The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[marct]

I would add there also needs to be a government in place to pull the people towards.

I think that this is a key problem that has to be kept in mind for any future operations. I would add in one other characteristic: the "government" must also be "worthy" of loyalty (i.e. be more likely to create a pull factor than a push factor). This doesn't mean that it has to be a "democracy", however that may be construed. France, Germany, the US, Canada and Sibgapore are all "democracies" and they all have quite different forms.

The RAND study Jedburgh posted stated that many insurgencies are due to the gap created by modernization, where a number of folks are left out of the new emerging economic models, so the objectives are to provide security for the people and to convince the people that the government is working in their interest.

I think that this has to be a consideration, but it also has to be kept in focus. Given current manufacturing capabilities, "modernization" is an interesting problem. I'm not convinced that the gap is based around emerging economic models so much as it is based around emerging models of individual livelihood; and no, they are not the same thing .

When you do a regime change, you create an entirely different set of problems. First, we stood up a government (yes it was elected, and yes it was a miracle that we could pull that off), but it a foreign form of government (democracy) in a land where there is little trust, and BTW it is still at war. Talk about a gap!

Yup. And it is a very different case from most of the "classic" COIN situations. My question, and it can only be really answered after 10-20 years, is what type of government will it become?

As you stated we first have to provide security, an incredibly tough task in its own right. Then we have to sell this government, and after the recent fiasco with Saddam's hanging I wonder if that will be possible. If it isn't, then where do we take it from here? Another regime change? Stay the course?

That is the $64,000 question <wry grin>. As far as international politics is concerned, the US just doesn't have the political capital to do another regime change, at least openly. "Sell" the government? Getting harder to do as a result of the way the hanging was carried out. "Provide security"? I doubt it could be done unless there was another 100k people on the ground.

I think that the most workable, not necessarily the "best" under any definition of that term, option would be to stabilize local areas and sell local governments and the broader ideology of "civilized discourse" vs. "civil war by despotic whim". Ultimately, the legitimacy of any Iraqi regime depends on the people of Iraq.

Marc