Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post

With regard to your last point, I wish it were as easy as, "make secure, then rebuild." I do not have a number/percent but your 90% of the effort in "pure" military work seems high to me. I suspect that part of the feeling of security comes from helping folks to have a better daily life. I'd be less likely to blow things up if I had a predictable supply of water, electricity and sewerage and my kids could get to a school that wasn't in danger of collapse or very far away.
This is the heart of the problem. If a family has food, water and shelter, there is not a lot else. The family either has them, because they are provided or they have them because they can afford them via employment. It is not the militaries task to engage in social agendas. You don't see OXFAM building schools. They save lives. That's it.

I think the reasoning that people join an insurgency because they don't have a school or clean water is spurious and un-proven. Lack of clean water means you die. Lack of school means you are uneducated.

Where does it reason that good infrastructure helps defeat an insurgency? Cyprus, Thailand, and Northern Ireland all had/have excellent infrastructure. They did not help stop an insurgency in any way. The only time when provision of infrastructure the might stop an insurgency is when it's lack is the issue. In Peru, the road building program, actually aided the drugs trade!

I think the military mission should cease at prevent death and stop suffering.