Forward: This is a piece that is composed for a class on insurgency and counter insurgency and as such is limited in its scope to materials specifically related to that class

The business of peace keeping is one of the most complex and exhausting processes which modern military forces find themselves involved in. Classical logic tells them they have won the war, but in these cases the war may just be a battle in the process of a greater war for the stabilization and development of the country.

The two perspectives on nation building that are commonly discussed in the western world are the US model of heavy forces, large money and extended deployment versus the United Nation blue helmets minimalist approach.

The Comparison of the US versus UN Peace Keeping operations is fundamentally flawed. The reason that this is so is extremely simple. The situations into which the UN is willing to intervene are on a whole a lot less unstable and dangerous than there American comparisons.


To counter balance the UN Peace keepers preference for more stable situations it is common to sque the American data by including Japan and Germany as successful operations. While these may have been successful reconstruction operations, there was no internal conflict in these countries, not to mention the fact that they had been extremely successful economic players on the world scale prior to the war. They where then brought to the table of unconditional surrender, the conflict had ended and been resolved, it was not stalled in flux. The countries they are being compared to are fundamentally divided be it by a civil war, an internal power vacuum, or a tyrannical leader oppressing his people.

The other interesting point when considering the literature is that there seems to be a constant statement that just a little more money and a few more soldiers could have gotten so much more done, which is likely inaccurate. I can understand the reasoning from a systemic perspective for a constant lobby for expanded capabilities but this constant if only statement doesn't delve into the actual situation. It instead glosses over the subject and defers discussion. If there was a finite need for more soldiers or more money it would be amazing for there to be a reason listed.

All in all I found the literature to be plauged by these and other problems, including an extreme lack of bipartisan ship, making dispariging comments about early war on terror tactics while celebrating the same tactics when carried out by the UN.

Dobbins, James. America's Role in Nation-Building; From German to Iraq. RAND. 2009.

Dobbins, James. United Nations's Role in Nation-Building; From Congo to Iraq. RAND. 2009.