A Flawed Strategy for the "War on Terror"

[marct]

Hi Steve,

Agree. I kind of played with that idea in my Rethinking Insurgency monograph. During the prep seminars for Unified Quest over the winter, I was struck by the idea that in our conceptualization of counterinsurgency, the "end state" is that a government is in full control of its territory and has no challengers as a provider of security. Given what I see in the world, that is swimming against the tide of history which seems to be moving toward less effective national governments, not more.

I certainly agree that the "end state" is always viewed in that way . I also agree that the general trend is away from effective nation states. Personally, I think that that assumption is just a reworking of the "and they lived happily ever after" of the high romantic fairy tale genre.

That said, I have yet to come up with an alternative. Should we be able to form alliances with militias? Can we form alliances with and declare war on PMCs?

Already been done. On the first point, look at the Cold War ops in, say Angola or Nicaragua or any number of other "countries". As to the second point, again the answer is yes - does the name Mike Hoare ring a bell or Executive Outcomes ?

I think one of the main reasons for restricting "official" international politics to nation states is to maintain the position that the only legitimate type of government is a nation state. This is an ideological illusion that serves a number of domestic political purposes.

Marc