Lessons Not Learned

[AlexTX ret]

The only sad thing is that we are hamstrung by domestic political constraints -- China and Russia do not have that problem. I wouldn't trade...

Yes, I agree that the price of living in either China or Russia would be a terrible price to pay. Nor do I think what these "2nd world" countries are particularly humane or ethical in it's treatment of other nations. And there is always an interest there that only benefits China and Russia.

Not to mention they are not doing as well as you seem to imply.

Well, there is some truth in this. Russia has two problems. Lack of money because of the fall in the price of the barrel of oil. They made some choices that were ill advised last year and they're coming to roost now. Putin finds himself in a serious political problem and will have to do some quick and decisive damage control to survive.

The second problem is that it seems that since Putin can't save the economy, he is rebuilding the military to project Russia's power just as countless leaders of Russia have done in the past. These two problem will cause problems with all the countries that look to Russia as the counter to the West.

You and I obviously went to different wars there...

Actually it could be myopia on my part. After the first two tours in which I learned that I loved command of fighting units, I found myself picked for other duty. I wasn't stuck in the rear but I wasn't in command, at least not of a line fighting unit. I became very involved with the rural Vietnamise. There I saw a lot of the calousness perpetuated by the the South Vietnamise goverment with our our blessing. This didn't make the NVA saints, in many ways they were far crueler that we could think of to the indigionous people, expecially to those villages that showed approval or depended on our goverment for protection.

As for today, I hear reports that the present Vietnamise goverment is no better and continues the persecution of the rural peoples.

However, we were supposed to be more noble than that. We were a nation that gloried in the beneifits of freedom. Well, in 'Nam, we were no better than the French. And I think it in the end, it cost the US a part of its soul. At least for a long time.

We weren't great and we -- the Army -- made many mistakes but we were the good guys. we were dumb -- Clyde was mean. There's a difference.I've been wandering here and there in the world since 1947 and we were distrusted then and have been ever since. Nobody trusts the big guy -- until they need him -- they'll take all he'll give and then go back to rampant distrust. Way of the world. We are distrusted because we do what all Nations do, look out for our own interests. We are fortunate now to be big enough to do that better than most; that breeds resentment. That's okay. We are no more disliked now than we were in 1955 or 1975 -- probably more liked now than iin '75.Not at all.

I will agree with this, at least in part. However, even if the enemy was lying, it gave a great quanity of the people hope. We had the power to make those dreams come true for the people. We just chose not to do it. So we were supposed to win the hearts and mnds of the people without doing anything that would put any conditions on the US Government. I realise that Johnston was also fighting the war on poverty which was taking large sums of money back here in the States. But we should never have become involved if we weren't serious in improving the life of all the people of Vietnam.

You cannot compare Malaya to any of our little forays -- The British WERE the Government there; we're always the uninvited guest. Totally different deal. Nor did the SAS accomplish all that much in Malaya. They did great in the later Confrontation but that wasn't the Malayan Emergency.

Yes, they were the goverment but they did many things that we could learn from them (The British then) that we could apply to Iraq or Afganistan today as we try and win the hearts and minds of those countries now.

We need a comprehensive plan. No one in the last administration had a serious clue and it showed. At least there is a good sign. The President seems to not be willing to tie our troops to a politically induced artificial timeline to please the liberals. But it isn't about the soldiers left in the wars, we should of never gotten in the first place. We need to think through why we got in these wars in the first place and own up to the fact we were the ones that toppled their goverments. If it was for Iraqui Oil then accept that fact and go on. However, we should also realize that we have a moral and ethical duty to repair what we did to these countries in a fit of agression.

For if we don't, we will end up with the same Civilian/Military disconect that we had after Vietnam. And we will once again prove that we are not to be trusted. (we supported Saddam until it became inexpediant to do so, then we toppled his goverment.) Being the Big Boy of the block comes certiain responcibilities too.

[Ken White]

Actually it could be myopia on my part.

Or on mine; my last tour was in '68 sdo I saw nothing that happened after that. One can read but it's not the smae as being there.

There I saw a lot of the calousness perpetuated by the the South Vietnamise goverment with our our blessing.

Wasn't there so cannot say but from what I've read and heard it was more lack of knowledge than blessing. I suspect that one year tour effect had at least a little to do with it...

