The surge in Iraq did not fix everything!

FT op-ed by David Gardner that reflects the absurdly high bar some experts set for counterinsurgency--as in, "The surge did not erase the layered trauma of tyranny, wars, invasion and occupation."

Well, I guess it didn't.  

But the surge (using that term in the most general sense) did reduce fatalities dramatically and improved security commensurately.  Yes, the Shia won, like majorities tend to in ethnic fights the world over, but the key thing is that the victory was marked by stability and not further bloodletting, and the surge played its role.

As for not making it possible for the current political system to forge a unity government after the last election, that's simply ballooning the surge's purview to ridiculous size.  The key thing to note in the current political paralysis is the lack of widespread violence.

Yes, Iraq has a long way to go, but four free elections in a row can hardly be discounted in a region not known for them. Everybody wanted the occupation to go better, and certainly we learned a ton of lessons, but the truth is, most nation-building efforts are largely irrelevant to the larger process of creating economic connectivity to the outside world, which ensues if there is something local to draw in outsiders and there's just enough security and predictability to allow business to unfold. Once those dynamics come into play, it's primarily up to the locals to demand better of themselves.

The military effort can buy you that time and little else.  So some perspective please.  We keep coming up with these fantastic images of successful nation-building and then decrying the military's inability to make them happen instantly, when history says you don't even start posting grades until a good decade passes.

But it's our desire to do everything ourselves that forces this mindset. If you accept that you'll be just a fraction of the SysAdmin effort, despite manning the bulk of the Leviathan one, then the longer timeline is no big deal because you're not trying to pick up the entire tab. Our problem is simply our inability to cede control to others better suited for the economic integration efforts, which are always led by the most powerful neighbors and rising powers of the age.

When you need to own the victory because you need to own the war, then realizing the postwar success in others becomes infinitely harder.

Comments

[louis Heberlein]

'The military effort can buy you that time and little else.'

Fox Conner taught that to Ike and Mac when they were young officers. He also caused them to read substantive history works.

Earlier, Rudyard Kipling gave realistic advice to US government after Spanish-American War brought us into our first SysAdmin experience.

Part of our learning problem is the chronic Leviathan influence, but I think more of the problem comes from a very broad 'That was then, This is now' mindset.