Bret Devereaux

Of course this presupposes a military and politicians interested in the hard work of trying to understand a nation or culture. I suspect the current theory on foreign intervention is either going to be "pretend it doesn't exist" or "leave the second the shooting stops."

That's the thing, it doesn't suppose that. Roman governors and senators (same people, actually) functionally never learned the local language (except Greek), never bothered to understand local religion or culture. They relied on local elites to mediate all of that.

Yeah, but your Roman Governor at least could understand that when the local religious leader says "This guy needs to go or there's gonna be a war" that he needs to be see to act. Which sounds far beyond the competence of the State Department or Military, at least the Army.

The Roman experience in Judaea suggests that they did not possess the sort of competence you are attributing them to, I'm afraid.

Weirdly that's where I pulled my example from. I just don't think our government could ever get to a point of even trying to put things in the hands of local elites. Especially after Afghanistan and the popular, if wrong, historiography on the situation.

So, Roman Judaea. In 4AD, the Romans backed the wrong puppet and triggered a revolt and had to crack down violently. Then in 36AD Pilate (that one) the equestrian prefect turned a religious gathering into a massacre at Mt. Gerizim, in part because he didn't get their religion.