationalizes our existence and success (to bring things back to the original concept of this thread).

Originally Posted by Ken White

Why, thank you. Such magnanimity is seldom seen, always appreciated.

That was the rum ... I would never encourage the rest of you to talk amongst yourselves ... you might all start to gang up on me

[TheCurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Do we intervene to help others through tough times and throw out a life preserver, or do we intervene to advance our own perceived interests... or shall we pretend that the two are the same?

Of course it is based on our own self interest. There is nothing perceived about it.

Originally Posted by Dayuhan

If we're going to appoint ourselves to escort others through an accelerated (and conveniently non-disruptive) process of modernization, that would suggest that we're very confident of our abilities to diagnose other people's problems and to prescribe and implement solutions for them. Do we have that confidence? On what is it based?

You don't need to have confidence in your ability as a doctor to help a person who is bleeding to death by applying pressure to the wound. All you need is a desire (based on self interest) to help.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating this position. I am only making the point that certain people, either consciously or unconsciously, see this as a valid justification for intervening in the affairs of other nations.

Besides, the scientific method is the way we learn. We come up with a theory and we try it. We do this with medicine, engineering, chemistry, why would it be any different for political science. Are you suggesting that we should never do anything until we are absolutely certain we have the formula right? How would we ever know that if we did not try it first?

[ganulv]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

That was the rum ...

drivin’ you to drink, eh?

[Madhu]

From a book I bought at random from a friend selling his second hand books on Amazon. It's not my usual reading fare and I know nothing--absolutely nothing-- about the subject:

As I began to understand this--and it wasn't difficult to understand; all the Phoenix advisers were telling me the same thing--I also began to understand why Colby was making the reports he was. For someone who wanted to go into the field and track down the process of reporting, figuring out what was going on was relatively easy. But Colby did not attempt to do this and consequently he did not know what was fact and what was fiction. When he visited a province he would buy the province briefing. In Saigon he would get the statistics across his desk, period. And what did he--or anyone else at CORDS--know about how they were developed? The district Phoenix committees would write up their phony statistics on captured and killed and report these to the province level, which gussied them up further and reported to the regional level, which reported to Saigon. Just what Major Jack Black had described to me my first day in Bien Hoa. And CORDS in Siagon compiled and reported these statistics as Phoenix casualties.

page 55, Slow Burn: The Rise and Bitter Fall of American Intelligence in Vietnam, Orrin DeForest and David Chanoff

http://www.amazon.com/SLOW-BURN-Orri.../dp/0671739972



Operation Crabapple, Line of Departure (Carl Prine):

http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2011/...ion-crabapple/



More LoD (Volney F. Warner):

During my assignment among the mighty at the White House of the 1960s we pacification staffers occasionally received Presidential guidance and directives.

On one such occasion, a Vietnam expert was selected from each arm of government: State, USAID, CIA, Pentagon, etc.

We sequestered at the Agencies’ Vint Hill Farms, and we were tasked to come up with a Dow Jones Index suitable to measure progress in Vietnam.

Correspondent Apple caused this by continually referring to the glass half full. However the President wanted a more precise, less liquid metric. I was the Palace representative for the group.

NSC Rules: No phones. No private automobiles. No external communication of any type. No telling where you are or what your mission. No liquor. Stay at it until you get it right. By order of!!!

We screamed. We verbally sparred. We almost came to blows. Two weeks went by with nothing to report other than sleepless nights and verbal bruising.

For example, we contrived equations such as corn/pig distribution numbers plus body count minus US casualties plus hamlet evaluation survey scores with K as an independent variable to represent all other unidentified variance.

We tried Chi-squared analysis of variance distributions.

We did regression analysis.

Those mathematicians among us had a ball educating us finger-counting word-mongers.

Finally, in desperation, after three weeks of argumentation without positive result, we entreated our CIA senior supervisor to let us return to the world. He relented and got an OK from the Palace to send White House sedans for our pick up and departure.

Just as in the real Vietnam: We tried everything. Nothing worked. So we just gave up and went home!

http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2012/...in-the-palace/


Much of what I see discussed in the articles around here (at the Journal and Blog) relate to process, and much of the writing about how CORDS might relate to current conflicts seem borne of process, too. "Whole-of-Government" and all that....What shocks me is the sketchy histories about our (the US, I mean) time in that region. Another book I just finished detailed how much we were involved in regional politics in the 50s in that part of the world. It's as if this was rewritten from the "textbooks" and the conventional wisdom starts with our Soviet experience in Afghanistan. Curious and curiouser....

[Dayuhan]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

Of course it is based on our own self interest. There is nothing perceived about it.

Self interest is almost always variable according to the perception of the moment. Even at any given moment there's likely to be substantial debate over what course of action is actually most compatible with self interest. More than one state has taken actions it believed to be in its self interest only to later to conclude that they were not.

