Modernization Theory is Hokum.

[TheCurmudgeon]

While current regimes and their immediate successors aren't irrelevant, when it's clear that they seem ineffectual or passively aggressively resistant to the policies you want to have implemented, the focus should be on winning the hearts and minds of the next generation, which is a rather long term investment.

Here we agree. Assuming that non-destructive social engineering is possible it would have to be inter-generational.

I define non-destructive social engineering as things other than genocide, internment camps, re-education camps, or extreme forms of forced change.

This may sound trite, but you want to create a consumer society that wants to connect with the rest of the world, where the kids are indoctrinated to want to drink coke and eat at McDonald's. You might even say corrupting the national moral fibre. With it comes the drive to buy electronic toys and consume media especially stuff that turns out to be very relateable and easily pirated. Essentially, you want the populace to be want what the West has and to be able to live that lifestye.

I think this was the idea behind the Vietnam era modernization theory. They thought commercialism was the cure for communism. I think commercialism comes AS A RESULT of other, more fundamental cultural changes.