I hope the title got your attention. My plan is to draw a parallel between our military and diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan and helping our teen age children mature into young and self-sufficient adults.

This insight came to me as I read a book by Robert B. Parker. Among his leading characters has been a female private detective named Sunny Randall.

In the book I read, Sunny assumes responsibility for a 15 year old girl who has run away from what can only be described as a dysfunctional family. It seems the girl witnessed something bad at home which is why some bad people are after her to cause her harm.

There is dialog in the book that reveals the girl is oblivious to social etiquette, fundamentally resistant to outside pressure to behave, and the inherent value of being able to think for herself and make choices that lead to either freedom or servitude. Attempts are made to persuade her that knowledge is power, over yourself, and over others, and that leads to choices that offer pleasant relationships, happiness, and a sense of worth.

I don’t know if you have teenagers in your house, whether you expect to have them, or if yours are grown and gone. But I’ve had teenagers in my house and they require patience, understanding, coaching, discipline, rewards, and love. Mine had that from day one yet my wife and I were not prepared for the inevitable trauma that happens in the best of homes.

Now think how it might have been if there had been no coaching, no discipline, no encouragement, no rewards, little love and a future where the best hope is to die and find fulfillment on the other side. And, yes, he or she has an AK47.

There was an exchange between the main character and the teenage girl that was entirely plausible, given my frame of reference as a parent. And I suddenly drew a parallel between those characters in the book and the relationship between the government of the United States and the characters at play in Afghanistan.

How in the world can anyone expect a positive outcome unless there is someone to provide coaching, patience, understanding, discipline and rewards. For us to go in there, whether it be Iraq or Afghanistan, or Somalia, or Yemen, or Syria or any of those places, and expect them to embrace democracy, the rule of law, have an understanding of property ownership, civil rights, voting responsibility, and all that we in the west take for granted, is inherently stupid.

Should we make an effort? Most certainly, since the failure to do so will likely lead to a really bad outcome for the rest of us. But we have had a propensity to simply go in and kick ass and then expect those that are left, to suddenly be like us. Is that how you raised your teenage children? You may have wanted to kick some ass from time to time, but that’s usually the best way to get the very outcome you are trying to avoid.

We’re trying to impose the rules of democracy, commerce and justice, rules that we in the west have developed and come to terms with over the past 200 years. The folks on the receiving end are essentially tribesmen, who until a few short years ago, had no clue what existed beyond the next sand dune or ridge line. And the leadership wanted it to stay that way, because it allowed them to stay in charge. And, in some respects, want it to remain that way today. Witness the attitudes toward women being educated.

I don’t have a best answer. There may not be one. But as someone I like to read pointed out a few years ago, if those folks with AK47s find themselves at age 35, with a job, with a family, with children to support, and a future they can envision, they are not likely to go on jihad.

So our best chance is to somehow encourage more and more connectivity. Globalization works and is evidenced by the growing middle class in Brazil, in India, in China. It’s coming in Africa, and the rest of South America, and in Southeast Asia, and one day, hopefully, in the Middle East. We should be leading from behind so that those teenagers in Afghanistan and Iraq and Egypt and wherever grow into people like us. And it was all “their” idea.