Happy Talk--But, There Is Bad News Coming

The Pentagon spin machine has released its latest Congressionally required semi-annual appraisal of the state of play in Afghanistan.  By and large it is 108 pages of happy talk, soothing mood music, a sort of happy-days-will-be-coming-soon-(maybe.)  The same tone, very upbeat, but with a slight note of caution obtains in the news release issued as a cover letter on the report.

The report spends fifty-three pages in consideration of the security situation in-country.  Much of the good news is contained in this section.  It is clear that operations over the past several months have shifted the initiative to the the ISAF/US/ANF coalition.  The insurgents despite their capacity to undertake high visibility attacks, plant IEDs, and generally give the appearance of still being in the fight have lost the initiative and seem to have lost some of their will to combat.

The Local Security Program which dates back to General McChrystal and is the descendant of the Vietnam War Combined Action Platoon Program as well as the much deprecated Regional Forces-Popular Forces ("Ruff-Puffs") has been developing with a fair degree of success even given the opposition of the Karzai government and the inherent corruption and inefficiency of the Afghan Interior Ministry.  Should this trend continue over the next six months, it bodes well for long term stability as only a credible locally based force with primary loyalty to the area it is protecting can assure Taliban and the other insurgent groups cannot and will not return after the foreigners leave.  It is clear that more external support for the development of the local forces is required.  It is equally evident that more pressure must be placed on Kabul to allow the local forces to develop and deploy.

The same applies to the Afghan Local Police.  This organization (to use the term generically and loosely only) is not only a necessary complement to the Local Security Program's Village Stability Operations, it provides the only governmental presence which is directly observable by and accountable to the local folks.  Thus it is a critical instrument of government which, if operating correctly, will go toward countering the impression of the Afghan National Police and Army as corrupt, distant, and non-responsive.  Again, Kabul has dragged its feet in allowing and encouraging the development of the Afghan Local Police due to its customary fear of losing control of the population--as if it actually ever had any such control.

The report way understates both the importance of these locally oriented efforts and the resistance to them which is presented by the central government.  This is unfortunate and raises doubts about the future ability of the Pentagon (and considering the impending change of management) the Agency to evaluate progress or lack thereof in Afghanistan.  The low balling of the local initiatives also erodes the ability of Congress to assure American dollars and manpower is put to the best possible use.

The thirty-five pages covering the development and deployment of the Afghan National Army and Police is optimistic but not overly so.  The report does note the severe problem presented by the very, very low level of basic literacy among the recruits.  It pays some attention to the chronic willingness of ANF&P personnel to desert, change sides, or "go rogue."  Overall, the attrition affecting the ANF&P represents a major challenge in meeting the ambitious goals for force size.  It may be necessary for Kabul to institute a draft of some sort which would open a very large can of very vicious political and tribal worms.

The subtext of the pages considering the procurement process for the ANF&P hints at but, unfortunately, does not state the difficulties presented by pervasive corruption.  The problem is that the corrupt actions are not simply those of locals but involve representatives of foreign firms offering both equipment and materiel.  It is easy to see the political/diplomatic considerations which demanded a heavy foot on the soft pedal.  Even if justifiable, this absence of accuracy misleads the reader, congressional, media, or private citizen.

Because of the mis-definition of the mission in Afghanistan as one of "nation-building" rather than one of punishment and deterrence, the report wanders at some length into the areas of governance and "reconstruction and development" as well as counternarcotics.  All of these areas may be of very real relevance to the Afghan population, but they are tangential at best to the US and its foreign allies.  The goal of assuring that Afghanistan does not and will never again provide a safe haven to groups practicing violent political Islam does not require the construction of a faux Western nation-state from the tribal warp and woof of the local population.

Unfortunately, the military does not question the importance of these civilian goals any more in this report than it has in previous efforts or in the decision making process regarding the nature and character of the military efforts in-country.  The underlying assumption that nation-building is central to effective counterinsurgency rides along in splendor, unquestioned, undoubted in this report.  A close reading of the sections regarding nation-building shows a surplus of fine sounding mood music, lofty words, and even loftier ambitions coupled with barely whispered lyrics concerning the sorry record of nearly unmitigated failure in all areas.

One lack is noteworthy due to its sheer obviousness.  There is not a word about religion or the role of religion in facilitating instability within the country.  Nor is there any consideration of the centrality of tribal affiliation and loyalties to the challenges of facilitating the construction of a unitary national identity and state in Afghanistan.  The leaving aside of the two most important features of individual and group self-identification so as to not consider their impact on the goals of nation-building is an inexcusable flaw in the report as it was in predecessors.  The complete absence of such key features skews the ability of any reader to accurately appreciate what can and cannot be done in-country along with what has and has not been accomplished.

A total of three, that's right, three pages was spent considering Afghanistan in its regional engagement context.  Considering that the Taliban and Haqqani network as well as the survivors of al-Qaeda would have been sent to Paradise years ago had Pakistan not been such a close and inviting ally, the failure to accurately and comprehensively consider the regional engagement aspect of the conflict is a fine example of moral and intellectual bankruptcy.

All and all this semi-annual exercise in shading reality resembles the everything-is-perfect-and-getting-better approach of the Pentagon during the Vietnam War.  One can only wonder if the denizens both in the Five Sided Wigwam and Afghanistan are deluding themselves or simply hoping to delude the rest of us--particularly the money givers on the Hill.

As if to prove the cautionary notes of impending problems and setbacks contained in the report are not only accurate but in their accuracy buttress the marginal credibility of the entire exercise, there are now two shop mutterings of Taliban major attacks coming in the next few days.  No details of course, just the vague words about casualties and ultimate Taliban failure.  It is a fine example of salvation through good timing or, to use the invisible motto over the entrance at Langley, "Thank God for coincidence."

Maybe If We Pretend Hard Enough---

Political scientists call it, "let us define our dependent variables," but little kids are more honest.  Politicians call it "nation-building," but little kids are more honest.  The UN calls it "responsibility to protect," but little kids are more honest.

Little kids call it, "Let's pretend."

And here we are today playing let's pretend under all the upscale rubrics mentioned.  We are playing it in the Ivory Coast.  We are playing it in Yemen.  We are playing it in Libya.

In each case our opponent in this great game is called a "strongman," or a "dictator," or, more politely, an "authoritarian ruler."  In each case the venue of this great game is called a "state," or a "nation," or a "country."  In each case we maintain with the straightest of faces that our goal is to "support the people," or "to promote the rights of the citizens," or, most simply, to gain "democracy," or, even simpler and hazier, to seek "reform."

All the terms, all the fine sounding words, all the lofty thoughts behind the words constitute a lie.  Perhaps not an intentional lie, but an untruth nonetheless.  Tergiversation by volitional ignorance covers the situation.

Each of the venues mentioned as well as others such as Sudan or Somalia are not by any realistic understanding "nations," let alone "nation-states."  All are geographical expressions inhabited by assorted tribal peoples of differing, even antipodal, customs, values, norms, and, most important, senses of identification.  Each of the "dictators" is actually nothing more than the accepted leader of one tribe.  None are national leaders for none has a unified nation to lead.