However, we were supposed to be more noble than that. We were a nation that gloried in the beneifits of freedom.

Ideally that's correct, accurately and objectively, I think not. Some here certainly agree with that but the realities of any foreign involvement make the ideal difficult to sustain.

Well, in 'Nam, we were no better than the French. And I think it in the end, it cost the US a part of its soul. At least for a long time.

I'm not at all sure nations have souls. Whether anyone likes it or not, nations really have only interests. Not to say they cannot be altruistic in pursuit of their interests but those interests will always rule...

... But we should never have become involved if we weren't serious in improving the life of all the people of Vietnam.

That was not why we became involved. We became involved as a result of Eisenhower signing a treaty that said we would (even though his Army Chief of Staff advised against doing so) and then the Brothers Kennedy went looking for a nice little war to boost the US economy; they picked Viet Nam. All this revisionist garbage about Kennedy deciding to withdraw is just that; Johnson merely implemented plans already in the works-- other than the Tonkin gulf incident, that was his creation; he then decided he had to outdo Kennedy for his legacy...

So there was never any intent to make life better for the Viet Namese, it all hinged on US domestic politics. Not too noble at all.

Yes, they were the goverment but they did many things that we could learn from them (The British then) that we could apply to Iraq or Afganistan today as we try and win the hearts and minds of those countries now.

Not really; we cannot do the effective things they did for two reasons -- we aren't the Government in either Nation and those governments will not allow us to do that -- we could bulldoze them (as we could have Viet Nam) but the cost in US domestic public opinion is too great. So would the cost of doing some of the non government but purely military things they did. Forcing people into secure villages will not work; the Afghans aren't as passive as Malays -- neither were the Viet Namese as passive as Malays. Malaya is a terrible example to use for any COIN effort on several levels.

But it isn't about the soldiers left in the wars, we should of never gotten in the first place. We need to think through why we got in these wars in the first place and own up to the fact we were the ones that toppled their goverments. If it was for Iraqui Oil then accept that fact and go on. However, we should also realize that we have a moral and ethical duty to repair what we did to these countries in a fit of agression.

We can disagree on all that. The issue in both cases was retribution. The only oil issue was to NOT disrupt flow to the world in a major way; we want China and India to have all the oil they want. Afghanistan was for 9.11; Iraq for the 22 years of increasingly dangerous probes emanating from the Middle East (to which four former Presidents had failed to adequately respond, thus encouraging the attacks to continue -- and to escalate).

Very few westerners seem to understand that; the folks in the ME and South Asia understand it. So do the Asians -- that's why their objections have been muted in comparison to Europe and South America. Toppling governments, introducing western norms and all that is a side issue. The good of the Afghan or Iraqi people are a side issue. This was about US interests, pure and simple. We -- the Army -- may have screwed it up a bit but basically both were needed and will accomplish their intended purpose -- to deter attacks on the US on its own soil (Afghanistan) and on US interests around the world (Iraq).

For if we don't, we will end up with the same Civilian/Military disconect that we had after Vietnam.

I missed most of that I guess; no question the academics and the left leaning felt disconnected -- tough munchies and their problem IMO -- but most Americans did not.

And we will once again prove that we are not to be trusted.

Well, we did prove that in post WW I, in WWII, in Korea, in Viet Nam, in Somalia and in Kurdistan in '96. Bush 43 did not succumb to that malaise and he rather shrewdly locked his successor into several things so we'll have to see if we pull another departure debacle. I hope not.

(we supported Saddam until it became inexpediant to do so, then we toppled his goverment.)

Not really. We supported Saddam as a counterweight to Iran -- toward whom we have not had a rational policy since 1976 -- and the USSR who were courting Iran. Once the Gulf War ceased, he was on the nasty list. We did a lot of not nice things during the Cold War but I believe the world is better off for most of them. Saddam was on the nasty list after 1988 and should have been toppled in 1991 -- but Scowcroft and Bush 41 didn't have the intestinal fortitude to do that -- been a lot easier then than it was in 2003.

Being the Big Boy of the block comes certiain responcibilities too.

Sure does -- and being nice is not one of them.

