I am tasked to prepare some ideas on the problems which may arise between civilian and military ‘cultures’ in trying to help fragile or failed states. See the Center for Global Development on the subject.

The basic problem is that things are what they are.

Fragile states are fragile, because they lack the qualities needed to make them not that. Hence, the question: under what circumstances can outsiders turn up and help them acquire the unfragile qualities?

Take eg Bosnia and the Paradox of Intervention. The more we tell the locals what to do, the less inclined they are to take any responsibility themselves. Why pass a resolution in Parliament if the HiRep is going to sweep it aside?

And our old friend the Bad Leaders Conundrum: better to work with a few awful people who are part of the problem but can make things happen, or the mass of moderate/normal people needed to make a society function but who are outgunned by the awful people?

Death by Timescale: it will have taken a long time for a territory to acquire its current level of fragility/failure. How long are the interveners prepared to hang in there to try to make things better? When does humanitarian intervention morph into … colonialism?

Gangsters: in a fragile state the least fragile phenomena will be gangsters/mafia/ and maybe terrorists. How to cut them down to size without flattening everything else at the same time?

So, readers, a Request.

If anyone out there has any ideas based on personal experience on what has really been quite good and effective in terms specifically of civilian/military cooperation in eg Sierra Leone or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, please drop me your thoughts asap. Ditto horrible mistakes to avoid.

All contributions most welcome: mail@charlescrawford.biz

Thanks.