To follow my earlier post on the geography of de-sovietization and modernisation it’s worth pointing to a 1968 paper by Samuel Huntington on the Vietnam war, entitled “The Bases of Accommodation”, where he outlines his plan for what he calls “forced draft urbanization”. This equates to forcing – either by war or economic means – rural populations into urban centers, this traumatic dislocation allowing for easier surveillance and indoctrination to occupation values and goals. As he writes:
In an absent-minded way the United States in Viet Nam may well have stumbled upon the answer to “wars of national liberation.” The effective response lies neither in the quest for conventional military victory nor in the esoteric doctrines and gimmicks of counter-insurgency warfare. It is instead forced draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power.
m a n y f e s t ø 