Tentative Guidelines for building partner armies post conflict

[Stan]

Hey Colin,
Thanks for the emails and interesting read !

So states have to evolve.. and we can't do it for them. Thus the question is, does it all come down to the slow evolution of indigenous democratisation?
And what the flying f*** does that mean for our agenda in the worst case, the DR Congo?

The only thing I can add at this point similar to our correspondence is, Western technology and ideals will never fix the DRC. If the Africans don't do it on their own terms and time, it will never happen.

IMO, the single most common denominator in all our failures is our lack of understanding...

Hi Colin,
Don't try to create a "Western state" or a "western" army;...
A lot of this goes back to working with, rather than against, the local culture both civil and military.

For more than a decade I watched millions dumped into a bottomless pit and the results were as follows...

4. By focusing on military forces, we sometimes set up conditions for military dictatorships, some under the guise of pseudo-democracies. This occasionally became an embarrassment...

You'd make a good Army NCO

Regards, Stan