I strongly agree we should intervene less and work to improve both our intel and diplomacy as a preventive; wars need to be avoided -- I'm just not sure our governmental system with changes ever 2, 4, 6, and 8 years is able to do that. I also agree that we have not done some things well (largely due to said governmental system) but we are where we are and we are disliked and distrusted by many if not most; been that way in my observation for a good many years. When you get to that point, respect (accompanied by a soupçon of fear...) is vastly preferable to love or admiration.

[Surferbeetle]

A couple of decades ago I took a class in comparative politics which focused upon India, China, and Europe...which made for a pretty interesting mix and comparison. I am rereading one of my text books from that class: India, Government and Politics in a Developing Nation by Robert L. Hardgrave Jr. and Stanley A. Kochanek and this took me back to thinking about centralized planning.

I have bumped into the Five Year Plan concept in a number of interesting places academically and out in the real world. Engineering Planning Cycles, GSA Contracts, Iraq, USSR , and of course China and India.

A quick wikipedia run gave the following for '1966 in Afghanistan'.

Thanks largely to the intelligent use made of the aid given by the U.S.S.R., the United States, West Germany, Britain, China, and the World Bank, the internal economy of the country made good progress.

The first five-year plan, which began in 1956, aimed at encouraging agriculture, especially irrigation. Experience showed, however, that progress in these spheres could only be partially achieved as long as internal communications remained primitive and the natural resources of the country were largely unexplored. As a result, the major effort was diverted to the construction of roads and airports, and to the systematic investigation of sources of water supply and of mineral wealth.

During the course of the second five-year plan, conditions became favourable on many economic front. Promising deposits of natural gas and of iron ore were discovered; the power available for industrial use icreased dramatically; and the extension of irrigation led to substantially increased agricultural production.

In Afghanistan, as in many other underdeveloped countries, however, this rapid success led to the emergence of new problems, unforeseen in the original planning: inflation of prices, difficulties over foreign exchange, and an unhealthy reliance on large-scale external aid for the easing of current domestic shortages. The indications are that the third five-year plan will aim mainly at consolidating what has already been achieved rather than at any new major advances.

[Steve the Planner]

Reed:

"My big caution would be to avoid making a few wealthy and then either not helping or even worsening the conditions of the rest of the population. I feel that small community based economies are the place to start, and that they will grow into larger competive economies on there own."

Now, you are thinking like an economic geographer. There has to be some kind of economic basis (or comparative advantage) that can be played out to make a place viable, and jobs sustainable, and its starts with a focused view on local economics and what folks can do for themselves. (the farm, the village, the community, then the province, region, and nation).

Worldwide, Brazil is the hands down master of frozen chickens---they can clean everybody else's clock in price. But, what about the fresh chicken market (typical of lower level economies,folks just don't trust it unless they kill it themselves), and vast areas where refrigeration is spotty and unpredictable, or transportation is not linked to fast, economical world trade system? Even with a big competitor, there are still niches.

Helping local people find those niches, and support them in exploiting them is a big piece of what we can do for them. We have the eyes, the mobility, and the logistical muscle to bootstrap things that locals in a war zone just cannot stumble onto themselves, especially with an oppressive and or dysfunctional higher government.

Two pieces I have been struggling with for a while:

1. Most societies have a large public and private sector, and the military is a small box, and nobody should even see or hear much about foriegn affairs folks except that they are out trying to promote your country or something.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have nothing but military (and armed to the teeth security), and almost no private sector. The public sectors that do exist are highly in-effective and corrupt, but usually working closely with the military and foreign affairs types.

So how much of the problems in these societies might actually be created by and sustained by a military/foreign affairs bureacracy which has inadvertently, and probably incompetently, stumbled into a role as societal managers? Did they do more harm than good?

My analysis of MNC-I/US AID agricultural programs in Iraq (buy everybody a new tractor, bongo truck and center pivot irrigation system whether they could sustain it or not) looked very much like the types of socialist/communis- inspired five year plans that destroyed ag production in those countries. Even Saddam was abandoning that approach as ineffective, but we took it as our main strategy.

2. If all economic viability extends from local activities (farming, trade, mining, rug making, whatever), and a national economy is really the sum of the local activities, how are our failures in Iraq and Afghanistan related to the fact that most of our efforts are at the national (and central government) level?

