The author states, "As McChrystal's report and U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine make clear, success against an insurgent movement requires convincing the indigenous population to support the legitimate government and to cut off support for the insurgency. The indigenous population will do this when it believes the legitimate government and its outside supporters (such as the U.S. military) are completely committed to the mission and will persist with the effort without hesitation until successful."

If this is the general idea going through the heads of our military types, its no wonder that "counterinsurgency" in Afghanistan has been an abject failure. It's not about getting people to support the legitimate government through convincing them of our commitment to protect it. This is totally the wrong question to address.

The important thing is to convince people that the government is, in fact, legitimate. The electoral scandal unraveling at the moment should make anyone question the legitimacy of the Karzai regime. No amount of "commitment" on our part will convince Afghans to support it. Why should they? If the government had widespread legitimacy in the first place, the Taliban would not gain widespread support, regardless of the number of foreign troops or the effectiveness of so-called "counterinsurgency" operations.

In fact, the presence of foreign troops helps, in some respects, to undermine the legitimacy of the government by convincing people that it would not be able to stand on its own without outside support. They would probably be right.

It seems to be an aphorism at this point to say that one of the prerequisites for stability in Afghanistan (and Iraq, Sudan and Somalia amongst others) is a legitimate government. The fact is that the US military and Neo-Cons severely undermined this process by not doing their homework. The global experience has been documenting the weakness of centralized governments in post-colonial environments for years. In fact, decentralized democratic governance is a prime programming area for many institutions.

It is also the mechanism for governing countries like the United States, and, to varying degrees, Australia, the UK, and even France and Italy (albeit in a more rigid structure).

Apparently, top decision makers felt that they 'didn't have time' to do something right in the beginning and tried to create a centralized system popular with former European colonies in the sub-continent and Africa. Unfortunately, this system was only temporarily successful when you empowered a minority super-class with weapons, knowledge and structures that allowed them to dominate the masses. For a variety of reasons this wasn't possible in Afghanistan or Iraq.

It is ironic that the military is now saying "over to you" at the white house as if they are simply the implementers of these failed efforts at creating a centralized governance structure. The Field Manual clearly states that a commander's first efforts should be at establishing a "Unity of Command" under him/herself. If you are in command, then you are, by definition, accountable for success or failure.

The US is strong because it found a healthy balance between local and national governance after starting too far to the local side of the spectrum. We have failed in Afghanstan because we forced a centralized system on the country that few Americans would have accepted even today, let alone at the start of our nation. Centralized power needs to be earned. Military and civilian systems defined by Washington simply failed because of a hubris that prevented leaders from doing their homework and reading the literature on governance.

The US is often a leader because it recognizes meritocracy. This happens organically in the economy as the better managers rise up through the system, producing leaders like Gates and Buffet. Although centralized, even in the military the highest levels are reserved for those that are trained and certified to manage complex system and resources. The question, then, is why leadership would entrust people with literally no background on deomcratic governance in post-conflict or developing countries to design and implement governance and economic systems in such highly delicate environments. To my knowledge, there are few examples of Bill Gates recruiting marketing staff from the military. This is not to undermine the military: the military has never, to my knowledge, recruited a Colonel- or even lower - from the senior ranks of AIG or the State Department.

What we have now is the result of the hubris that allowed people that rose into senior US bureacracy or military ranks design and implement programs that were completely outside of their area of expertise. The current situation is not a complete "condemnation of the counter-insurgency model" which has some elements of good research. The good research, ufortunately, was undermined when it was tethered to the military concepts like "unity of command" that too often empower unqualified, but supremely proud, people to forge into areas they do not understand.

If we treat governance like brain surgery, we may be in better position for recruiting. I don't think even the proudest four star would grab a scalpel without at least a proper briefing. For goodness sake, stop them from grabbing leadership in developing governance and economic models. Get governance experts and Warren Buffet involved if its not too late. If Mr Buffet is busy, I hear there are quite a few other investment bankers looking for work.

A recent leak of conversations between the National Endowment of the Arts Communications Director Yosi Sargent and Buffy Wicks, head of the White House Office of Public Engagement were disturbing, in that they appear to reveal collusion between the White House and the NEA to create state sponsored art that is adherent to Obama's aims – instead of just…you know…art for it's own sake. (The NEA was EXPRESSLY created for that purpose.) This isn't doing Obama any favors. Maybe Buffy Wicks is proof that artists should get payday loans or find ways of making their art without government sponsorship – which seems to suffocate liberty with either party.