"Monetary Ammunition" in a Counterinsurgency
Abstract
In early 2006, having recently returned from his second deployment to Iraq, then-Lieutenant General David Petraeus distilled his most poignant lessons learned over three years of counterinsurgency operations into a list of 14 concise observations. Near the top of that list was the maxim, "Money is ammunition." He states, "In fact, depending on the situation, money can be more important than real ammunition...." Over four years later, it is widely accepted that a modicum of economic development is critical for long-term stability, but there is no consensus on how we should actually utilize monetary "ammunition" to achieve the objectives of a counterinsurgency campaign. While billions of economic aid dollars have been spent in support of US operations in volatile regions around the world, there is little understanding of the effectiveness of this spending or how best to employ this important resource. Anecdotal evidence abounds, but it is still very difficult to say with any confidence what actually works. At best, this state of affairs wastes vast sums of money for little purpose; at worst, it can be an unintended boon to our enemies. Attempting to develop a better understanding of this challenge, we examined US economic development efforts in the southern Philippines from 2002-2007. Using security data compiled by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), we studied the impact of projects funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 28 conflict-affected municipalities throughout the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Our analysis indicates projects that required a substantial community stake and provided a visible demonstration of government capacity, both in the infrastructure and education categories, resulted in significant improvement in the effectiveness of counterinsurgency efforts
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA538560
Entities
People
- Jeremy Gwinn
- Seth Bodnar
Organizations
- United States Army War College