In How To Win In Iraq, Gary Brecher, the ever-caustic War Nerd, discusses counterinsurgency methods, starting with genocide, then moving on “to other CI methods, suitable for children and Democrats”:
There are three that I know of: targeted assassination, bribery and starting a civil war between insurgent factions. They’ve all been used successfully; they’ve all failed too, and sometimes with real Frankenstein results.
He says, “Simplest and safest is bribery”:
I don’t know why we don’t do it more often. Almost makes me believe the guys running things are secret war nerds themselves, because otherwise they’d do bribery as a way of bringing down “rogue states” all the time. Just do the math. Right now, November 12, 2006, the official cost of Iraq is around $340 billion. Suppose we’d just bombed Iraq with dollars; we’d be the heroes of the world, and every family in Iraq would be — are you ready for this? — $70,000 richer. That would make Iraq one of the richest countries in the world. I guarantee you those greedy bastards would find better things to do with their time than drill holes in each others’ heads with power drills. Everybody’d thank us. Not just the Iraqis but every gold chain manufacturer in Egypt, every brothel manager in Amsterdam, every Mercedes dealer in Baghdad. They’d be wheeling and stealing, cheatin’ and greetin’, till they OD’d on haggling.