In April 2003, I found myself in a fighting hole facing north along Highway 7, the main avenue of advance for American forces during the Iraqi invasion. We had just survived the first major contact of the war in a place called Nasiriyah. Southern Iraq was a desperately poor region at the time. As American forces advanced north, Saddam Fedayeen had been pushing south, coercing poor farmers to fight the Americans by promising that they would feed their children if the farmer would pick up a weapon and fight the Americans.

That morning on Highway 7, I watched as Fedayeen soldiers murdered the family of one of these poor Iraqi farmers right before his eyes because he refused to fight the Americans, and I couldn’t save them. In two seconds, he lost his wife and two little girls. For the first time in the war, I put myself in his shoes. I thought to myself, I live in a world of choices, but what choices did this man have?

He could watch his children slowly starve, fight people he had never heard of, or attempt to escape with his family across our lines knowing that he would be killed if he were caught. He had no choices. As I stood next to that man holding his blood-soaked little girl, something awoke inside of me. It wasn’t fair that he had no choices just because of where he was born. I vowed to find a way to ensure that people could have real choices and hope where none previously existed.

What choices did this man have? He could watch his children slowly starve, fight people he had never heard of, or attempt to escape with his family across our lines knowing that he would be killed if he were caught.

A terrible lack of choices

During my time in combat, I spent countless days in these fragile, complex environments – doing my best to make a difference – to create lasting change. Sadly, I was not successful, and this repeated lack of success began to wear on me and those I served with.

I had seen a lot of horrific things in combat both before and after Highway 7, but my experience that day and countless other examples like it was witnessing a deeper kind of injustice that began to infuriate me. My teams and I started to talk about what we were seeing day-in and day-out in these remote, impoverished areas.

We talked about the terrible lack of choices these individuals had for really basic human rights and needs. Again and again, we saw the look of absolute desperation in the eyes of a young man or woman who would pick up a weapon they didn’t know how to use and try to fight us or plant a roadside bomb not knowing why they were doing it or what the device even was.

We began to see that many times these actions weren’t done out of some kind of blind hatred for the West, but out of love for that little three-year old daughter at home who was starving to death. We began to see that, although groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda were horribly oppressive, they also performed basic development services in these remote areas – providing food, education, and jobs to desperate families that had no other viable alternatives.

Many times these actions weren’t done out of some kind of blind hatred for the West, but out of love for that little three-year old daughter at home who was starving to death. Although groups like the Taliban and Al Qaeda were horribly oppressive, they also ... provid[ed] food, education, and jobs to desperate families.

This is a bit of an oversimplification, but within this complex space that my team and I were operating in, we observed two primary strategies being deployed to address the fragile state problem: military intervention and foreign aid.

Watch the graduation speech



Jake Harriman is a member of the inaugural class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, a first-of-its-kind partnership between the presidential centers of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George H.W. Bush that brings together leaders from across the non-profit, military, public, and private sectors to learn leadership lessons first-hand from the four presidencies.

Learn more about the Presidential Leadership Scholars Jake Harriman is a member of the inaugural class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, a first-of-its-kind partnership between the presidential centers of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George H.W. Bush that brings together leaders from across the non-profit, military, public, and private sectors to learn leadership lessons first-hand from the four presidencies.

We saw guys like us attempting to conduct Village Stabilization Operations as a path to success. But we were short-timers. Our time operating in these regions was usually less than a year, and furthermore, we were trained to take out targets – not help farmers increase crop yields.

We also saw brave aid workers conducting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations to provide immediate, short-term solutions attempting to alleviate the suffering in these war-torn, desperate populations. Courageous individuals who were routinely kidnapped or even killed as they carried out their work.

And even worse, there was very little if any coordination and collaboration between military and aid efforts. Instead of close coordinated planning and execution, both sides worked isolated within their own silos to try to help – furthering a culture of mistrust and misunderstanding that has crippled stabilization operations for decades.

A third way

We began to see a real gap in our national security strategy. We saw that there was a need for a third way – a hybrid of the military and aid strategies we were observing and participating in that would bridge the gap and give these farmers a viable alternative for providing lasting meaningful choices to their families. What if we could create a long-term sustainable community development solution for these fragile areas?

We began to see a real gap in our national security strategy. We saw that there was a need for a third way – a hybrid of the military and aid strategies ... that would bridge the gap and give these farmers a viable alternative for providing lasting meaningful choices to their families.

What would a successful solution look like? What if we could create a solution that was eventually locally-led and locally-driven so that solutions would be owned and operated in the long run by the people best suited to solve the problems in that region? What if this solution could be funded by regional markets instead of philanthropy – contributing to a slowly-growing economy instead of distorting an already fragmented one?

What if this solution could be staffed by former combat operators who know how to handle themselves in chaotic, rapidly-changing, unsecure environments – operators who could live in these communities for long periods of time and act as catalysts to unlock the latent potential in local leaders – operators who are trained and experienced in building capacity and creating influence by, with, and through the local leaders they work with?