And yet I rarely hear anyone arguing for the political will. Instead, I hear people arguing to just give up. Which is sort of the opposite.
There is also the question of institutional capability. Even if the political will is made to exist at the political level, it is far from self-evident that the NATO military machine can implement that political will in any meaningful fashion. After all, we'd basically be talking about a complete re-thinking of the current military doctrine and operational posture. This is something that NATO hasn't done since the last world war - even after first the French and then the Americans got their asses kicked in Viet Nam.
In short, you may (very probably will) need to take operational control of the theatre away from the Pentagon.
That is, of course, possible. In the same sense and to the same extent that it's possible to prosecute CIA operatives for torture and J.P. Morgan for insider trading.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
far from self-evident that the NATO military machine can implement
I'm not talking about the military.
Which I'm all for, but then it has to be framed like that: Take control away from the military, and give it to the people who know what works and what doesn't (less confrontationally, the military is there to serve the civilian reconstruction, not the other way around). Framing it as "we should stay there to help the locals" reinforces the military control of the operation.
