Countering Lind-dinistas - if the mission is impossible, don't blame me

[Fuchs]

After the fact. Our perceptions are now tainted by experience.
This clouds our vision for what was actually in the realm of possibilities.

I suppose a "pre-1982 Lebanon"-style republic was possible. It would have required a balancing of powers, and enough commitment to the folly that the powers in-country believe in the persistence of the balancing.

[TheCurmudgeon]

After the fact. Our perceptions are now tainted by experience.
This clouds our vision for what was actually in the realm of possibilities.

The factors that were missing were well known in 2004. They were based off a 1959 research paper. They were ignored by the political leadership who choose to believe the "end of history" crowd like Larry Diamond and Francis Fukiyama. The fact that it did not come about meant that it was, for all intents and purposes, outside the realm of probability.

[Fuchs]

Probability.

I remember some probability estimates, though only vaguely.
They were about the probability of the commies winning the Cold War because of the softness and defensiveness of the West.

I think I read those in the mid-80's. Those probability figures were rather high.

[davidbfpo]

Curmudegeon's first post cited in part:

My basic argument I have. Three points:

1. The requisites for democratization did not exist in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

2. Attempting to create a democracy where one was not possible created instability perpetuating the conflict

3. COIN could not overcome 1 and 2. Pop-Centric COIN is correct, but it cannot create legitimacy. It must adapt to the desires of the population.

Now a few years ago I attended a conference on the Middle East and a number of Arab speakers stressed to them 'democracy' did not mean first and foremost 'representative democracy'. To them accountability was far more important whether by the rule of law, less corruption etc.

My "armchair" understanding of Afghanistan is that in the rural areas there was a form of direct democracy, mainly exercised by elders and in jirgas. I suspect it helped that the state had very little power or functions beyond the cities - long before Soviet or allied intervention. Carter Malkasian's book covers this well.

I wonder what are 'the requisites for democracy'. One thing for sure in either Afghanistan or Iraq they are not what we have or thought they should have.

[slapout9]

Curmudgy,
This is a link to a thread I started in 2010 after starting my own assessment of Lind and his concept of 4GW. I started by getting a copy of Lind's book on Maneuver Warfare and reading several of his articles from various sources. This man has been the victim of one of the most vicious slander (Political Correctness) Campaigns that I have ever seen.


http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9484

[TheCurmudgeon]

Curmudgy,
This is a link to a thread I started in 2010 after starting my own assessment of Lind and his concept of 4GW. I started by getting a copy of Lind's book on Maneuver Warfare and reading several of his articles from various sources. This man has been the victim of one of the most vicious slander (Political Correctness) Campaigns that I have ever seen.


http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9484

Slap, while Lind is my current target, he is simply a representative of a wider group of civilians who want to place the blame for the failures of the last 12 years squarely on the military. I don't care if they choose to blame us for their failures. Just don't tell me I need to fix what is not broken.

We have problems, don't get me wrong. But looking at why we failed to create a democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not our problem. It was beyond the capabilities of the resources and time put against the problem.

[slapout9]

Slap, while Lind is my current target, he is simply a representative of a wider group of civilians who want to place the blame for the failures of the last 12 years squarely on the military. I don't care if they choose to blame us for their failures. Just don't tell me I need to fix what is not broken.

We have problems, don't get me wrong. But looking at why we failed to create a democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is not our problem. It was beyond the capabilities of the resources and time put against the problem.

You might want to recheck your Targeting. Lind was one of the first to openly oppose Nation Building. One of his famous quotes was "We are trying to turn Afghanistan into Switzerland" or something close to that. If you get the chance listen the radio interview from 2007 I think he starts with a discussion about Somalia.
Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hjQOMlpH9A

[TheCurmudgeon]

Curmudegeon's first post cited in part:

Now a few years ago I attended a conference on the Middle East and a number of Arab speakers stressed to them 'democracy' did not mean first and foremost 'representative democracy'. To them accountability was far more important whether by the rule of law, less corruption etc.

