discussion into four separate parts. It first established the conceptualisms for security, development, insurgency, and counter insurgency. Then, it demonstrated how security is fundamentally tied to counter-insurgency strategy. After, it created a normative view by using the existing literature to show how the relationship between the security, development, and counterinsurgency should develop. Finally, it showed how the underlying thesis, of the need for security to have development, was proved through the failures of the British and NATO experiences with counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Moreover, how a failed balance of human security and political-economic development created the distressed mission that is at work today.
VVHaving recently lived and worked in Afghanistan, the struggles and the humanity at stake within the country’s difficulties are personally and painfully evident. The mistakes of the hasty intervention of 2001 have proven to be extremely difficult blunders to recover from. Wartime security and development are still contemporary issues that even the most powerful states seem to have an infantile grasp of. This is especially true with regards to insurgencies. However, at the end of the day the plurality of actors involved, and their different goals and agendas create an anarchic situation that is difficult to pull into an overall success. It is often difficult to find guidance in such an operational environment. As is true with many things and despite the honest work of many actors, as Henry David Thoreau stated, “there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root”23. We must make sure to amend our approach to security and development, if we are to ever to strike at this root. If not for the sake of geo-politics and economic progress, then we must make these reforms for the sake of humanity.
8823. Thoreau: 1854
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