Steve,

I normally learn a lot from your posts, but your last one to me appears to be have completely missed the mark. You're bringing up examples of economic warfare that have nothing to do with economic development as it relates to COIN.

CA Bubbas are not the only people who work during hostilities...ICRC, MSF, and others do what they can...
This is exactly what I'm taking issue with, we do what we can instead of doing of the right thing. I'm sure ICRC and others "feel good" when they hand out school books and medicine, but during a COIN effort if it doesn't specifically target a select populace with the objective of separating them from the insurgency and pulling them into a closer relationship with the government then you're just doing humanitarian work to simply make yourself feel better, it doesn't contribute to a strategy. I ensure the enemy doesn't just do what it can, but has an agenda when they hand out aid.

As for police officers looking at it differently, could it be they're looking at a different problem set altogether? The elderly in the U.S. may be involved in the Meth trade now because they can't make it on social security, so that is an economic issue that must be resolved, because ultimately in this case that is the underlying issue.

Kids in depressed areas may join gangs and get involved in illegal activities because that is the accepted economic model. If you improve the job aspects you only address one underlying issue. Normally there is another underlying issue that is seldom considered, and that is the security/social norm influence. If the strongest tribe in the neighborhood is the gang and you offered a fair paying job to a kid that is a gang member (without moving him out of that neighborhood/influence), do you think he would take it? More importantly do you think he would leave the gang and place his family and him/herself at risk?

This alleged support for acts of violence and terrorism in the Islamic charitable sector—and a seeming toleration of such activities—raises serious questions. Is a significant portion of this charitable sector a front for terrorist activities? Or is a small minority tainting the good deeds of the majority?
No one said insurgencies didn't require economic activity, I said the root cause wasn't about economics. By all means we need to target their economic engines, but you don't necessarily do that through economic development. It may or may not play a role.

The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985.[dubious – discuss] After years of Soviet military buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill. Failed attempts at reform, a stagnant economy, and war in Afghanistan led to a general feeling of discontent, especially[citation needed] in the Baltic republics and Eastern Europe.
Not germane, we're talking about insurgency and furthermore as you know were many factors that came together to create the perfect storm for the USSR. I suspect they spent far less on their military than we did, but they spent a greater proportion of their GDP. Still that was only one reason the wall came down.

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973
State versus State, not an insurgency

Simultaneous execution of multiple LOO's
I call this the illusion of a plan, and it is the lazy man's way out of doing the real work that a real plan involves. Amazingly now how we can address any problem by making up four or five LOOs, put them on a power point slide, then we're done. If the simultaneous efforts aren't synchronized toward common objectives, then they lines to no where. Read Killcullen's example of building a road in Afghanistan as a form of political maneuvering, it wasn't simply doing what they could, but they built it with specific objectives in mind that had little to do with the road itself.

We're forgetting the basics.