Klein's Shock Doctrine

[Surferbeetle]

Ken,

I always enjoy reading your posts, references, and reflecting upon your well argued point of view. I think that we can agree that the greatness of our constitution, nation, and way of life is worth fighting and dying for.

I posted Klein’s Shock Doctrine to hopefully generate some discussion on how we approach the populace in our operations, Small Wars or otherwise.

As a result of the combination of Capitalism and our Constitution we Americans are able to enjoy an unprecedented way of life as compared to the historical record. Capitalism is the most efficient way that I am aware of to fully engage a population and realize it’s potential. The 2006 US GDP was in the neighborhood of 13 trillion dollars ( http://www.bea.gov/ ) for a population of approximately 300 million people ( http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html ). Americans enjoy an amazing amount of freedom as a result of our constitution and bill of rights (http://www.archives.gov/national-arc...stitution.html ).

It is my observation that many countries that I have had the opportunity to visit, Iraq in particular, are not as fortunate as America. The 2006 Iraqi GDP was approximately 87.9 billion dollars for a population of approximately 27 million people ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat.../print/iz.html ). Iraq’s constitution ( www.export.gov/iraq/pdf/iraqi_constitution.pdf ) is currently only a piece of paper with no soul and it does not inspire or sustain it’s people. I think part of the failure of the Iraqi Constitution has to do with the ME outlook that the Koran, and the associated Sharia Law, has divine origin whereas mans laws made in the absence of this guidance are suspect.

I would argue that the people of any country are an essential center of gravity which needs to be addressed in operations which involve the country; these include military, economic, and political. When it comes to strictly military operations kinetic skill is paramount. Winners understand this and losers do not. Small Wars however, are not limited to strictly military operations and thus it is vital that a functional and effective strategy is crafted which successfully engages the populace of a country. We are still trying to implement a succesful one in Iraq.

I will attempt to address this further in a future post.

Steve