In the Ivory Coast the ousted former president is actually the leader by tacit acceptance if not more active support of the Southern, non-Muslim tribal confederation while the new guy is the tacitly accepted leader of the Northern, Muslim tribal groupings.  In Yemen, the embattled Saleh emerged from the base of support of one tribe and maintained his power by playing off the other tribes against each other.  And, in Libya, Brother Leader is likewise a tribal chieftain whose rivals are from another, far larger tribal assembly located in the far east of the country.

Tribal leaders are not and never will be national politicians as the term is understood in the West.  Nor are the agglutinations of tribes under their authority "nations" as the word is applied in the West.  The absence of national identity means that by definition there can be no nation-state, no truly national polity controlling the instruments of government.

Tribal leaders including the die hard "dictators" of Yemen, Libya, and the Ivory Coast are motivated by deep and powerful considerations such as personal and group honor which have been moribund for many, many generations in the US and the rest of the West.  The tribal leader incarnates in himself not only his personal honor, his personal power, but that of his family, clan, and tribe.  This is at a far cry from the motivators of contemporary Western politicos.  It is even at some distance from the motivators of more typical dictators of the ideological sort, for these may have an inflated sense of self but rarely believe the entire honor, potency, and status of a social group is embodied in their person.

When Gaddafi cried, "I am history!  I am the revolution!  I am Libya!," he was not simply exhibiting what in the West would be considered a psychopathology but stating a ground truth that would have been (and was) understood by tribal leaders around the world.  Gbagbo in his upmarket bunker understood.  So also did Saleh as the vipers on whose heads he danced squirmed and twisted.  Karzai all the way off in Afghanistan understood, despite his status as an "elected" leader.  So also did Maliki in Iraq, again regardless of the special cachet of a Western approved "election."

Tribal leaders, all of whom have "death before dishonor" in an invisible tattoo inscribed across their chests, do not think like Western politicians.  Their calculus of political rationality is completely different.  It would require the resurrection of an American politician such as Andrew Jackson to have an effective translator.  Andy Jackson, like the majority of domestic politicos of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries was a tribal leader in transition.  While focused on developing a nation, these men were emerging from sectional identities equivalent to those of a tribe.

Other countries throughout the West had their own transitional figures,  men part way between the tribal, regional past and the nation-state future.  History demonstrates that the process of congealing a true national identity is one of equal parts time and blood.  War as well as the passage of decades of shared experience and defining mythology is needed to overcome the inertia of the tribal/regional past.  The West has had the time--and more to the point--the spilled blood necessary to forge national identities and politics, to become full fledged nations and nation-states.

Libya and the Ivory Coast had any organic centripetal movement put in stasis by periods of colonization.  And Yemen never emerged from a tribal, feudal dynamic.  (Neither did Afghanistan despite the existence of a monarchy other than brief periods when under external threat.)  The attempt by the well intended statesmen of the West and the diplomats and the bureaucrats of the UN to create actual functioning nation-states from the tribal cloth of the Ivory Coast or Yemen or Libya will be unsuccessful.

It is not a matter of money.  Consider that the EU and France have offered 840 million bucks to the Ivory Coast; that is not mere chump change.  Neither is the vast quantity of American and other peoples' money spent on civilian development and governance programs in Afghanistan.  The sands of Libya will ultimately soak up as much international aid as the wealth of its oil fields produced to date.  None will matter.

Money does not create a state.  Neither do good intentions.  Nor do military interventions.  American and other governments had best realize that in none of these cases as well as others yet to occur will the end product be other than confederations of tribes riven with animosities old and new.  No matter what is done by outsiders, the Ivory Coast, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, or even Iraq will not become genuine nation-states in the near- or mid-term future.

In a very real sense the less that is done by the outsiders under any of the noble terms referenced above, the better the results for the locals.  The less done for the suffering locals, the faster they will have to weld together their own nation by their own blood and sweat.  They will have to do what all of us in the West have done--bring about a national identity and a national polity by passion and suffering over time.

There is no faster way to do it.  And, history shows, no better method.  It seems to be written in our DNA, to suffer is to progress.

Obama Pivots Again--This Time It's Yemen

The always statesmanlike and deliberative Obama administration has once more demonstrated its uncanny ability to appear totally adrift at the policy level.  The instant case is Yemen.  For weeks the White House, Foggy Bottom, and the Pentagon have been singing the same song: We support our key ally in the global war on radical extremism, the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh.  Of course, every lyric of support has been followed by an obbligato chorus, We deplore violence and call upon all sides to show restraint and a commitment to dialogue.

As the bullets have shot downrange and the bodies piled higher on the square near the university in Sana, the lyrics and chorus have remained unchanged.  Even as the US aircraft bombed and strafed the forces of Brother Leader in Libya, the song stayed the same.  The conventional wisdom became simply that the US had no choice but to stick with Saleh given the threat presented by al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP.)  Additional arguments were adduced in support of the basic contention.  Among these was the ability of the ever-wily Saleh to dance on the heads of vipers as his decades of survival in Yemeni politics have shown.

Saleh the survivor joined with Saleh the partner.  We seemed to be welded to the guy come what may.  There didn't seem to be any alternative.  We had to hang together else Yemen would join with Somalia as one more failed state in the grasp of a group espousing violent political Islam.

Well a funny thing happened on the way to our eternal relationship with Saleh.  As the NYT reported, the Obama administration did what it has been so good at of late--changing its mind.  Quietly, without taking the American public into its confidence, the Deep Thinkers of the current administration shifted its message to Saleh.  The new word is: "Time for you to saddle up and get out of town, pardner."

The policy seems to have been a low visibility version of what the Obama folks did in Egypt.  "We are with you all the way, Hosni" on Monday.  On Tuesday it was all about, "We are with the people of Egypt and we always have been."

The gales of derisive laughter which met the new Obama position within the ranks of the Egyptian demonstrators may be the reason the approach in Yemen has been low key.  This way when the belated change from pro-status quo to pro-opposition did not buy any good will from the men and women who had done the heavy lifting, faced the gun fire of snipers, and bled for what they believed in would not be so embarrassing.

The Obama administration's support for the Saleh status quo defies rational understanding.  The most cogent explanation is the Deep Thinkers became overly fixated on a lesser problem--Saleh's lack of general legitimacy--and overlooked the larger, catastrophic one--Yemen is a collapsing state. Period.  (This dynamic, obsessive focus on a lesser problem which prevented appreciating a larger, fatal one, was at work in the crash two years ago of Air France flight 447.)

The obsession with AQAP has resulted in tunnel vision regarding the totality of Yemen.  While the Western looking youthful demonstrators in Sana have captured the photos and imagination of the West, these individuals, many of them quite secular, are not representative of Yemen taken as a whole.  Nothing, no one set of individuals, no one group, no single ideology, religious or secular, certainly no leader can be taken to represent Yemen as a whole.

