Using Bribery To Build Legitimacy, Ctd

DiA also counters Fred Kaplan's plan to bribe the Afghans into peace and reconciliation:

This is also exactly how the CIA pacified most of Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003: by handing out million-dollar bribes to warlords. And it is part of the reason why both Afghanistan and, as Mr Kaplan says, Mosul fell apart again shortly thereafter.

Bribing warlords does not create stability; it destroys it. Cash that flows in as tribute from foreign sources replaces the authentic source of governing authority and capacity: taxes. A regime's ability to collect taxes from its own people is one of the key indicators that it has legitimacy. A regime that depends on taxes to function and retain power will seek to assure that it retains legitimacy, by carrying out the necessary functions of governance. "Legitimacy" need not stem from democracy; a stable authoritarian regime, like China, can have one without the other. But it does require that the government govern, as Samuel Huntington used to put it.