http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
Last week I was able to observe some of the top police brass doing what they do and it struck me how similar Community Policing is to Counterinsurgency. Both are methods used to control violence in fragmented multicultural areas by building trust and winning over tribal leaders in the hopes of lowering their group’s participation in crime and terrorism while getting them to cooperate with the local forces and act as informants on the bad guys.
In Afghanistan it may be a matter of navigating the Pashtuns, Hazaras and Tajiks, and their various families, while in Brooklynbad, Al-Minneapolis or Londonistan it’s Somalis, Turks and Lebanese, but it’s still much the same game. The big brass, in coordination with local activists who claim to represent the community leadership, unveil a new strategy which involves lots of face time, aid and respect for the assorted cultures involved. The boys in blue or khaki fall in line, but know that it mostly comes down to having enough boots on the ground and hoping that the locals are afraid enough not to try anything big.