Saturday, February 9, 2013

Five Rules of Dodgeball and Regime Change

To continue this morning's musings about Libya and such, I realized that the rules of dodgeball can make sense of US strategies in the aftermath of regime change:
  • Dodge: Once you break the opposition, try to get an international organization to do the very minimum (Afghanistan with non-NATO ISAF at first)
  • Dip: Once you break a country, hand over the reins to emigres and run out of the country (Iraq, plan A)
  • Duck: Once your effort to dip has failed, create a half-assed agency that is only slightly connected to the inter-agency back home, let it make bad decisions but then avoid responsibility (Iraq, Bremer and his Can't Produce Anything authority).
  • Dive: Break a government without any commitment of troops, and then wait for others to manage the place (Libya)
  • Dodge: Once an ally breaks the opposition, try to get regional/international organizations to run the place (Mali).
Did I miss any rules?

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