My "armchair" understanding of Afghanistan is that in the rural areas there was a form of direct democracy, mainly exercised by elders and in jirgas. I suspect it helped that the state had very little power or functions beyond the cities - long before Soviet or allied intervention. Carter Malkasian's book covers this well.

I wonder what are 'the requisites for democracy'. One thing for sure in either Afghanistan or Iraq they are not what we have or thought they should have.

The definition of "Democracy" causes many problems.

The original article is here. Essentially, they were income level (wealth), education, industrialization, and urbanization (from memory). Much more study had been done particularly in the 1990s to explain why democracy beat out communism. In any case, most of this was well known.

Isolated localities often use some form of "democracy" in that the heads of the local households get together to decide matters that concern all. But this is not the liberal democracy as we know it with universal human rights.

Rule of Law is problematic, because that translates into procedural legitimacy, which simply means that you are following the social norms and rules of the society . Stoning a women for being raped may represent the appropriate action. Interfering with that stoning may be seen as failing to uphold the rule of law. To often these vague terms are tossed around like they have a common meaning. They do not.

[wm]

The definition of "Democracy" causes many problems.

Also problematic, by the way, is the scope of application of the term. As was pointed out, at some level, some inhabitants of parts of Afghanistan may have had democracy. However, the so-called nation state Afghanistan did not (and I suspect probably never will) have democracy. I say so-called nation state because it and many other problematic nations in the world today, had their nationhood handed to them (or forced upon them) by their former imperial masters/colonial overseers/occupiers.

In what follows I am taking a lead from what Fuchs pointed out in post 32,

The West has managed to ensure a mess in a lot of the so-called 3rd world by the way it realigned the world after the last 2 world wars. Now they are trying to defend their bad past by trying to fix their mistakes. But, surprise, surprise,they are using almost the exact same means as they used to create the first problem.

First, the West told folks, rather forcefully in many cases, what nation they were by telling them where their boundaries were, rather than letting them figure that out for themselves. Now the West is telling them, again rather forcefully, what kind of governments they must have.

This seems like two failures in observing the principle of self-determination. I suspect each is derived from some sense of guilt for having caused problems in the first place and now trying to assuage that guilt by "fixing" things. But why we do it is less important than that we do it and will not stop.

I seem to remember that the definition of madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting different outcomes.

So, perhaps the 1st world nations could stop telling people outside their own borders where to draw their boundaries or what kind of governments to have. If enough of those other people can get their act together long enough to create a self-governing entity that seems to have staying power (what counts as self-governing and for staying power for how long are as yet to be determined), then viola, we have a legitimate nation that may ask for help from the "stable" first world nations and expect to receive it. Any other form of invitation should be politely declined. Any impulse to intervene without an invitation should be immediately suppressed, hopefully by the citizens of the nation whose leadership has the impulse. If the majority of the nation has succumbed to lunacy, then the other first world nations must intervene, just as any family would with when Uncle Wally starts dancing in the street naked.

Dealing with non-state actors who are not attempting to engage in nation building is a job for police forces, not the military. So is dealing with would be nation builders who use terrorism outside their own planned national boundaries as a technique for trying to get what they want.

The devil, of course, is in the details--like what happens if/when the Pashtuns want part of Afghanistan, part of Iran, and part of Pakistan. But even details need a basic framework to contain them, first, don't they?

How does this respond to Lind? I suggest he is just one of those crazies who try to get different outcomes with the same method.

[Bill Moore]

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture if strategy is aligning ends, ways, and means using all elements of national power and our stated ends were stable democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan what exactly did our military fail to do when it comes to the use of military power to set conditions for this to happen?

I think most agree those ends are laughable, but that is what they were. I will be the first to self criticize and critic my military, but for criticism to be valuable it should be constructive. If our military did what differently exactly, then how would it have changed the outcome?

