There’s definite value in being able to express the importance of nation building through a lens that isn’t strictly humanitarian.  Some simply aren’t interested in humanitarian efforts abroad or see the process as not worth the cost to the US populace in time or capital.  Typically when dealing with people of this mindset, I find the realist and structural realist arguments of security, economic interests and stability an effective alternative.  Yet as I read Mr. Miller’s article I grew increasingly skeptical and concerned with the approach taken and some of the conclusions drawn.

1) Nation building is an investment in future allies and a means of balancing against potential rivals. Part of U.S. grand strategy is (or ought to be) the effort to prevent rival powers, like Russia, China, or Iran, from amassing enough power to seriously threaten our way of life. We work to keep their power in check — to balance against them — by increasing our own power or changing how it is deployed. Forming alliances with other, well-positioned states is a common way of increasing our power relative to our competitors’. We allied with Europe against Russia. We invest in alliances with Japan and Taiwan against China.

Nation building is an effort to build up allies, or potential allies, so they can help us against our rivals in the long-run. The Marshall Plan — nation building on a continental scale — was a crucial instrument to contain Soviet power in the early days of the Cold War. NATO would have been toothless if Europe remained poor and broken after World War II. Only after the United States dedicated an enormous amount of aid — some $120 billion in today’s dollars — was Europe able to field modern armies capable of deterring the Soviets. Nation building helped win the Cold War.

On the issue of Mr. Miller’s comparison of Afghanistan to post-WWII Europe, I would hardly be the first person to raise disagreement.  Plenty of my troubles with said comparison were raised by his readers in their comments on his post, politely by some, less than politely by others.  One of the great things about the internet as a source of news is the level of feedback between writers and their audiences.  It’s hard to imagine a world where television reporters had to deal with the same sort of responses bloggers do, but if nothing else such a world would likely have a more informative mainstream news media.

Specific issues of the Afghanistan/Marshall Plan contrast aside, I do think that Mr. Miller’s comparison speaks to a recurring problem in the fields of development and democracy building.  Very regularly flawed comparisons are made between past and present nation building efforts and often it seems hard to believe that these errors are made unintentionally.  Whether applying neo-classical models of growth in developing economies of Sub-Saharan Africa, or applying the models of post-WWII Germany and Japan as an argument for nation building through warfare, it’s difficult to accept that people don’t know better.

It’s one thing for arguments like this to be presented amid a sea of anecdotes over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer, but I think it’s another entirely for these sorts of ideas to be presented by people involved in policy making.  I have a terribly hard time believing people so closely involved in these issues could be uneducated on their history, but in a way I’d prefer to think the argument is based on ignorance rather than the alternative.

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To make his case, Ahmed cites the underfunding of the AU mission and the need for more Somali troops.  He is right to say that more is needed in both cases, but I fail to see how either qualifies as evidence of neglect.   The AU is chronically underfunded, in part because it is an independent African association (or supposed to be) and African countries don’t have many resources to share.  This is a reason to help develop Africa, but that’s not entirely our fault (Ahmed appears to be addressing the West; if he is directing his remarks at African leaders – as he should be – then my apologies).

He also states that Somalia needs more troops.  Again, I’m sure he’s right, but this is not always a case of underfunding; witness Iraq and Afghanistan or Pakistan.  The US has poured in billions of dollars and all three still lack adequate forces, both national and otherwise.  Years of war across the globe have stretched everyone a little thin, even while there is will to help.  It is unfortunate, because peacekeeping troops probably could help Somalia stabilize, but I’m not sure where they’d come from.  Even with stability, there is no guarantee that Somalia will emerge from this as a successful state.  So far it seems that the Somalis just don’t like each other, and that is not a good start for nation-building.

I wish Ahmed luck.  I think he needs to lead the international community in rebuilding his country, and he can start by not expecting us to simply follow.

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I don’t want to argue that Afghanistan is an exceptional case in terms of governance and stability, but I don’t think an occupying force will be able to impose democracy and governance in Afghanistan as was done in Kosovo, mostly because I think Whitlock gets the reason for Kosovo’s progress wrong. Whitlock seems to argue that the reason for Kosovo’s tentative success – free and fair elections that drew ethnic Serbs, less than expected levels of violence against the Serb minority, slow economic development – is due to the presence of international forces, including 14 000 NATO troops and a separate 3000 member security force sent by the EU. Peace and stability are important for building a democracy, but democracy does not make a nation. I believe it is the presence of a national identity, not the armies of peacekeepers and diplomats, that makes Kosovo’s state-building possible.

Charles Tilly, in Coercion, Capital and European States, argues that it is the process of fighting wars, creating enemies and allies, of defining who and what one is by who and what one is not that builds the bonds of nationhood. This common mythic past of victories and defeats provides touchstones for a people – to be celebrated, to be manipulated, to be understood and identified with, all of which are useful to the governing process. The literature can’t tell us why countries with greater ethnic fractionalization – a lesser sense of nationhood – have greater difficulties forming a democracy, but the correlation exists. Democracy as a last resort can be possible, perhaps (I think the literature is a little fuzzy on that point as well) but it is easier, as is development, within a nation. The Kosovars are a nation – they are predominantly ethnic Albanian, they interpret their history and culture differently from the ethnic Serbs, and they fought together for independence. My sense about Afghanistan is that it is not, that it might have been at one time, but today it exists as a loose collection of cities and territories claimed by one clan or another, with a common ancestery, but little to bind them.

Perhaps, given another 50 or 100 years of war, a nation might start to emerge, or not, since there is not simply the outsider as common enemy, but civil war as well (of course, other literature argues that peace after civil war isn’t possible unless one side wins definitively. That the US is backing minority factions does not fill me with great confidence that consolidated rule can be established after we withdraw).

I’m not trying to argue that an Afghan state is impossible, but rather that Whitlock draws the wrong conclusions from Kosovo, and therefore Afghanistan. There are lessons to be learned from Kosovo, but they are not so optimistic as he thinks.

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