A penny for your thoughts, a nickel for your heart the influence of the Commander's Emergency Response Program on insurgency

Abstract

Since 2002, $3 9 billion and $4 6.7 billion have been appropriated to Afghanistan and Iraq for reconstruction spending. The dollar amounts suggest that reconstruction is important in post-conflict environments, but how important is it really? Some military commanders have interestingly noticed a relationship between the insurgency and reconstruction spending, specifically with the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In post-conflict environments, CERP reconstruction efforts can be applied in such a manner that they contribute to the diffusion of the incubation and growth of insurgencies. This research is focused on determining how the CERP program can be used to influence insurgency through a Social Movement Theoretical framework. There are two primary purposes: to determine if CERP has historically influenced the security environment in any measureable way and to develop a model comprised of those components (needs, deserve and message resonance) that could plausibly be argued to have an effect on violence and determine which components most significantly influence insurgency. The model is tested on the At Tameem province of Iraq. The results depict that commanders have not used CERP to influence the insurgency in Iraq, but there does exist a weak positive correlation. Further, when compared to historical data, the deserve and message resonance factors contribute more to the influence of popular support than do the needs of the people. Several prescriptive implications are drawn with regard to the future use of CERP.