Why? You ask.

There is no such political entity as Yemen.  Get a grip on it.  You cannot take Yemen as a whole because there is no such critter.  At best Yemen is a geographical expression in which several different polities, societies, ideologies coexist in an environment of friction and animus.

It was the inherent divisions which typify Yemen which allowed Saleh to hang on to power for so long.  He understood and exploited the differences, the rivalries, the animosities between tribes and within tribes, between and within regions, between and within religious groups well enough to stay in power, dancing, as he once said, on the heads of vipers.

When the predominantly young, very often Western looking and leaning youth of the Yemeni Khat Revolution came hot on the heels of the paradigmatic Jasmine and Lotus revolts, it introduced not simply a new snake of a different color to the nest of vipers on which Saleh danced, but also perturbed the delicate balance between the older, larger rivals with results which constituted a cascading failure for the status quo.  The longer and less successful the suppression campaign became, the more the ancient opponents of Saleh saw prospects for change.

Old and trusted comrades, members of the status quo in good standing, suddenly had a great desire to embrace the goals of the young men and women serving as targets for Saleh's snipers.  Tribes whose leadership had battened fat and rich from the troughs controlled by Saleh felt the warm winds of freedom and without warning had a yearning to breath longer and deeper of the heady new atmosphere.

The vipers no longer were bunching together in a fine dance floor for Saleh's nimble feet.  They parted company, each looking for advantage.  Each showed a very real willingness to exploit the fruits of change growing from the blood of the kids of the Khat Revolution.  Saleh may have been both willing and able to keep on dancing--but there were no longer any snakes upon whose heads he might.

Not that the rapid disintegration of the Saleh dance floor really mattered.  All it did was to hasten the day when the basic reality of Yemen's non-existence had to be recognized by the US and others.  Right now, today there are at least four Yemens within a common border.

There is Houthi-land in the north.  This Shia derived sect has been waging defensive insurgency for several years now with the long range goal of reconstituting the historic Houthi monarchy in at least some of its former range.

There is AQAP-stan in the southeast.  In that part of Yemen AQAP has come into the open.  It operates as the de facto government.  Its' fighters control at least some of the towns and all of the interurban roads.  It collects taxes, administers "justice," and generally behaves as a government.  To say that AQAP has ambitions not limited to the hot and sandy wastes of the southeast is to belabor the obvious.

In the southwest is to be found the remnants of the old Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) which existed as a soviet style independent sovereignty for decades only to be more or less forcibly folded into greater Yemen while Bill Clinton warmed the Oval.  The aging one time commissars of the PDRY may have wrinkled with the passage of years, but they have not lost the dreams of youth--as their armed insurgency has demonstrated repeatedly in recent years.

This leaves "Yemen."  In the center of the map, this "Yemen" is the fighting ground of several tribes each of which seeks to be first among equals.  This "Yemen" bests represents the cynical but accurate description once applied by an Egyptian observer to Arab states generally--"An assemblage of tribes under a common flag."

The profound centripetal forces afflicting Yemen assure its collapse.  Saleh himself recognized this as he manifested a while back when he eschewed reelection ambitions.  All the events of recent weeks have done is to accelerate the process.  The support or non-support of Saleh by the Obama administration is utterly irrelevant.

The policy pivot will not gain the US any particular influence over whatever government emerges in the post-Saleh days.  Even if the belated embrace of the protesters' cause did gain influence for the US, it wouldn't matter.  That is because no successor government will be any more able to overcome the powerful impetus to disintegration so deeply embedded in the political, social, and cultural matrices of the place and the people.

Yemen as it exists on paper is an artifact.  It is the creation of outsiders along with a miniscule number of Yemenis, most of whom were in closer touch with the West than the tribal majority at home.  Like Sudan or Somalia or Iraq or Libya, Yemen is not an organic creation, a product of strictly local manufacture.  As such, Yemen has been a collapsing state in the making since the day of its creation.

As if the internal frictions and rivalries were not sufficient to make Yemen an ungovernable place and the Yemenis an ungovernable people, there are other considerations of more recent vintage.  Yemen is poor.  Well, it worse than simply poor.  It is a desperately impoverished place in which poverty is exacerbated by exceptional mal-distribution of the riches that do exist.

Worsening the situation is the reality that Yemen's microscopic oil reserves are dipping rapidly to empty.  The oil bucks will stop flowing in the very near future.

Then there is water.  More accurately there is the lack of water.  The combination of normal drought, overuse of subsurface water, and the waste of water in non-productive agriculture (the growing of khat) have combined to present Yemen with the stark possibility of running out of this most essential of materials in the near future.

The lack of economic development--caused in large measure by the corrupt diversion of oil revenues to personal pockets rather than generally beneficial projects--combined with unsupportable population growth has assured that the best employment opportunities for Yemenis are to be found outside of Yemen.  More and more Yemeni economic success will be measured in the amount of the remittances sent home by Yemeni working elsewhere.

Considering the totality of the circumstances (as lawyers are wont to say) there are ample reasons for Yemen to collapse.  At the same time there are few, if any, reasons to argue that a mere regime change will benefit either the place or the people.

The policy conclusion is not hard to make.  The US and other countries (such as Saudi Arabia which has the biggest bull in the herd here) can pump money beyond count into Yemen in the hope of purchasing some fair simulacrum of stability.  Or, the US can wait on the sidelines.  Wait for the inevitable, the official collapse of Yemen.

The second course of action implies that the Yemen Question will be dropped on the laps of (1) the Arab League, (2) the Gulf Cooperation Council, (3) the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and, (4) the UN. In the event that one or more of these groups decides that the collective interests of its members requires a nation-building effort in Yemen, the result will be a future very much like the past--an artifact imposed from outside which will be inherently non-stable.

The only direct interest of the US and other Western states in the Yemen Question is that of security against terror threats from AQAP.  This implies that the policy of the US and other similarly situated states must focus narrowly on preventing such acts or punishing the actors and their facilitators after the fact.  The US would bear no responsibility for the political, social, economic, or cultural "rehabilitation" of Yemen and should vigorously reject any such involvement as the result would be a replay of the past few years.

Yemen, like Libya, like Somalia, like Iraq, like Sudan and numerous other "states" demonstrates the futility of building a nation-state.  Only nations can build a state--and then only their own.  For Yemen to become a nation-state it must first become a nation--not a group of tribes with a single flag.  Yemen has a far piece to go before it can be called a nation.  That means it has a long, long way to go before it can claim the status of nation-state.

It is very important for our future as well as that of the Yemeni that the US (and other well-intentioned states) get a grip on a very compelling but equally unpleasant truth: You cannot build a nation or a nation-state from the outside.

Woosh! There Goes Yemen Down The Potty

You know things must be bad when Somali refugees start leaving.  This is happening in Yemen, so there is little hope that the place will escape failed state status.  Of course you can't blame these hyper vigilant survivors of a war without fronts.  They learned up close and personal that he who hesitates is dead.

