McChrystal: Logical Conclusion of Maximal Goals
Nils nails it.
In other words, the goal is to turn the most socially and politically devastated country on earth, one rife with hostile religious fanatics, into a kind of Asian Switzerland. No duh that’s going to take a lot more troops and resources.
Let’s be blunt: this is completely insane as an objective–insane in the same way that jumping out of an airplane with no chute is insane. Nation-building of this sort has never succeeded anywhere, and not for lack of trying. What’s more, if that’s the objective, then the resource commitments that McChrystal is asking for are bathetically modest. The 40,000 extra troops that McChrystal wants aren’t going to come anywhere close to doing the trick.
Attempting to build, literally from the ground up, a functioning nation-state sounds like the logical conclusion for Barnett-ian strategy. Is the point when this fails when nation-states jump the shark?
-Shlok
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21. October 2009 by Shlok Vaidya
Categories: Thinking |
Tags: barnett, mcchrystal, nation-state |
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