"During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. In the second presidential debate, he said: "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'"

The United States is currently involved in nation building in Iraq on a scale unseen since the years immediately following World War II.

During the 2000 election, Mr. Bush called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from the NATO peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. His administration now cites such missions as an example of how America must 'stay the course.'"

"Let me tell you what else I'm worried about: I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place." (also Geo. W. Bush)

I just had to quote that great seer and arch-hero of conservatives in the US, George W Bush. The fact is that attempts at nation-building have never been as successful as we would like them to be, especially when it involved doing so in the face of an on-going resistance/insurgency in a country divided along ethnic or religious lines.

The onging and ever-worsening mess in Afghanistan, and our inevitable future disappointment in Iraq - the war that never should have been - will do much to encourage a healthy desire to avoid senseless wars and (hopefully), in your words - to avoid shouldering uncomfortable responsibilities that come with them.

I believe that the Somalia-Afghanistan comparison is an apt one, and does not bode well for any of the countries involved (and, as usual, even worse for their citizenries). These two countries are not particularly similar socio-economically or culturally, but they both share one defining characteristic (at least when it comes to foreign-imposed nation building): a history of violent foreign intervention and a resulting mistrust of such interventions. Both countries swung East and West during the Cold War, and were treated as low-level pawns by both sides. The post-Cold War era has not given Somalis or Afghans a cause to improve their view of foreign powers.

Nation building is about forging long-term stability through effective and accepted institutions. This concept is not somehow unique to failed or impoverished states; every country in the world has had to "nation-build" at various points in its history. The glue that holds those institutions together is trust -- trust that promises will be kept, that rules will be followed, and that what's here today won't be gone tomorrow. The real question is not whether nations can be built in Somalia or Afghanistan, but rather who is in the position to do it. If the United States wants to be able to nation-build, they need to gain the trust of the population. And in that area, history is not on our side.

I'm looking at your examples....
Nicaragua: like when we backed the Contras (who Human Rights Watch says committed war crimes) and mined their harbor? They sued us, the ICJ ruled in their favor.

Kosovo and Bosnia: which have more factions vying for control than when we intervened?

East Timor: are you talking about when we supported Suharto's invasion that killed 80,000-200,000 or when Australia took their oil?

El Salvador: Humans Rights Watch wrote:"Not only did the United States fail to press for improvements . . . but, in an effort to maintain backing for U.S. policy, it misrepresented the record of the Salvadoran government, and smeared critics who challenged that record. In so doing, the Administration needlessly polarized the debate in the United States, and did a grave injustice to the thousands of civilian victims of Government terror in El Salvador."

Still not convinced on nation building

First off, it's great that you're writing in response to comments. That kind of dialogue is one of the many reasons why FP is so great.

Some people may have said such a thing, but reading through the comments I don't see it, and it that claim clearly wasn't the primary content of most of the critiques that were made.

As the two posters above me say, no one here is suggesting that nation-building is always and everywhere a bad idea. It is absolutely a diplomatic tool that realists should be willing to deploy, and there have been past instances where it has been effective. You're also right to point out that there is a very real Somalia fallacy, and recent failures have so chastened some people that they are (wrongly) discarding nation-building entirely.

The problem is that, given our current entanglements, a defense of 'nation-building' is always going to be read in light of the Afghan question. When we talk about nation-building, in practice, we are actually talking about a specific nation. So the implication of any defense of nation-building is that it is a defense of the Afghan mission. Now, that's not what you intended, but the current policy conversation gives readers a grounds to take it that way.

I really think that if a person approaches the question from the very beginning, asking questions like "what are America's interests in Afghanistan" and "how do we protect those interests in the most efficient way" then nation-building, in this instance, is an indefensible choice. Which of course isn't to say that it will never be a useful strategy.

You acknowledge that conditions in Afghanistan are very bad, and a source of skepticism. But you imply that, given the resources being devoted to the project, Afghanistan may have more of a shot than it's being given credit for. You may be correct, but I think it's really irrelevant. The cost of doing so remains much too high when weighed against America's vital interests.

As Pechorin points out upthread, the argument Miller is responding to here was not made at all in most of the comments posted in response to his last discussion of nation building. It was offered only implicitly in any of them, and that is being generous.

Maybe he got some e-mails, and is responding to those. I don't care to play gotcha. However, Miller might have done better to make clear at the start that he was offering an abstract defense of nation building as a concept -- and beyond that, nothing of direct or immediate relevance to the nation building projects in which the United States military is most directly engaged.

