Hi Bob,
Most of what you say, snarkiness included , I agree with. I do, however, have a bit of a problem with this:
I used to argue that Afghanistan was FID / SFA, but I am now really having second (and third) doubts. FID (and SFA) seem to imply two criteria that I believe are missing from the current situation:
- a (locally) "valid" (however we want to define it) HN government; i.e. one that s/b able to stand up without massive external support and resources, and
- a situation where the HN government actually has some measure of control over the ROE.
Honestly, I don't really see either of these implied conditions being met, so I don't see how we can be said to actually be "doing" FID (or SFA). I don't think we have a decent alphabet soup acronym for this situation. What do we call it? Military-based social engineering on the cheap (MBSEC)?
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