The Yemeni army is fractured.  Several units have "mutinied" with the result that former comrades-in-arms are now shooting each other.  The army is reflecting the other divisions which have occurred in Yemen subsequent to the quite ill-advised use of highly trained and skilled snipers to kill dozens assembled outside the University of San'a last Friday protesting the thirty-two year old dictatorship of Abdullah Saleh.  As Talleyrand once observed of a particularly stupid bit of political murder committed by his boss, Napoleon, "Sire that was worse than a crime.  It was a blunder."

How much of a blunder Saleh has been discovering the past forty-eight hours.  The chief tribe in this tribal assemblage, his tribe, has called for his ouster.  Several cabinet members--including fellow tribesmen--called it quits over the killings as did ambassador after ambassador.  Now the army has joined in with a senior officer, a commander of the northern district among others and a half-brother who has carried heavy internal security freight among others, leading the parade to opposition.

On the international scene, France continuing its leadership of the free and democratic countries, has become the first state to demand Saleh step down ASAP.  How long will it be before other countries in the West, for example the UK, join the chorus?

According to assorted "experts" the continued collapse of Yemen places the US in the space between a rock and a hard place.  After all, we are reminded, Yemen is a key ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

Sure it is.

When evaluating the role of Saleh and Yemen in any contest with AQAP, it is critical to recall that Saleh took over South Yemen, the former Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen, with the assistance of tribesmen who fought under the banner of violent political Islam.  Subsequently, these same folk have constituted the majority of the high command of the anti-terrorist units and a heavy percentage of the actual security force trigger pullers.  This ground truth along with Yemen's tribal nature may be the reason that Yemen has had a singular lack of success in suppressing AQAP.

It can be argued with some legitimacy that a failed Yemen right across the narrow straight from the long failed Somalia will exacerbate greatly the menace to navigation presented by the Merry Buccaneers Of Puntland.  A large grain of truth resides in that contention, but not a large enough one to make of it a pearl of wisdom.

The Yemeni coastguard rivals the Yemeni counter-terrorist forces for ineffectiveness.  This has not been remedied in the slightest by US aid.

Yemen is, has been and will be, whether or not Saleh stays in power, a source of jihadists and pirates alike.  The reason for that is the nature of the human terrain of Yemen.  The deep tribal nature of the place, the extreme poverty which besets the majority, the appeal of the most austere form of Islam, the cultural imperative of tribal solidarity against any outsider combine to assure Yemen is a fertile breeding place for jihad of all sorts.

Nor is the situation in Yemen going to be altered in any meaningful way by the introduction of democracy or any other form of exported "nation-building" including massive economic assistance.  It is critical, foundational, to remember that Yemen is not a nation in any recognizable sense of the word.  Rather it is a collection of rival tribes collected under a single flag which none recognize as being real.

Senior American decision makers headed by Defense Secretary Gates have warned that fragmentation of existing states will not contribute to stability.  While he made that warning with specific reference to the notion of a Libya partitioned into western and eastern components, his proposition is flatly wrong.  When a state, be it Libya, Yemen, or Somalia, is the artifact of well-intentioned Western diplomats, it is not an authentic affair.  Having never been a reality in the minds of most people living there, fragmentation along tribal or cultural lines is a viable option.

It can be argued on the basis of history, both European and non-Western, that nations and the states they create emerge slowly, painfully, and organically from internal imperatives and external pressures.  Only a nation and concomitant state so created can withstand stresses such as those seen in Libya or Yemen.

This suggests strongly that the collapse of Yemen into its component parts is not a bad idea even if the near-term consequences bear no resemblance to a stroll though paradise.  Only by falling apart will there be any hope of Yemen ever coming together in a stable way.

The best policy for France, the UK, or the US is to stay away.  Even if Saleh becomes a perfect imitation of Gaddafi, which is unlikely given the internal dynamics of Yemen, the West must restrain its impulses to impose peace, craft a settlement calculated to keep Yemen intact under some sort of imitation Western liberal government.

There is a lesson from Afghanistan which may be learned once more in Libya.  Outsiders cannot create a nation-state from a traditional, tribal society for which the entire notion of the nation and the state are literally unthinkable.  As was once said, "Don't try to teach a pig to sing.  It won't work.  It will annoy the pig."

You Can't Teach A Pig To Sing

And, more to the point, you cannot create/impose a modern Western style nation-state on a traditional, tribal, majority Muslim society.  This brutally honest, brute fact is the single greatest lesson of the Afghan experience.  Even Iraq demonstrates clearly and convincingly the impossibility of imposing a "democratic" government on a society which is not traditional but is both tribal and majority Muslim.  The state of affairs in Pakistan indicates the absurdity of insisting that a majority Muslim society which is neither overtly tribal nor particularly traditional has made of itself a modern, Western style nation-state.

This should not be interpreted to mean that there are no Muslims who seek the individual power and dignity inherent to a democratic republic.  Nor should it be taken to imply that Muslim majority states do not merit a democratic republican form of government.  It certainly  should not be seen as averring that Muslim majority nations are not capable of creating and maintaining a democratic republic.

Experience, which is to say, history, demonstrates that the Western understandings of political and social organization cannot be imposed on a traditional, tribal, Muslim majority people.  History also demonstrates that there is a profound opposition to Western understandings built into Islam.  Many clerics in Muslim majority countries have pointed out that the strictures of Islam preclude the democratic republic as a "lawful" form of government as such exalts man over the deity by denying that the deity is the source of all law and all proper conduct by believers.  These clerics may or may not be a majority of all Muslim clergymen, but they and their understanding of the requirements of their faith deserve to be taken at face value.

Consider for a moment the reaction in Afghanistan running from Hamid Karzai to Afghans on the street to the tragic incident recently in which American gunships and artillery killed nine Afghan children all under the age of fourteen who were innocently gathering firewood in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Karzai bluntly rejected the personal apology offered by General Petraeus (a very rare action by the aloof supreme commander.)  Karzai and his people have protested this incident as they have previous "friendly fire" deaths of Afghan civilians.  At the same time the Afghan president and Afghan citizens generally have been mute regarding the far more numerous non-combatant deaths occurring as a result of insurgent suicide bombers and roadside bombs.

To the Afghans presently as to the Iraqis a couple of years ago, the notion of co-religionists killing non-combatants is far less offensive to sensibilities than is the killing of civilians by infidel troops.  This is not, as is often alleged, because they hold the "civilized" Americans and their equally "civilized" allies to a higher ethical standard than they do the "savage" insurgents.  Afghans today like Iraqis yesterday and, perhaps, Yemenis or Libyans tomorrow do not consider the Americans and other Westerners more "civilized," suitable to be held to a higher standard of conduct than indigenous "barbaric" fighters.

Quite the contrary.  Afghans today like the Iraqis of yesterday and any potential Muslim co-belligerent of the future see the Americans and other Westerners as both infidels and "savages" while believing their fellow Muslims are the "civilized" combatants.

