A younger, humbler George W. Bush once said, “I don’t think our
troops should be used for what’s called nation building.”
How times change. A strategy document released recently by U.S.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, with the tacit approval of the
president, might as well have been titled “Three cheers for nation
building.” The authors avoided using the precise phrase but its
carefully worded substitutes are hard to miss.
“Our commitment to democratic values must be matched by our
deeds,” the document exhorts. Extremist groups thrive in
“ungoverned, under-governed and mis-governed areas,” it warns. Thus
America must “help foster security and aid local authorities in
building effective systems of representational government.”
(Goooooo nation building!)
According to James Dobbins, author of the RAND Corporation’s
nation building studies, U.S. intervention had increased from
roughly one country every ten years during the Cold War to one
every two years during the Clinton administration. Bush invaded
three countries in his first three years in office. That’s a pretty
steep trend line.
This desire to forcibly “fix” failed states is hardly unique to
the U.S. Nation building statistics are on the rise. Europe and the
United Nations have led nation building efforts. Crikey, even
Australia has had a go at it.
The strategy document includes such pseudo pragmatic language as
“military success alone is insufficient to achieve victory,” when
referring to Iraq and Afghanistan. “We must not forget our
hard-learned lessons.” But what are those lessons?
According to a 2003 report by the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, of 16 attempted US nation-building missions
over the past century only four have been successful.
Political scientist James L. Payne maintains that American and British-led nation building
initiatives have been successful in building democracy 14 times out
of 51 attempts.
NO MATTER WHOSE data set one examines, the odds are not in our
favor. They get worse upon closer examination
Payne explains that in cases where nation-building was
successful it has been due not to the superior planning of foreign
powers but to a society’s pre-existing propensity toward
non-violence. Violent societies tend to return to violence while
those countries that already have a politically non-violent culture
can thrive on democracy.
It’s difficult for any foreign nation to come in and “build”
anything if there isn’t a solid foundation in the first place. The
things that DoD recommends — more “economic development,
institution building, and the rule of law” — are all to the good
but they won’t take root in hostile soil.
America used to understand this and in fact proved resistant to
most calls for nation building. Humanitarian activists use the
U.S.’s refusal to pacify and build up Rwanda, Somalia, Darfur, and
other nations to allege racism. America is said to be just fine
with little black babies dying, but moved to action by the
suffering of little European tots.
But America is not callously racist, simply prudent and
self-interested. Our state apparatus was constructed to care about
national security — American babies and none other. The new
American policy in favor of nation building was not a flowering of
humanitarianism but, rather, grew out of serious national security
concerns.
So many U.S. troops are in the Middle East because we deem
failed states in that region a national security threat. Al-Qaeda,
to a certain extent, has justified those fears.
Many American hawks have come to believe that bringing democracy
and liberalism to these nations is the only way to keep Americans
safe from future 9/11 style attacks.
BUT ARE THESE new nation building efforts really fostering
increased American security?
Probably not. The odds of successful nation building are stacked
heavily against us, and the effort has unintentionally cultivated a
new and improved hatred for America abroad. The results are not
exactly what President Bush was hoping for when he promised to
change “hearts and minds.”
Between 2002 and 2007, public opinion of America declined in 26 of the 33 countries polled by the Pew
Global Attitudes Survey. According to the pollsters, “The U.S.
image remains abysmal in most Muslim countries in the Middle East
and Asia.”
As a country with a vast set of tools available to mitigate
major threats to our national security, it is puzzling that the
U.S. would embrace nation building now. It’s expensive, it darkens
our already black image with other peoples, and it usually ends in
bitter, bloody failure.
Maybe our leaders should embrace strategies that leave more room
for error.
