Reader Willie Garvin has sent in several thoughtful contributions in response to my request for personal experiences of donor/military cooperation (or not) on the ground in different hotspots.

His basic point is that Western ‘interventions’ in conflict-ridden or fragile states are doomed to fail because the underlying objectives are invariably unclear or unwise or incoherent.

A bleak but not necessarily wrong view.

I have been talking to two top Brits involved in these matters personally in Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are two ‘deep’ categories of problems, I conclude.

Can there be Peace without Justice, or Justice without Peace?

Can there be Development without Stability, or Stability without Development?

Our governments are just not tasked to look at issues in this way, then to draw clear-headed conclusions one way or the other, then to act on them systematically and over the timescale needed to make a lasting impact. 

Rival Departments and Ministers jostle for funds and influence. The NGO circus wants a slice of the action but only if they all stay ‘independent’ (albeit heavily funded by taxpayers). Voters get bored.

The impoverished locals are unhappy that the place is overrun with busybody, highly-paid foreigners whose actions are too often not consistent with their lofty rhetoric. Local baddies know that we want to do them down, and plan to stay around longer than we do.

An interesting new but vital point is that weaponry has been democratised. Think what a mess the tiny IRA created over a long time here in civilised UK. What honourably intentioned intervention force (military or civilian) is going to be able to sustain itself and achieve anything when maybe thousands of canny but hostile local people are able to get AK47s and roadside bomb kits and make incessant ad hoc attacks, just to wear down the outsiders’ will? 

And so on.

On I trudge to write my paper.

More contributions please: mail@charlescrawford.biz