ARTICLE: Liberian leader promises break with violent past: Nation’s 1st female president inaugurated,” by Hans Nichols, Associated Press, Indianapolis Star, 17 January 2006, p. A5.

ARTICLE: “Liberian leader wants closer relationship with U.S.: New president says her war-torn nation needs help restoring stability,” by Rob Crilly, USA Today, 23 January 2006, p. 6A.

Thirteen years of civil war has left Liberia just about the poorest and least developed country in the world, teaming with only one thing: former combatants that number more than 100,000 out of a national population of 3.5 m (almost half of whom were made homeless at one point during the civil war).

Not surprisingly, the new president wants help in retraining those young fighters, far too many of whom served as kids, but she also wants a focus on infrastructure development.

These are the two essential SysAdmin functions, which don’t always occur in nations with insurgencies. This is why Fourth Generation Warfare thinking covers some of the Gap’s postwar landscape, but hardly all. So counter-insurgency is a nice backfill but not a build-up.

By focusing on creating a stable peace by rehabbing past combatants and building a stable security force, and working the infrastructure issues, you create the basics of the military-market nexus: just enough security and just enough infrastructure to attract investment. That foreign money must be made comfortable by a third key leg to this stool: just enough legal rule sets to make contracts and property ownership enforceable at reasonable costs.

The U.S. has pledged $1b in aid, but just sending the check rarely moves the pile. There is no urgency for success in Liberia because there are no American troops to be brought home.

And that’s where the military-market nexus is broken, as far as American commitment is concerned, so don’t expect much change in Liberia any time soon.