Blockchain: Leveraging a Trust Technology in Expeditionary Economics

culties of post-conflict pacification, the second Bush administration turned to establishing the rule of law as the central step in restarting the Iraqi economy.1. U.S. development officials, however, did not consider its implementation possible. While visiting a farm on the outskirts of Tikrit in 2010, I asked how the farmer could prove his ownership of the land on which we stood. A USAID official deflected my inquiries by invoking the dogeared formula that informal traditions of access to the nearby stream for irrigation operated as a de facto claim to the land. The idea of a written deed recorded with the local government was dismissed as pie in the sky.2. Instead of pursuing a workable redevelopment plan that focused on establishing property ownership as a fundamental first step on the road to creating a creditbased economy, the U.S. found itself inventing a makeshift economic development strategy on the fly. Unlike past situations, where Army doctrine anticipated having to rebuild and temporarily administer the governments and economies of defeated nations, U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan had no such remit and no institutional memory of performing these roles, let alone contemporary training in managing such responsibilities.3. The military instead looked principally to USAID, a civilian development agency, under a newly devised approach referred to as “whole of government.”4. Without authority to engage in civilian state-making, the military trusted that USAID, as well as several executive departments and independent agencies, BLOCKCHAIN: LEVERAGING A TRUST TECHNOLOGY IN EXPEDITIONARY ECONOMICS