Wait one, bucko.  Think about that assertion.  Consider it carefully.  The unwashed, flea bitten Afghan peasants living in stone huts way back in the hills with a history of tribal and clan violence which is far more bloody than the legendary feuds of Appalachians think of us, the Americans, the good guys, as barbaric, savage infidels who carry evil in their packs and speak blasphemy whenever they open their mouths.  The same folks, the ones our government has committed our troops to protect and nurture in their political, social, economic, and cultural "development" see what we are doing as threatening the very basis of identity, of society, of life itself.

In the estimate of the people we were assured would welcome our liberation, our uplifting, our presence, we are evil incarnate.  We are the very devil.  We are the barbarians.

It is an unpleasant and highly inconvenient truth to accept.  But, there it is.  Our Western understandings of politics, of society, of culture is utterly abhorrent to the recipients of our largess.  Even if there are individual Afghans, or Iraqis, or Libyans or Yemeni, or even Somali who would see American efforts to foster political, social, economic, and cultural change as good, they are and will continue to be a distinct minority.  The majority of each and all of these societies is satisfied with the status quo.  Even those who agitate for political revolution are essentially satisfied with the social and cultural status quo.

In this context it is critical to remember that the people who make the news are those who are in the minority. It is the feminists, for example, in Afghanistan or Egypt, Yemen, or Iraq who are news.  And, they are news because they are few and rare on the ground.  The same applies to advocates of Western style impartial law administered by an independent judiciary.  The proponents of a secular government or religious parity are equally news because they are so few and far between.

The non-newsworthy, which is to say the overwhelming majority, are quite happy if things go on as they have for generations, centuries.  All humans are afflicted with great inertia when it comes to change in the social and cultural milieu.  Even in the West, yes, even the US, extreme or very rapid change in the structures of society, or the norms of culture, are viewed at best with suspicion and at worst with rejection by many, even most of the society.  You need only think back to the Sixties to see that reality in dramatic and high profile operation.

The more traditional, the more tribal or the more Islamic a people are, the greater will be the inherent inertia, the resistance to change, particularly change which is imposed by outsiders, by infidels.  Islam alone by virtue of its theology, its sacred writings, its emphasis on precedent in the interpretation of Shariah is even more inertia laden, more resistant to change.  This resistance is boosted orders of magnitude when the change appears to be the artifact of the infidel.

Our efforts at nation-building were seen for what they have been: Change imposed by infidel outsiders which undercut not only Islam but the identity of the nation as well as its norms, values, and worldviews.  The fact that we saw our efforts as selfless in nature, lofty in goal, and beneficial in effect in no way alters the negative perceptions of the people in the crosshairs of our self-assigned noble mission of uplifting the locals.

The abject and counterproductive failure in Afghanistan particularly when taken in conjunction with what can be accurately but charitably characterized as an "incomplete success" in Iraq militates powerfully against any future interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies.  This means quite simply that with the exception of retaliation based punitive operations or carefully considered humanitarian relief missions in the wake of natural disasters, the US and other Western states should refrain from any military or military backed endeavor in states such as Libya, Somalia, or Yemen.

To narrow the focus slightly, the reality of antipodal understandings as between the outside interventionary force and the target population means that those who argue there is no answer to the pirates of Somalia until there is a stable government in the place must refrain from seeking to create/impose such a government.  Any military intervention in Libya, even air attacks delivered with the greatest of care so as to limit civilian casualties, will necessarily result in indigenous opposition to the foreign, infidel action.

The combination of historical and recent experience allows the formulation of an axiom: Any attempt to stabilize a deteriorating or failing state will result in terminal destabilization.  A corollary would be: Nation-states cannot be created; they can only create themselves.

Looking forward, Secretary Gates is in Afghanistan today.  It is to be hoped that he is coming to the conclusion that the mission, the goal of nation-building so unwisely embraced by George W. Bush and his fellow muscular Wilsonians has failed and must be wrapped up as quickly and cleanly as possible.  It is also to be hoped that the reluctance, indeed the rejection, Secretary Gates expressed recently regarding interventions in traditional, tribal, majority Muslim societies informs the decision making which must be made regarding Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.

Remember these wise words: "You cannot teach a pig to sing.  It will fail and only annoy the pig."

The Wonders Of Democracy In Iraq Or Have We A New Saddam Here?

Observers of Iraq since the end of American combat operations have focused correctly on the state of play in the new "democratic" government which is the legacy of the Great Adventure In Regime Change.  What has been evolving in Iraq shows all the dangers resident in celebrating "democracy" without proper regard to all the contextual factors which can allow democracy to be other than a portal to authoritarianism.

The most visible sign of something awry in Iraq was the seemingly never ending failure of the Maliki apparatus to form a functioning government following parliamentary elections.  The inability of the government to organize itself was illustrative of the deep fractures which characterize politics in post-Saddam Iraq.  Even leaving aside the many questions regarding the fairness and accuracy of the parliamentary vote, the deep ruptures running across Iraqi society and polity virtually make effective and responsive government impossible.

Maliki has already shown a propensity toward the authoritarian which far transcends his main rival.  Even though Mr Maliki has ambitions to near dictatorship, his government has proven itself inefficient and corrupt to a degree which has excited "days of rage" in many Iraqi cities.  The protests resulted in deaths as security forces opened fire with small arms.  As the deaths mounted so also have the protests.

The security forces have rounded up Baghdad intellectuals--lawyers, journalists, and academics--subjecting those arrested to beatings and intimidating interrogations before finally releasing them.  While this scarcely amounts to the sort of activity routinely engaged in by Saddam's internal security personnel, the arrests like the use of deadly force against peaceful albeit noisy demonstrators points in an alarming direction.

Even more alarming has been the steady accretion of power by Maliki.  In a move without equal in any parliamentary government elsewhere in the world, Maliki and his cabinet have been given unique authority by the Iraqi equivalent of the Supreme Court.  In a ruling which was stunning in both its breadth and lack of constitutional basis, the high court ruled that only Maliki and his cabinet could propose legislation to the parliament.  The legislators could not propose any legislation on their own initiative.  In effect this makes the Iraqi parliament something less than relevant.

The obliging court also gave Maliki control over the previously independent central bank.  It also made the formerly independent agencies responsible for investigating corruption and conducting elections mere tools in Maliki's ever grasping hands.

Additionally, human rights groups in Iraq have alleged credibly that Maliki's security forces have created secret detention centers in which dissidents are immured.  If this is not a symptom of creeping authoritarianism it would be hard to say what might be.

The record of Maliki's government is dismal at best.  As Iraqi citizens have complained in the street and elsewhere, the basic infrastructure is still a mess.  Electricity is still off nearly as much as it is on.  The economy is still in a shambles despite the ocean of oil a few thousand feet down.  Unemployment remains high.  And, inflation particularly in basics is on the up ramp.

