Ill-Defined Problem Sets: A Discussion

[Dayuhan]

This does not mean cut and run, it means that if we are so set that we have national interests in these places that demand our presence, lets use our influence to enable a relatively controlled evolution of these governments and not simply help them keep their populaces in check.

This highlights one of the key problems in our current interventions: our exit strategy depends on an evolutionary process that we do not control. That process may be far more complex and difficult than we initially assume it to be: in Iraq in particular, our intervention was supported by some quite naive underestimations of the challenges of developing a government that would be functional and acceptable to all of the major groups. Something to consider before intervening, certainly: realistic assessment of challenges is a useful thing..

Many tend to focus on the ideology applied to rally the people; or the role of organizations like AQ to leverage these nationalist movements and miss the real underlying issues. These are distractors and we focus on them to our peril. We need to set our fears aside, and adjust our approach to foreign policy to enable relatively peaceful pursuit of self-determined governance. It won't all be what we would like to see, but it won't be half as scary as the fear mongers out there make it out to be either.

I largely agree, but there's a factor here we often overlook. Americans often assume that people who have lived long under bad government will crave and strive for good government, and that they will define "good government" much as we do. In reality our concept of "good government" may never enter the picture: people who have only experienced bad government are likely to define "good government" as whatever type of bad government brings the most benefit directly to them. In these cases the quest for "good government" is likely to be violent and destabilizing, as each group's idea of "good government" is likely to be focused on immediate benefit and is likely to come into conflict with competing definitions from other groups.

All of this of course is on a wider scale and is of little use to those facing local problems such as those discussed in the OP. In these cases I'd only add that one obstacle to seeing a solution to an ill-defined problem set is our tendency to define problem sets in our own terms and according to our own framework, which may mean we're trying to solve the wrong problem. Typically outsiders would be biased toward a national "government vs insurgency" paradigm, which may be of limited relevance on a local scale. An example would be a situation where one subgroup allies with the government to gain advantage in a pre-existing conflict with another subgroup, which then turns to the insurgents to gain leverage of its own. In this case support for the group allied to the government (which may or may not have a more legitimate position in the root conflict) would be less advisable than an attempt to address the underlying conflict between the groups.

There was discussion of the impact of a corrupt governor, and the idea of a culturally acceptable level of corruption. The culturally acceptable level of corruption is likely to vary radically depending on who is speaking: a level that would be perfectly acceptable in an official who is one of "us" might be totally unacceptable if the governor is one of "them". In this case the objection openly stated as "he's corrupt" might actually be "he's not one of us and we feel threatened by his ability to leverage government resources for the benefit of our rivals".

All a roundabout way of advising people facing intractable problems to take a bit of extra time to be sure they're addressing the right problem... with full knowledge that everybody you speak to on the local scene is likely to be trying to distort your picture according to their own perception.