Does adding more short-cycle federal civilians (highly trained in whichever bureaucracy they come from) do anything to foster economic viability at the local level, or just reinforce the failing.

To the Surf Bum with the beautiful surf buggy, last week was the 100th National Planning Conference in DC. In 1909, engineers, business interests, government types, and social activists got together to develop US civilian planning processes (not soviet style central planning) that laid the foundation for modern US plan-based planning, budgeting and delivery of, to name a few, building inspection and standards, safe and sanitary housing, a coordinated system of national, state and local roads, safe municipal drinking water and sewerage systems, and a common planning framework for minor things like electricity, communications, emergency response and public health networks, etc..., etc...

Among planning's biggest accomplishments was the establishment of planning processes WITH local input and constituencies, metrics basis, means-end tracking, uniform government accounting standards, and plan-based budgeting (CAFR), and general fiscal transparency. It is the boring methodical stuff that finally brought an end to the Tammany Halls that drove most US corruption, and, while it doesn't end corruption or ineptitude, assures that one day such behaviour may come to public scrutiny---the biggest check and balance.

Civilian planners also learned a long time ago that a plan never survives first contact with reality without being open to change, adaptation. Planning is a structured process to approach problems and goals systematically, but "The Plan" is only a framework within a bigger, more interactive and multi-layered process of measured, monitored and iterative goal-seeking. Otherwise, our highway system today would be designed for the steam carriage that, in 1909, drove the President to Inauguration.

Recent international development conferences have pointed to the crying need for US civilian planning assistance to help lay the basic infrastructure and planning framework for many countries (including Iraq and Afghanistan) to bolt forward into the 21st Century. But I never heard any requests for the type of stuff that is being played out by the US reconstruction and post-conflict gang.

What is being offered by the US under the civilian surge in Iraq and Afghanistan has nothing to do with what the US Civilian Planning Community does. So it probably makes a lot of sense to research Soviet and Maoist top-down central planning, since that is what is being applied by the US in these little wars. I wonder if they will have as much success with it as those who created it?

Steve

[Surferbeetle]

Steve the Planner said:

To the Surf Bum with the beautiful surf buggy, last week was the 100th National Planning Conference in DC. In 1909, engineers, business interests, government types, and social activists got together to develop US civilian planning processes (not soviet style central planning) that laid the foundation for modern US plan-based planning, budgeting and delivery of, to name a few, building inspection and standards, safe and sanitary housing, a coordinated system of national, state and local roads, safe municipal drinking water and sewerage systems, and a common planning framework for minor things like electricity, communications, emergency response and public health networks, etc..., etc...

Steve,

This past week I caught a PBS special about John Nolen, City Planner and his excellent work in San Diego, which I occasionally have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate. One of these days I will need to wrangle myself an invite to one of these planning conferences....if nothing else I will be shamed into moving from MS Project to Primavera

My MBA showed my that stochastic calculus was not just for forecasting/planning hydraulic/flood engineering problems but that it also works for financial engineering problems (when applied by adults with some semblance of common sense and morality). Socialism certainly tried to give planning a bad name, but it failed. As an example the costly (in lives, hopes & dreams, and of course money) 'Great Leaps Forward' have given way to 'Chinese Capitalism' an on-going journey which is thoroughly examined in my weekly Economist.

None-the-less it can be a educational experience to examine a train wreck...why in fact did the train leave the rails and where were the rails headed towards? How would have Mahatma Gandhi's ideas about "decentralized political and economic structures rooted in India's rural villages..." benefited the population as compared to Nehru's socialist ideas or Patel's capitalist ideas? Who filled the comparable roles for Afghanistan? My book on India is a fourth edition...Amazon tells me Hardgrave and Kochanek have published a seventh edition.

I was hoping that perhaps you had a open source planning reference for Afghanistan or Iraq (each Soviet clients at one point) so that we could examine the state planning train wreck from a historical point of view and perhaps work on a compare/contrast with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

Best,

Steve

[slapout9]

A couple of decades ago I took a class in comparative politics which focused upon India, China, and Europe...which made for a pretty interesting mix and comparison. I am rereading one of my text books from that class: India, Government and Politics in a Developing Nation by Robert L. Hardgrave Jr. and Stanley A. Kochanek and this took me back to thinking about centralized planning.