[TheCurmudgeon]

Also problematic, by the way, is the scope of application of the term. As was pointed out, at some level, some inhabitants of parts of Afghanistan may have had democracy. However, the so-called nation state Afghanistan did not (and I suspect probably never will) have democracy. I say so-called nation state because it and many other problematic nations in the world today, had their nationhood handed to them (or forced upon them) by their former imperial masters/colonial overseers/occupiers.

In what follows I am taking a lead from what Fuchs pointed out in post 32,

The West has managed to ensure a mess in a lot of the so-called 3rd world by the way it realigned the world after the last 2 world wars. Now they are trying to defend their bad past by trying to fix their mistakes. But, surprise, surprise,they are using almost the exact same means as they used to create the first problem.

First, the West told folks, rather forcefully in many cases, what nation they were by telling them where their boundaries were, rather than letting them figure that out for themselves. Now the West is telling them, again rather forcefully, what kind of governments they must have.

This seems like two failures in observing the principle of self-determination. I suspect each is derived from some sense of guilt for having caused problems in the first place and now trying to assuage that guilt by "fixing" things. But why we do it is less important than that we do it and will not stop.

I seem to remember that the definition of madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting different outcomes.

So, perhaps the 1st world nations could stop telling people outside their own borders where to draw their boundaries or what kind of governments to have. If enough of those other people can get their act together long enough to create a self-governing entity that seems to have staying power (what counts as self-governing and for staying power for how long are as yet to be determined), then viola, we have a legitimate nation that may ask for help from the "stable" first world nations and expect to receive it. Any other form of invitation should be politely declined. Any impulse to intervene without an invitation should be immediately suppressed, hopefully by the citizens of the nation whose leadership has the impulse. If the majority of the nation has succumbed to lunacy, then the other first world nations must intervene, just as any family would with when Uncle Wally starts dancing in the street naked.

Dealing with non-state actors who are not attempting to engage in nation building is a job for police forces, not the military. So is dealing with would be nation builders who use terrorism outside their own planned national boundaries as a technique for trying to get what they want.

The devil, of course, is in the details--like what happens if/when the Pashtuns want part of Afghanistan, part of Iran, and part of Pakistan. But even details need a basic framework to contain them, first, don't they?

How does this respond to Lind? I suggest he is just one of those crazies who try to get different outcomes with the same method.

Boundaries are another part of the problem, and the unwillingness to redefine them. Look at the mission statement: "Our goals are for Iraqis to take full control of their country as soon as possible and to maintain its territorial integrity." Territorial Integrity is code for keeping the borders where they are.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Probability.

I remember some probability estimates, though only vaguely.
They were about the probability of the commies winning the Cold War because of the softness and defensiveness of the West.

I think I read those in the mid-80's. Those probability figures were rather high.

I never saw any probability estimates of success of creating a democratic Iraq or Afghanistan. If you find any, let me know. All the ones I have found, dating back to 2004, say it was not possible.

If you find anything saying that it was possible, I would love to see it.

Essentially, what I am finding is that every academic said it was not possible, but the administration ignored that and gave the military their marching orders. If you find anything counter to that let me know.

[Fuchs]

Very quick google search
http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/...h-22383-31.pdf

There are always at least a few optimists.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Very quick google search
http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/...h-22383-31.pdf

There are always at least a few optimists.

How do I translate this?

[Fuchs]

How do I translate this?

Give the 2nd page a try...

I can't agree with that. State has no more capacity for "nation-building" than the military does. As far as I can determine the US Government has no such capacity, which is why the job got dropped on the military.

Nation-building takes decades.

The establishment of a political system and quasi-consensus on the other hand can be largely accomplished in two years. State Dept. could have drawn together the various factions through diplomacy -with many career diplomats and politicians- towards such a quasi-consensus.

The military was fighting symptoms of political failure, not doing policy itself until it was too late. Bremer et al treated the challenge as an administration challenge when it was in fact a challenge of drawing diverging parties towards a quasi-consensus on how to run the country (how to distribute the spoils).