America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq

Nation-building that is, the use of military force to introduce democratic values is not an activity that comes naturally to Americans, the Rand team believes. The post-World War II reconstruction of Germany and Japan were anomalies forced by circumstance, isolated endeavors now vanished into a haze of greatest generation memory. The mission of Americas military forces is warfighting. Post-combat stabilization and reconstruction operations are best left to the United Nations. Neither the Departments of State nor Defense place nation-building high on their to do list. So aberrational is nation-building for the United States, so unique and unlikely-to-be-repeated is each excursion into national rehabilitation, that every mission virtually starts from scratch. All that must change, say the authors, because with the decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq comes the requirement to assemble regimes sympathetic to democratic values. Nation-building, it appears, has become the inescapable responsibility of the worlds only superpower xv. Even the once reconstruction shy Bush administration now shoulders the white mans burden. If post-war reconstruction is our fate, we best sharpen our nation-building skills and fast. The Rand team has assembled a quick primer a how to manual Ambassador Paul Bremer classifies Americas Role in Nation-Building on a jacket blurb that draws lessons from seven post-conflict reconstruction cases involving U.S. forces, beginning with the successful post-1945 rehabilitations of Germany and Japan, through the Somalia disaster, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and finally Afghanistan. While fully acknowledging that every case is unique, the Rand team believes nonetheless that the past is a prologue that U.S. nation-builders can profitably mine for reconstruction policy and strategy guidance in Iraq.