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

You don't need to have confidence in your ability as a doctor to help a person who is bleeding to death by applying pressure to the wound. All you need is a desire (based on self interest) to help.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating this position. I am only making the point that certain people, either consciously or unconsciously, see this as a valid justification for intervening in the affairs of other nations.

Certainly this argument is widely used... R2P and all that. At any given point, though, there's often very little clarity over what any outside party can or should do, and what the consequences of action might be. There's also often considerable doubt over the political will to carry actions through to their desired conclusion (if indeed that conclusion proves reachable).

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

Besides, the scientific method is the way we learn. We come up with a theory and we try it. We do this with medicine, engineering, chemistry, why would it be any different for political science. Are you suggesting that we should never do anything until we are absolutely certain we have the formula right? How would we ever know that if we did not try it first?

You don't need the scientific method to conclude that the consequences of sticking your putz in a working meat grinder are likely to be undesirable. It shouldn't take a full-blown experiment to suggest that "install a democracy" is an instruction that's likely to be a lot more complicated in the doing than it is in the saying.

Of course you won't have certainty. At a bare minimum you need:

- A clear, practical, concrete objective

- Reasonable certainty that the objective can be achieved with the means and within the time you're prepared to commit.

- An honest and favorable assessment of the potential for adverse unintended consequences.

I could probably think of a few more...

[TheCurmudgeon]

I think we are wondering away from the original intent of this thread, so this will be my last post on the matter. But I get tired of "self-interested" discussions against meddling in the socio/cultural "progress" of a country or area yet we don't seem to mind messing with these systems in other respects. A case in point is Save the Children, UNICEF, and Africa.

Originally Posted by Dayuhan

Certainly this argument is widely used... R2P and all that. At any given point, though, there's often very little clarity over what any outside party can or should do, and what the consequences of action might be.

What about the consequences of saving children who would normally die.

“Every year, nearly 10 million children die before their fifth birthday and one half of these deaths occur in Africa,”

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_44179.html

So we get involved and save them.

In 2010, Save the Children helped over 12 million African children with direct programs including health, nutrition, education, HIV/ AIDS, and more.

http://www.savethechildren.org/site/...848/Africa.htm

A full blown experiment in socio/cultural engineering.

Originally Posted by Dayuhan

It shouldn't take a full-blown experiment to suggest that "install a democracy" is an instruction that's likely to be a lot more complicated in the doing than it is in the saying.

Of course you won't have certainty. At a bare minimum you need:

- A clear, practical, concrete objective

- Reasonable certainty that the objective can be achieved with the means and within the time you're prepared to commit.

- An honest and favorable assessment of the potential for adverse unintended consequences.

So in a system that already can barely support the normal population, what do you think the result is when you add millions of young adults who do not have jobs because, while you saved their lives, you have not altered the entire system so it is capable of maintaining these additional adults? Interesting unintended consequences? Perhaps more wars as people fight to control the limited resources?

And yet I hear no one screaming for us to use the "prime directive" and let these children die as they should to maintain the integrity of the natural system.

We make choices all the time. We make mistakes. I would prefer we learn from them. Seems to me a whole lot of people just want to forget that Iraq and Afghanistan (and Vietnam) ever happened or blame our failures on any number of other factors, like the initial decision to get involved, then to look at the whole system in its complicated depth (including our desire to meddle)... until we do it all over again ... which we will ... because it is in our nature to get involved.

[ganulv]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

And yet I her no one screaming for us to use the "prime directive" and let these children die as they should to maintain the integrity of the natural system.

Dropping all USAID–type funding wouldn’t really leave a natural system in place in Sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. (and not just the U.S., of course) would still indirectly play a role in the local ecology via things like our funding and regulation of the pharmaceutical industry and such as that.

[Dayuhan]

Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

So in a system that already can barely support the normal population, what do you think the result is when you add millions of young adults who do not have jobs because, while you saved their lives, you have not altered the entire system so it is capable of maintaining these additional adults? Interesting unintended consequences? Perhaps more wars as people fight to control the limited resources?

"We" aren't saving millions of children or adding millions of adults to anything, even to the extent that UNICEF and Save the Children are "we". Maybe incrementally, over decades, but certainly not all at once.

We have no option to "alter the system" to make it capable of maintaining anyone, and if we try we're likely to end up with a system less capable of maintaining anything. Systems have to evolve to meet local conditions, and that takes time and often involves conflict. We cannot simply decide what a suitable system will be for others and then impose it, or alter existing systems to suit our preferences.

I certainly wouldn't suggest a policy of absolute non-interference. I would suggest that epic interference on the level of regime change and associated COIN are generally a costly and unproductive form of intervention. My suggestion would be, on the broadest level, to abandon ideas about installing governments, building nations, altering systems, and instead to treat these as organic processes that we may be able to help cultivate, but that we cannot and should not try to dictate.