If this thread goes as planned, then the comment section will be unpredictable. Believe it or not, this will culminate with a point about Afghanistan. Maybe you will think that your time has been wasted if you read that far. I don’t know. Reader beware. End disclaimer.
Complex systems exist within a cultural context. To take a few examples of what I mean by a “complex system” consider the legal system, the educational system, or the health care system (to the extent there is one). How well these systems function is not dependent upon how well their design meets the specifications of some universal standard. There is no universal standard. Our legal system works as poorly or as well as it does because of how compatible it is with our culture. Transpose the French legal system onto American society and the result will not be pretty because it is inappropriate. Ditto education and health care.
Different values, norms, and beliefs create different expectations, demands, and preferences for what is required to satisfy the end users of those systems. Some conservative talk radio hosts like to point out shortcomings in the British health care system. Those features certainly sound undesirable to me. But are they undesirable to the Brits? I don’t know. Ditto Canada’s system. Are those shortcomings due to inherent flaws in those systems? Or are they simply a reflection of demand and expectation? I don’t know. Left wing folks like to point to France’s system of universal care and lower costs and they point out that doctors serve a role similar to what we use Paramedics for in this country. Would that work here in the US? I don’t know. What I do know is this: both of the following statements are crappy reasoning…
Crappy reasoning example #1: The British have a health care system that has a significant number of attributes in common with what Congress is proposing. Therefore, Congress is proposing a bad plan.
Crappy reasoning example #2: The French have a health care system that has a significant number of attributes in common with what Congress is proposing. Therefore, Congress is proposing a good plan.
Those statements are crappy reasoning because there is no reason to believe that Britain’s system will work similarly in the US as it does in Britain and there is no reason to believe that France’s system will work similarly in the US as it does in France. We are different people.
Systems of administration must function within an organizational culture. By systems of administration, I mean the internal transactional processes of an organization, such as the staff planning and orders production within a military headquarters, the account updates and transfers within a bank, or the process of soliciting, collecting, and analyzing contract bids at a government agency. Pull a bunch of tenured professors from their positions of limited academic independence and put them into a military staff where they have zero independence and see how well that staff functions. Take a bunch of short-haul truck drivers who operate with informal rules about accounting for containers and offloading procedures and then put them in a bank where everything is standardized and technical and see how well that works. Take a group of small businessmen who rely on gut decisions and personal relationships to make judgments and put them into a federal contracting office and see how well that goes.
So where am I going with this nonsense? I am just curious whether we have our assumptions straight on Afghanistan. Specifically…
1. Are we creating a central Afghan government modeled after what we think is appropriate, based on our cultural dispositions? Or are we helping Afghanistan to craft something that resembles something that existed in 1972, with some improvements added in based upon historical lessons about why that government failed? The former, to me, would be like trying to transpose France's legal system or government onto our society. That would require an entire blogroll of FAIL Blogs to adequately monitor.
2. Are we creating an ANA in the image of our Army or Marines, that functions well when staffed with aggressive, ambitious, type-A American men? Or are we creating an ANA that will function well if staffed with Afghans who just want a job? The former would be like trying to take a bunch of tenured professors and putting them in cubicles to make mindless PowerPoint presentations all day, everyday. I suspect they would begin reliving their carefree undergrad days by "occupying" the TOC and issuing demands.
Feel free to offer facts or other input in response to those questions or to offer reactions to anything else.
(Am I writing this because I am procrastinating on something else? Damn right.)