Then, of course, the tensions between Shiite and Sunni remain.  So also do those between Arab and Kurd.  The purportedly secularist regime of Maliki;s State of Law party has shown a tilt toward the Shiite majority and most definitely against the Sunni minority.  This tendency emerged dramatically with the refusal of the Maliki government to honor commitments made to the Sons of Iraq and Awakening Councils which are Sunni and were key to the success of the American counterinsurgency effort.  Since then the government has marginalized the Sunni population even more.

The security situation has gone south over the entire period since the American combat forces withdrew.  The bombings have been directed against Shiites much of the time but there has been no evidence, not even credible rumors, pointing the finger at Sunnis.  The cynical killing of Shiites by Shiites is not unprecedented in Iraq and would fit the agenda of both Iran and its agents in Iraq.  It would also meet the agenda of a wannabe dictator, particularly one who happens to be a Shiite.  Maliki has control of specialist security units capable of undertaking spectacular operations whether the targets are government facilities, Shiite pilgrims, or Christian churches and homes.

It is more than simply interesting that persons suspected of involvement in bombings and assassinations are arrested in a blare of publicity but then simply fade away.  No trials.  No convictions.  No executions.  Nothing.  Considering that one of the fastest roads to total authority is creating a climate of disorder and lack of safety, that there is a loud demand for law'n'order, it is not implausible that Maliki and his cohorts have orchestrated at least some of the prevailing insecurity.

The schism between the Arabs of Baghdad and the Kurds in their semi-autonomous region has grown of late again at the behest of the central government.  The Kurds may be obstreperous but they have shown themselves to be rational negotiators.  The current talks over the status of Kirkuk and the oil fields surrounding it could come to a satisfactory conclusion, but the Maliki government keeps upping the ante as if looking for an excuse to turn the army loose in the region.

As the clock ticks down to the date certain when the last American forces withdraw, the influence of the US declines apace.  The loss of American influence is exacerbated by the Obama's administration which appears flatly indifferent to what is happening in Iraq in the wake of our unilaterally declared victory.  Unlike Vietnam the Obama administration has not even sought a "decent interval" before Iraq's "democracy" collapses into an authoritarian regime.

It is more than slightly ironic that as pro-democracy movements have spread across many Arab majority states, the tide is running in the opposite direction in Iraq.  Increasing the irony is the crowing of unreconstructed neo-cons over the flood of protests ranging from Tunisia to Yemen as having proved just how right, how prescient was George W. Bush when he ordered the invasion of Iraq.  It certainly looks like the American monument to democracy built with the blood of so many Americans and so much American money is at great risk of imploding into an imitation of the dictatorship it was intended to replace.

The lesson here is simple and brutal.  It is far easier to talk about nation-building than it is to do it.  It is easier to envision the creation of a Western style democracy than it is to realize the vision.  Or, most simply: Democracies can not be created; they can only create themselves.

Some More Reasons China Will Defeat The US

There are two contests currently underway in global affairs.  In each the stakes of the game are nothing less than planetary preeminence.  One of the two "games" is between adherents of political Islam, particularly violent political Islam, and the civilized states both great and small.  The other is between the US and the Peoples Republic of China.

Both are dangerous.  Both directly threaten the US and We the People.  Without going unacceptably far out on the limb of doom laden speculation, each--and particularly the second--are existential in the sense that should the US be on the losing side, life will change for Americans, and not for the better.

As was the case in World War II when the US was faced by war on two fronts, war conducted by two qualitatively different enemies, a choice must be made as to which enemy deserves priority.  In 1941 the leadership of the US and UK correctly estimated that Nazi Germany constituted the greater threat and thus merited the greater effort by the Western Allies.  Now, the leadership of the US must make a similar decision.  It must evaluate which threat--violent political Islam or expansionist China--is greater and, thus, must take pride of place in American efforts.

It is not an easy choice to make.  There is no doubt but violent political Islam constitutes a clear and present danger.  There is no arguing against the proposition that should the adherents of this objectionable religion based political philosophy gain greater influence around the world, the consequences for the US and other civilized states would be unpleasant and all too often lethal.  However, the potentials of violent political Islam pale when compared to the threat contained in Chinese expansionism.

Unlike the majority of those who advocate the triumph of political Islam (which are actors of the non-state sort), China is a fully functioning state with all the appurtenances of statehood.  Not only is China a nation-state, it is an authoritarian one, which means it has automatic advantages in long term planning and execution of policy.  China is not only a nation-state with an authoritarian political system, it is a country with both a long history and an equally long record of being quite historically conscious.  Historical consciousness implies that policy is more often than not based on trajectories and world views of very long standing, backed as it were by the power of time.

Given its advantages of organization, economic and technological predicates, population size and cohesiveness, unitary political will, and the very real force of time, China possesses a number of advantages in the Great Game of Nations which are denied to the adherents of political Islam.  In short, China is today's equivalent of Nazi Germany in 1941 while the practitioners of political Islam are the contemporary version of Imperial Japan in 1941--a major annoyance, an enemy which must be defeated in the fullness of time but not a true existential menace.

When considering the match up between China and the US, it is clear that China has a number of very potent advantages.  Some of these have been examined in earlier posts such as Beijing's severely narrow focus on Chinese national and strategic interests, its capacity to assure monolithic political will, or the Trolls' well demonstrated ability to plan and execute foreign policy with an emphasis on the long term.

There are other factors which amp up China's tactical capacities which merit close consideration since without effective tactics even the best strategy will fail.  A second justification for scrutinizing certain tactical matters is that the differing approaches taken by the US and China are illustrative of larger factors which militate against American success in the current contest.

Consider for the moment the notion of "doing good."  The notion of "doing good" is inherent in the concept of "nation-building."  And, as has been demonstrated by our interventionary operations in the post-World War II decades, the slippery critter called "nation-building" has been a centrality.  Actually, the roots of nation-building go back nearly a century when Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines ashore in Mexico in order "to teach the Mexicans to elect good men."

Nation-building is one of those ideas which reads well in academic conferences or policy discussions by ad hoc inter-agency working groups sitting around highly polished fine wood tables in some chancery somewhere.  In the real world, particularly among those benighted folk upon whose backs a nation will be built, the idea is not so well received.

The idea is even less well received when it is presented--as it always is--with overtones of condescension, of the well intentioned expert parachuting in with salvation for the heathen contained in his briefcase or on his flash drive.  The wannabe nation-builder does nothing to enhance the favor with which his efforts at uplift are received when--as inevitably it must be--hectoring replaces mere condescension.

No one likes to be told he is somehow lacking, somehow inferior, somehow in need of guidance, moral uplift, political transformation.  No member of a traditional society and culture enjoys hearing how it is deficient and what he must do to "build" his nation.  The universal crustiness of the human critter assures that the most well intended nation-building will fail unless the "builders" limit their role to that of provider of money and other goodies.

The Americans (and other Westerners as well) have never gotten the message no matter how often it has been delivered by different recipients of our nation-building efforts.  In Afghanistan today as in South Vietnam fifty years ago or Mexico a half century before that, Americans are committed to nation-building complete with the ribbons and bows of hectoring and implicit superiority.  The result is simple: No matter how much "good" we do, the efforts are invariably resented and rejected by the objects of our succor and assistance.

