Military
My Friday lunch companion, who had helped devise the surge strategy in Iraq, despaired of our Afghanistan policy. Somewhat dispersing my gloom comes now Eliot Cohen, author of the indispensable Supreme Command. He argues for an Afghan strategy that necessarily differs from the successful Iraq surge. Cohen maintains that Petraeus et al. still fight within the conventions of conventional warfare. While that works to an extent, a successful anti-Taliban strategy requires a "special kind of soldier" and a "special kind of civilian." The "greatest weakness of the [counterinsurgency] literature: It often lacks deep knowledge of the other side." Furthermore,
In every such war, the counterinsurgents learn the need for local knowlege: language first, and from it, all they can discover about authority structures, grievances, customs and local politics. The broad principles melt away because, as one colonel told me in 2008 while flying over eastern Afghanistan, the counterinsurgent soon realizes that "it's a valley-by-valley war."
The kind of specific knowledge needed does not lend itself to treatises, much less best sellers....
Making [counterinsurgency] work in real time, therefore, requires the right kinds of practioner, vast patience and local knowledge of a kind that is difficult to build up and easily perishable in large organizations. As Obama will discover, even setting the strategy seems easy by comparison.
Some other thoughts in this companion WaPo article, on a village by village strategy. There is no substitute for prudence: "reflective, patient, creative" soldiers and civilians.
What you are describing is something once well known by those who did it--you are talking of "kingship", of building up a nation bit by bit, with attention paid by necessity to economic, social, religious, and military matters all at the same time. Go look at the ways the old guys did it, and adapt for modern times.
I think, with the "valley by valley" bit, we know see why Kings in medieval Europe had nobles--because they did not yet have the strength to have centralized rule.
In other words, just because the physical power usually exists in the world today for each nation state to have a highly centralized national government does not mean the moral power also exists--and hence instability. Starting smaller and more fragmented (or federated) might be a better idea.
Yes, its the old concept of the mixed constitution--national central government, regional governments, people. The people get a check on excesses in the national government via the local ones, and vice versa.