What failed states lack are structures, both real and virtual, to provide organization.  Real structures of bridges and buildings provide ways for people to meet.  The virtual structures of law enforcement and institutions connect people too and help to provide organization on which societies are founded. Organization begets organization. Taken to the extreme, this can lead to a top-heavy bureaucracy, but still, some organization is necessary to get off the ground.

Years ago I heard Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute give a slide show and talk about a trip to Borneo.  At the end of his talk, almost as an afterthought, he showed a bird’s eye view of a village constructed in a circle with a diameter of maybe several hundred yards.  The structure or layout of the community gave them security and allowed them to raise most of their food inside the circle.  This structure also gave them a way to keep an eye on their property.

Can such structures be imposed from the outside?  Maybe. Historian Niall Ferguson wrote “Empire”, a book about the makings of the British Empire.  He took a lot of flak for it since imperialism is not popular these days.  But empires of past centuries imposed structure and organization that exist today and many people who live in those countries would not throw it away.

Failed states also lack a legitimate police or military to provide stabilization and without which other institutions cannot grow since there is no enforcement of laws.  An outside military force may be able to help start this process, but not from the top-down. Leader to leader connections often they fail because the flow of money lends itself to corruption.  This process is also not solely from the ground up, but a mixture of all levels of any existing society.

Planting Circle Communities could start in many small locations, one after another, on an almost weekly basis.  There will be risks and failures, but it may provide enough structure for accelerated group learning to take place.

The goals of creating or planting circle communities are 3-fold:

1. Temporarily impose real and virtual structures by use of military force.

This can provide a foothold for further development or at least makes it possible.

2. Increase the role of women in a society, but in a balanced approach.

As members of a Jury Team women can, in semi-privacy, offer some ideas and

feedback without risking the need to be vocal in public.

3. Enhance Small Group Learning for both the military and each local level.

This is not “education” in the traditional sense since there is no expert who

knows what will work in each community.

WHY –

Addressing social unrest and terrorism is a primary reason to try these ideas.  Stimulating development is another good reason.  This can also provide a way to counter expansionist tendencies in China by creating sustainable and self-sufficient communities and countries that are less susceptible to outside money.

 HOW –

An outside military force drops in and takes control of an area for a few days up to several weeks. This small area may contain a population of 100 up to 1000 people.  During this time they might bring in instant housing (PopUpDown Houses) for the local people, help to start rabbit or chicken projects and maybe get some garden projects started.  Finding a secure source of water may be more of a challenge though some could be delivered by air.

During that time it may be necessary to create (at the point of a gun if necessary) some Jury Teams with a few local people on each of several teams.  The teams compete against one another for creating and sharing useful ideas around how to build a sustainable community for themselves.  A similar, randomly chosen Panel of Judges will decide the winning team.  In this way they are not simply trying to guess what the military wants but must face each other.  The military input into this process is to ask the follow-up Discussion Question (DQ). It may take a series of these DQ’s to create something useful as recognized by both the military and locals.

This Jury Team and Panel of Judges concept is created to gain useful information.  There must be real competition with winners and losers. This gives some incentive to think and talk and create.  Tim Harford described an experience in Baghdad when one’s only option to gain information from one of the locals was to walk around the neighborhood with a gun in their back.  Useful information does not automatically show up, especially in situations where acting on the wrong information can get you into trouble.

Example for several Jury Teams and a Panel of Judges:

– A Discussion Question might be: “What would a sustainable community look like?”

– Follow-up questions will have to be more specific.

– Organizers (military) of a competition can follow the lead of the Jury Teams and Judges, but organizers will decide on the next Discussion Questions.

Very soon after the start of this process (within days-week), the military moves on to the next planting site that is not contiguous with the first.  It should also not be a place that is predictable by those who would hope this method fails.

Biological models of growth could be useful since they sometimes offer insights into structures and organizational patterns.  People in medicine sometime study the Haversian Canal systems of bone growth, a system of concentric circles that do look a bit like the aerial photograph of the communities in Borneo.  It may be a stretch, but form (structure)-follows-function can lead to similar structures in social groups.

Planting Circle Communities can be an opportunity to use technology by the locals, primarily for communication and feedback.  The idea of putting simple technology into the hands of local people brings up the question of how they might use it.  Over and above the omnipresent cell phones, I can think of several things, including cameras, dummy cameras, and houses that can lock someone inside when two local people simultaneously push buttons on their transmitters at the same time.

We are not looking for “bad guys”, however.  Maybe Jury Teams will identify some characters as unwelcome, but that is not the military’s function.  The military is not there to provide a long term safe haven.   We want the local people to eventually find a role for any and all adults in that area.   This will be a steep learning curve, both for the military and the locals, but it may be better than waiting for a dictator who may or may not be benevolent.

Room for Change – Possible Consequences, both positive and negative.

This is an opportunity for creative problem solving by simply trying new things,  both by the military and by people at the local level.  Forcing people to reflect and generate ideas may be risky but the locals may have parts of the puzzle and not know it until some structure and organization are created.