Operationalizing The Jones Model through COG

[Dayuhan]

My message is to stop meddling, not to meddle.

I refer to this:

First is to assess every nation with which the U.S. engages for how the major groupings within their populace perceive their own governance in terms of Legitimacy, Justice, Respect and Hope. Second is to ensure that the form of U.S. engagement is designed so as to be least likely to create perceptions of preemption of Legitimacy by the U.S. (remembering that this is as viewed through the eyes of those populaces; need only be perception and not fact; and that the perception of U.S. policy makers as to the intent and nature of said engagement is completely immaterial). Lastly is to encourage Hope; to tell the people of the world not to despair, while at the same time applying carrots and sticks as required to the governments of the same to engage their populaces and to make reasonable accommodations on terms acceptable within their unique cultures, to give the people a legal means to voice their concerns.

That, to me, is an open prescription for meddling. When we bring out the carrots and the sticks to get others to do what we think they ought to do, that's interference in the internal affairs of others. That's meddling.

I do believe that the Jones Model is an accurate description of many (not all) insurgencies, and that it can be a useful tool. It can also be a very dangerous tool, because it is so easy to interpret it as a justification to interfere: they need better governance, they don't seem able to deliver it themselves, we'd better go and help them, or do it for them. There's a very strong suggestion here that interference is acceptable - and even desirable - as long as it's "good" interference.

I've always said the only perception of good or bad governance is that of the governed populace. You always try to twist that, and I don't know why.

Why is very simple: the moment we speak of good or bad governance, we impose our own standards and our own values. When we assess we do it through our lens, with our prejudices and our assumptions. We can't do it any other way. We don't know what any other populace thinks or wants. We can't know, we're not them. Sure, there are people who claim to speak for the populace. Often there are lots of them, all saying something different. The guy with the loudest voice doesn't necessarily speak for the populace. The guy with a bomb doesn't necessarily speak for the populace.

Certainly in some circumstances we can deduce that a populace is upset, but the moment we set about trying to ascertain why they are upset or what needs to be done about it, we invariably bring our own perceptions and our own prejudices to the table.

What I see you recommending above is that we should assess another nation's internal politics, we should decide what we think is bothering the populace, and we should pressure that government to do what we think is needed to improve its relations with its own populace. There's a whole lot of "we" in that picture.

Follow the trails of foreign fighters back to where they come from and then research there first. Follow the trail of AQ "terrorists" back to where they come from and research there as well. Study how those populaces perceive the legitimacy of their governments. Study how they perceive the role of the US and the West in their countries. Study how they perceive their justice systems; or if they believe there is equal opportunity for all. Study how much control or influence they believe they have over their governance or even their personal fate. We've gotten into the middle of some messy situations.

I don't see the foreign fighter picture as being terribly relevant. You can't deduce an insurgent population from a few hundred angry young men, and if we assume that the foreign fighters speak for the populace, we push assumption beyond rational bounds.

The assumption that foreign fighters are fighting because of what they perceive to be malicious US influence in their own countries is not entirely compatible with evidence. For one thing, substantial numbers of foreign fighters come from countries (Libya and Syria) where the US has no significant presence and with which the US has had a generally antagonistic relationship. On top of that, we have already seen that AQ was able to successfully recruit foreign fighters for their jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the US. In short, I think you're seeing a backlash against the US because that conclusion is compatible with your assumptions. All I can deduce from the foreign fighter issue is that the "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative still has sufficient legs to recruit a few hundred people across the Muslim world to fight, regardless of what specific infidel is involved. I see no reason at all to assume a US-specific cause. If we want to resolve the foreign fighter problem we don't have to make everyone in the Muslim world like us, we have to wind up our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can't travel to join the fight if there's no fight for them to join.

I'm saying we need to back out, not dig in. Not cut and run, but cut off the blank check of blind support and urge reforms be adopted if continued support is desired.

Where does this "blank check of blind support" exist?

I think you drastically overrate the ability of the US to promote reform by threatening to withdraw support. As I said above, it won't work in Libya or Syria, because they don't get any US support. It won't work in Saudi Arabia either; they don't receive or require assistance from the US... if anything, we need assistance from them. Even where US assistance is substantial (Egypt, Yemen) the degree of reform that could be generated by a threat to withdraw aid is highly debatable. The use of aid conditionality as a tool to press for reform is nothing new, it's been tried many times, generally with mixed results, and it's been debated in the aid community for a long time. It's not necessarily a bad idea, but it's not a panacea either... and of course it can achieve nothing in states that don't get US aid.

I think overall you're assuming that the US has far more influence in these environments than it actually does. Overestimating one's own influence is often risky.