The way Miller was introduced left the impression that he was offering a defense of nation building in Afghanistan.

It might be interesting to discuss nation building per se, but you completely miss the point.
The real question is not whether the nation-building theory is a good one, but rather if its viable for the US to pursue it. You have admitted the reality that it's not working in Afghanistan. After 9 years of ever-increasing revolt it would be hard to argue for the contrary.
In that case, this discussion appears to have another meaning: is the US doing any good by pursuing an ultimately noble goal that it can't achieve? The answer this time has to be negative as well, as the merits of the goal are precluded by the ineffectiveness of realization, yet all the counters - costs in resources, attention and most importantly, civilian lives - are clearly present.

It's my understanding that in order to succeed with nation building in failed states, the intervening force need to focus in particular on two main aspects: cultural relativism and grass rot education. This will then, in time, generate a snowball-effect which eventually can stabilize and democratize the country.

But since the situation in these particular countries is extremely sensitive, one simply cannot ignore to fight the issue of poverty in order to give the belligerents another option to the war.

I think we have to ask ourselves how successful can we be in a nation building program in Afghanistan when there so many outside influences working against us. And ask ourselves are we here to eradicate the Taliban or rebuild one of the worst countries on the planet in regards to even the most basic of technologies. Lastly can we nation build with an American concept when the country when finished will be ruled under Sharia law. Since the rise of Islam and it's attempt to suede world politics can democracy and Sharia law coexist?

The future will be an interesting read for sure, it's to bad the book will be published in American blood.

Part of the reason that Paul Miller is missing in failure of nation building in Afghanistan is that pundits like Paul Miller, US government and news media intentionally continue to ignore Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/10, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/10 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/10 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Karzai also told a news conference in Kabul on 7/29/2010 after WikiLeaks leaks, “The time has come for our international allies to know that the war against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s homes and villages. But rather this war is in the sanctuaries, funding centers and training places of terrorism which are in Pakistan. Our international allies have the ability to destroy these Pakistani sanctuaries, but the question is why they are not doing it?“

Even Afghanistan’s national security advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta has asked the same question in a Washington Post article on 8/23/2010: “While we are losing dozens of men and women to terrorist attacks every day, the terrorists’ main mentor (Pakistan) continues to receive billions of dollars in aid and assistance. How is this fundamental contradiction justified? Despite facing a growing domestic terror threat, Pakistan “continues to provide sanctuary and support to the Quetta Shura, the Haqqani network, the Hekmatyar group and Al Qaeda. Dismantling the terrorist infrastructure “requires confronting the state of Pakistan that still sees terrorism as a strategic asset and foreign policy tool”.

Poor Karzai’s call to his Western allies ‘to destroy Islamist militant sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan’ is falling on deaf ears in Washington where powers to be are hell bent on sacrificing Afghanistan to mollycoddle Pakistan.

In my opinion, nation-building will only work when an external threat is present. For example, both Japan and Germany were the victims of possible foreign aggression from the USSR and China after WWII. As a result, citizens and officials were more willing to work with the US officials and reform their governments and policies. However, when the US has entered countries like Vietnam, Haiti, and Afghanistan where no external threat is present, and internal matters are disrupted, then attracting support from the indigenous people will be difficult.

You are missing a fundamental point.

In the west itself, modernity is now about dismantling welfare systems, increasing inequality, and subsidizing corporate profits. I think you would
agree, no? Other notions once associated with say "western democracy"
social justice, economic fairness, peace, all of which would, one
would think, enfranchise Afghans, have been relegated to the past in
the name of progress, neo-liberal style.

Even if the United States or Nato, or anyone else for that matter had
unlimited blood and treasure to dump into a "nation-buliding project,"
what would it look like in the era of the Market State?

Since the days of Thatcher & Regan, there has been nothing but a
concerted effort to privatize the state. Even if the military were
able to win over enough people through sheer force, then what? The era
in which we find ourselves today is not the same that existed when say
the British ran India, or countries activity promoted
"nation-building" say though a full-employment schemes as was the case
in New Zealand. The ideology that society is a collection of
individuals, has undermined any chance for nation-building.

My gut feeling is that even if we "stay the course," user pay services
all be it schools or privatized health care in Afghanistan isn't going
to win hearts and minds. Even just hypothetically, the idea that
American might fund such services abroad, all the while America is
crumbling away at home seems also like a missed opportunity to win
hearts and minds.

You honestly think it would be in the American national interest to under write university education or socialized health care abroad all the while 48 million Americans live in poverty?