I have bumped into the Five Year Plan concept in a number of interesting places academically and out in the real world. Engineering Planning Cycles, GSA Contracts, Iraq, USSR , and of course China and India.

A quick wikipedia run gave the following for '1966 in Afghanistan'.

Beetle, read about John Kenneth Galbraith's work with India he was president Kennedy's Ambassador there during his administration and he had much to do with planning there Economy. Also try studing physical Economics NOT monetary economics....nothing but perverted banking polices.

[Steve the Planner]

Ran into Iraq historian Phebe Marr at a USIP function. She is updating her book, Modern History of Iraq, soon.

Unfortunately, as I told her, my copy of her present book is so coffee stained, dog-eared and written in that I am embarrassed to ask her to sign it. But if you take that book, from the top down, a lot of the bureaucratic and national shifts can be hallmarked (various land and ag reform movements, industrial investment, etc...), so it is a good start point.

From there, I don't think anyone recent has a decent bead on PHYSICAL economics except to follow the Min of Planning's CoSIT reports, and a lot of more recent open source tracking.

I have a few contacts on the ground that usually paint an opposite picture from the "happy talk" government reports, but what I always find interesting is that, despite challenges, folks always try to find their way through, often in informal, barter, local trading, or underground economies that is where most of the action is. In most instances, these patterns and successes follow older patterns, and ingrained logic---it is a lot easier to follow and support those patterns than create new stuff.

One time, despite terrible bandwidth, I downloaded all the US AID Annual Reports from Iraq. Each year since 2003, they describe the economic problems, the plan they developed to address them, and the number of tractors (or center pivots, etc...) they needed to accomplish success. Then they reported on how they had, during the course of the year, executed the plan successfully (Mission Accomplished and the contract payment reciepts to prove it). Then came the next annual report, which identified the economic problems, the steps they planned to take to address them, and so on and so on. Bureaucratic junk. (It still galls me when I hear these types recounting the number of schools, clinics, tractors, etc... as if any of that produced anything with traction).

In Feb 2008, everybody around MND-North was anxiously awaiting a McKinsey Report (via Brinkley) that was supposed to identify the economic way forward---a real economic redevelopment plan. Unfortunately, when it arrived, it was like so many other wasted government consulting contracts. Economic Geography 101 applied from a desk in Washington to a country far, far away. So, you have to take most of these sources with a grain of salt (or less).

Official unemployment in Iraq, for example, ranges from 18% to 40%, depending on who is reporting it for what, but you really have to understand the unofficial economy against a background of government support (food rations, etc...), and sectoral impacts (teens vs. middle aged, etc...) to figure out some type of human condition element---number of destitute, number of satellite dishes, cars, etc... Nobody has it down yet.

Absent any credible sources for metrics, I liked to watch the truck traffic along Route 1---volume, source, content to get windshield info on what was going on, and how much of it. To a trained observer, a Blackhawk is a great way to study land use, ag production, track droughts, etc...

Anything for metrics...

Steve

[slapout9]

Beetle,Steve the Planner, try this "The New Industrial State" one Galbraith's most important works in my opinion. A little old but the basics are there. Even has a 5 Rings analysis of an organization, for Real. Let me know what you think.


http://abridge.me.uk/doku.php?id=the...dustrial_state

[Steve the Planner]

Slapout9: I hadn't expected so lengthy a reading assignment, but it provided an interesting walk in the past.

In grad school, I was studying Frederick Taylor and Industrial Efficiency stuff, but traveling from DC to NYC regularly---right past all the abandoned Taylor-Era industrial wastelands. Both were pressed hard into my pysche.

Interesting how our perceptions of the Industrial State, or corporate America, changed so profoundly since 1972. How the sterling accomplishments of ATT for communications could only have been achieved/maintained by them having a monopoly.

His interesting point was, I thought, about when Industrial America gets so embroiled that it begins to see itself as an extension of the government---then abdicates responsibility. Shades of Lehman Brothers...

Problem with an old school economist writing on the emergence of the technocrats, as if they were a separate class from government and business they work in, was lack of understanding about the intrinsic relationship between technology and productivity. Naive but understandable in those days.

Now, everything we rely on is so interdependent that the interdependencies are almost invisible (until you have a New Orleans flood or grisd meltdown).

Steve