The Chinese are not so high minded.  Perhaps because China was the target of nation-building in bygone days, the Trolls and their agents are willing to simply pass out money and urge that Chinese companies be hired for infrastructure projects.  China does not seek to build nations but rather to secure influence within existing governments and the states these rule.  To this end the Trolls will distribute money, seek to recoup as much of the dole as possible through the awarding of contracts, and in the process gain and retain influence within both the government of the target state and its associated elite(s.)

This is a coldly realistic process of pursuing Chinese national and strategic interests.  The Trolls have no lofty aspirations of uplifting the heathens, of changing the local culture, society, or polity for the "better" or otherwise doing "good" for the local "masses."  Chinese national and strategic interests in no way require the transformation of the recipient country into a simulacrum of China.

This diplomatic philosophy is in sharp opposition with that of the US (and some other Western states.)  It doesn't matter if neocon ninnies or High Minded Progressives are running the White House or congress, the US always demands the recipient become some sort of Western style democratic polity with a society marked by the full panoply of "rights" enjoyed by Americans today and an economy having all the features of a well regulated, "rule of law" approach.

The implications of this sharp set of distinctions are too self-evident to require elucidation.  Or, at least, they should be.

For the Deep Thinking Denizens Inside the Beltway, the distinctions and their impact do not seem so self-evident.  This dynamic comes into sharper focus in another area of difference between the methods of the Trolls and those favored by the US government and its fellow travelers within our domestic elites.

The second illustration of the differences between the Chinese and American ways of 'nation-building" is the role of corruption.  To Americans at the policy level corruption is anathema.  To the Trolls it just another way of acquiring and keeping influence.  To us it is a sin.  To the Chinese it is a fact of life to be used in the pursuit of interest.

In many places around the world graft, corruption, nepotism, and a lack of transparency are a normal and expectable part of life.  When these features of quotidian existence become a problem for the local elite or the citizenry generally, it is usually because the fruits of corruption are not distributed equitably.  It is not the corruption per se but rather its lack of breadth which cause outrage.

The American answer to corruption is to stamp it out with the moral fervor of a health Nazi facing a McDonald's warehouse.  The Chinese response is to build corruption in as a normal cost and try to make sure it is spread around appropriately.  The more spreading the better as such assures more people will be tied in effectively to the Chinese program.

Our approach is more--more laws, more regulations, more courts, more commissions, more oversight, more investigators, more cops.  The Chinese approach is also more--more money and more widespread distribution.

Pop quiz:  Which approach is more likely to produce more positive results with more people in the recipient traditional society?

This brief consideration of two tactical advantages enjoyed by China over the US today illustrates why it is critical for us to stop and take a hard look at the two threats facing the Americans today.  It also helps in understanding why China is the larger, more important threat as well as why the US is not likely to prevail in the contest underway today.

To put it all quite simply, when the deck is stacked against you is it is with respect to the Trolls time is not on your side.  The US does not have the luxury of sitting back and wondering what we should do--if anything.  The real deal is the Obama administration has no viable option other than to remove its collective head from the sand and realize that the Chinese are cruising on by us on the fast track to global preeminence.

Really, Mr Obama is that why you received the Nobel Peace Prize?

Ignorance Equals Defeat

A thoughtful interlocutor who knows the Geek's secure and undisclosed location has requested he dilate upon a passing reference made in yesterday's post. Always ready to oblige, the Geek will do so below.

When the term "nation-building" first hit the rhetoric of the Bush/Cheney administration (an event which occurred even as US troops were failing in Tora Bora) the Geek shuddered, almost ran to the pottie and puked his guts out. For that term showed three critical features were at work to assure a long and eventually failed American effort in Afghanistan.

The first critical feature was simply that we had abandoned, if, indeed, we had ever considered limiting our goal to that of mounting a successful punitive expedition with the focus being upon killing or capturing al-Qaeda personnel and Taliban governmental and military leaders. The second was that no matter how long and loud we proclaimed that we were not waging war on Islam qua Islam or Muslims qua Muslims these protestations would be discounted by Muslims both in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Thirdly and most importantly, it showed that the administration did not understand that society and polity in a Muslim majority country arise totally from the religion of Islam.

Mark this well: Any attempt to alter a Muslim society or polity is simultaneously an attempt to change the religion. Unlike here in the West, there is no blue sky between faith and society, faith and polity. There is and can be no, repeat, no separation between faith and state.

The announced intention to transform Afghanistan into some sort of imitation of a Western nation-state gave free pass to any and all Muslims to see the effort as an attack upon Muslims and Islam thus invoking the obligation of defensive jihad upon all believers. This call to defensive arms requires no tortured logic, no semantic games, it is plain and simple in the Koran.

While sometimes there is ample room for interpretation over whether or not aggressive war, offensive jihad is required, this is not the case when the infidel invades Muslim land and drives Muslims from their homes. The branding of Afghanistan as a country in need of severe, extreme make-over rang the bell of jihad.

Had the US made it clear that our goal was the punishment of people, groups resident within Afghanistan, who had caused us great injury and great insult, that would have been understood by those in Afghanistan and elsewhere who were not joined with either Taliban or al-Qaeda. Such a goal would have not crossed the line into invading a Muslim land and chasing Muslims from their homes. It would not have invoked the defensive jihad.

Had the US employed the run-up period to public diplomacy focusing on the nature of the 9/11 attack, the character of the majority of the victims, and the way in which both attack and consequences both violated Islamic principles and caused Islam and Muslims to be covered with infamy, the punitive expedition would have met with a large measure of approval in the Muslim-Arab world. Revenge--which is what punishment is at root--is well understood by Muslims all over the world. An honorable person, a nation with honor and dignity, are both entitled, even expected, to avenge wrongs done to them.

Admittedly, while the notion of a purely punitive military action would not have met with approval by segments of both American and Western European opinion, it would have been eminently salable to the majority of the population both here and abroad. The Lofty Minded, the overly legally minded, the softly sentimental all would have been offended in their sensibilities by the concept of war as punishment. Too bad. The majority would have supported the notion and that is all politics both domestic and global require.

The punitive blow might have been softened by a policy of supporting international efforts to assist the Afghan population in its economic and political development provided there was no odor of external coercion involved. This add-on would have mollified the do-gooding segment of opinion and not provided ammunition for the advocates of violent political Islam.

Had the public diplomacy been accompanied by a bit of very non-public pressure on Islamabad along the lines of "cooperate with us, close the borders, pull out your ISI guys, and allow us to get on with killing or capturing the bad boys or you will never see another big ticket, high tech weapons system marked Made in America," the result would have been the death or capture of far more al-Qaeda and Taliban heavyweights than was the case. There is little doubt that the military high command of Pakistan would have seen the logic of our presentation.

The basic intelligence product regarding the relation of Islam, nation-building, and defensive jihad were all in existence in 2001. It would have taken no particular effort to connect the dots and make the right policy choice.

The rub came back then precisely where it does today. The president and his senior staff as well as the rarefied levels of the military do not know what they do not know. They were and are afflicted with ignorance as to the extent of their own ignorance. Compounding the problem back then as well as today is the simple reality that the people who do know what needs to be known topside are too far down the food chain to bring their concerns and knowledge to the appropriate level. There is no way for knowledge, no matter how mission critical, to leap from way down low to the up high where decisions are made.

Of course it is possible that the neocon ninnies of W and Company were briefed on the fact that the saber toothed tigers of defeat lived in the word, "nation-building," and decided for reasons of ideology or hubris to ignore the warning. If that was the case, the administration of W. Bush stands indicted of the worst sort of war "crime." The one of committing one's country and military to a long, costly, counterproductive war in which naught but defeat is possible.

It's Our Space! Get Out Of It!

A corespondent who is unwilling to post comments has requested the Geek to dilate upon the role of self-organisation. The Geek is happy to oblige, hoping he is usefully elucidating rather than merely bloviating.

Political science has a very useful concept: The division between public and private space. Public space is open to intervention and regulation by the state through law and regulation. Private space exists for the self-organizing social and political groups of both formal and informal nature. The blunt (and brutal) reality is that public space--the space in social, political and economic activities liable to regulatory control by the bureaucratic state--has expanded at the expense of the private. The proponents of government owned (or at least regulated, policed, and controlled) public space argue that such is necessary for the accomplishment of the commonweal.

There is a powerful irony at work in the seeming triumph of public space. In the pursuit of lofty and seemingly utterly necessary goals such as assuring that no group is "victimized" and no group "privileged," the expansion of the public space has resulted in a private space push-back through the formation of self-organizing groups.

Self-organizing social, political, and economic groups are an ancient and honorable tradition in human experience. Their formation and dynamic stability as well as capacity for evolution, flexibility, and long duration are and have been universal--even in the most centralized examples of the bureaucratic state. Indeed, history demonstrates that in any tightly controlled venue, unless the organs of repression are highly effective, every increase in public space is countered by evasion and resistance oriented self-organizing groups.

Of course, not everyone living in a public space dominated environment will be part of evasion or resistance oriented self-organized groups. Some will collaborate as is the case with populations in territories occupied by a foreign enemy. Others, perhaps the majority, will duck and cover hoping to stay invisible to those who control the expansionist public space. Some few, again as is the case when the outsider conquers and occupies land, will self-organize so as to evade the regulated public space and resist its further expansion.

Regulatory, bureaucratic states practicing centrally controlled public space predominate in Europe, particularly in the West. Evasion and resistance are and have been commonplace. Consider, for example, the wide spread tax avoidance and flat out cheating which is of legendary proportions in Italy and France but far from absent elsewhere.

Admittedly, centralized bureaucratic states can extend public space to the extent that virtually no private space remains. Further, some such states can possess internal police mechanisms of very high efficiency. But, as the example of the former German Democratic Republic shows, the slightest weakening of either resolve or capacity to efficiently repress results in the very rapid implosion of the state. The same may be seen in the former Soviet Union, which quickly dissolved into a vast array of self-organizing entities of sizes ranging from the microscopic to full fledged states.

In short, the human impetus to self-organizing can be delayed but it cannot be denied. It is so deeply rooted in our very nature that it cannot be expunged, it cannot be extinguished, it cannot be conquered by threats, coercion, force, or violence. It is the basis of all our resistance movements of whatever size, nature, or opponent.

In the US ever since the emergence of the progressive movement and agenda over a century ago, both major political parties have shared a progressive belief in the supreme efficacy of the bureaucratic, regulatory, and centralized state. The two parties may disagree on the goals of the ever expanded public space, but they subscribe to the notion that the extension of public space at the expense of the private is both desirable and necessary for the benefit of all Americans.

For the majority of the past half-century and more, the available private space has steadily contracted as have the number of established but initially self-organized groups both formal and informal which mediated between the individual and the public space. Much of this dynamic occurred for reasons which may be seen (and were) as laudable: economic justice, equality of opportunity (and, in many cases, outcome,) internal security, and so forth.

While many, if not all, the posited goals would have been achieved through the interplay of the mediating groups of private space, it is important to recognize that the expansion of public space was brought about from the top down. It was an imposed expansion, imposed often not by political processes but by judicial fiat. Legions of litigators not precinct captains, squads of judges not divisions of citizens, decreed the public space with its regulations, controls, and dictates must supersede the messy, inherently chaotic emergent systems of the private space.

It is and has been argued that the very nature of the United States, its large and quite heterogeneous population, its mixed economy, its complexly organised structures and institutions, demand the expanded public space. It is and has been argued that without the regulated and controlled public space the people of the US would be at the mercy of the darkest emotions--greed, fear, exploitation, inequity.

Proponents of the ever larger public space view human nature with the most dour of Calvinist eyes. To them the individual and his private space is the residence of evil. This evil must be both exposed and constrained by the ever vigilant government operating bureaucratically in the public space.

Of course, being True Believers, these proponents are indifferent to the base desire for power, even total authority, which their agenda brings with it. These proponents of the expanded public space always understand their motives and goals to be of the highest, purist, and most lofty sort.

It doesn't matter if the motives and goals are secular (from neocon to Marxist) or religious (from Evangelical Christian to Islamist Muslim), the True Believers are always morally certain of the correctness of their intents. They impose from on high as did Calvin in Geneva with the sureness of the saved working to save all others from their own evil.

This delusion is powerful and pervasive. It might even be seen as universal. It is also wrong. That is why it is ultimately doomed to fail just as certainly as the Soviet Union and the DDR collapsed.

Humans will and always have evaded and resisted the imposition of public space upon them. They have evaded and resisted the reduction of their private space, the creation and operation of their self-organizing groups.

It is also why "nation-building" in Iraq or Afghanistan will fail. The well meaning outsiders including those from the US all represent states with expanded public space and a deficiency of self-organizing groups. They are in the process of attempting to impose these views on people who have no desire to give up the messy, chaotic dynamics of self-organization and the emergent systems which the interplay between self-organized groups must produce.

The dour view of human nature held by the advocates of an all-inclusive public space, their sincere belief that such will protect people from their own worst aspects, is not generally shared in non-Western cultures. While the Islamist may have an expansive understanding of evil, it is not the same as the Western proponent of the centralized, bureaucratic state. Nor is the bleak view of the Islamist or the Western state-lover shared by the vast mass of people in the world.

Europe and later the US have been on a century long voyage into the world of all-inclusive public space. The faults, the weaknesses, the failures of the public space orientation have already made themselves evident. Nonetheless, we press on both in our homelands and in our foreign adventures.

Perhaps the clear failure of "nation-building" which is unfolding in both Iraq and Afghanistan will give impetus to reexamine what we are all about in our well-intended effort to defeat the deep rooted human need to self-organize, to tell the powers that be, the powers on high, to get the hell out of our lives.

Well, one can hope. Can't one?