How to build a State in a non State environment?

[Stan]

Mod's Note: copied here to facilitate the discussion from another thread, which starts with Post No.3.

Two days ago, while waiting for Santa Claus to come, I had a very interresting (and very drunk) conversation about how to build a State in a non State environment.
The question we finally came with was:
When you try to build a state from scratch, like in Afghanistan or Sudan (different setting, context, history... all agreed in advance), is dictatorship a necessary path or just the wall we all end up hitting?
The point was that despite using the democratic tool box, what ever the exemple you look at closely, you always end in a fake state (most of the time with a military like dictatorship or, at the best, a kleptocracy).

Somehow, it is different from that particular threat and I leave to TheCurmudgeon the right to expel me and my question out to another threat.

M-A,
Here's a great site from the CGSC History Department and this particular post is short and direct regarding The problem of creating a nation state, such as Afghanistan, is not a new one.

It however doesn't directly address Africa while comparing Afghanistan to Europe in the 16th century. I doubt the Europeans had many problems with cleptocracy to the level of The Sudan and Zaire, but I assume all have some experience with a military dictatorship.

Tom was barely in Zaire two days when he told the Country Team to forget what was in their diplomatic tool kit because we are in a cleptocracy, and, when the Country Team decided unanimously that the FAZ (Zairian Armed Forces) had to go, Tom began to laugh hysterically with something like "the mouse trying to bell the cat" (one of those days where I wished I was somewhere else ).

As odd as this may sound, if we didn't have a military dictatorship and/or cleptocracy, why would we need to build a State from scratch

[TheCurmudgeon]

Mod's Note: copied here to facilitate the discussion from another thread, which starts with Post No.3.

M-A: No, I would never expel you and yes, this is exactly where I was going. It seems to me that COIN doctrine is misplaced in Afghanistan.

Yes, I am also leaning toward the dictatorship idea, but more of a constitutional monarchy. That might even be too much.

While I see the parallels between much of Africa and Afghanistan (in that there is no government outside the capital) I think there is a huge difference in certain areas. In many areas our colonialism was based on extracting natural resources, resources that these proto-states can still use as the foundation of a functioning state. Afghanistan and much of the HOA have no such resource. As a result, they have no influx of capital to run a government. One of the major functions of a government is to redistribute resources (taxes in, services and patronage out). Where there are no resources governments have a hard time functioning. It is even further complicated when religious institutions compete for the limited resources, redistributing tithes in accordance with their laws, and further weakening the power of the government or replacing the government in a form of one-stop-shop for social controls and services.

All of this seems more like the business of other agencies but, as advisers to the civilian leaders we serve I think it is incumbent on us to understand these matters and advise on the limitations of what a military can and cannot do to solve these problems. Not to mention that in an interconnected world, the threat can originate from anywhere. Hence, stability becomes a security issue and therefore, our business.

Thanks for all the comments and I will sit back and let let this one go where it may.

[Dayuhan]

Here's a great site from the CGSC History Department and this particular post is short and direct regarding The problem of creating a nation state, such as Afghanistan, is not a new one.

It however doesn't directly address Africa while comparing Afghanistan to Europe in the 16th century. I doubt the Europeans had many problems with cleptocracy to the level of The Sudan and Zaire, but I assume all have some experience with a military dictatorship.

Had to note the first statement of the cited post...

The process of creating a nation state begins with an increase in the ability of the state to provide security and stability through an increase in the size of the army and police. This increase required the creation, almost from scratch, of a centralized bureaucracy to collect taxes.

That suggests that the first experience of the citizen with the new "state" is likely to be exposure to men with guns demanding money. Not hard to see how the citizen might see this as a less than welcome development.

I suspect that European governments of the 16th century were every bit as kleptocratic as African governments today. The folks who built those palaces were not earning their own money.

If we're now talking about building states, or building nations, I'd say that's something we can't do. States and nations aren't built, they grow. We may be able to assist their growth with a bit of judicious cultivation (just as we may be able to derail their growth with injudicious attempts at cultivation), but we can't construct a state, any more than we can construct an oak tree.

The metaphor of choice may not be all that relevant, but I suspect that our preference for engineering metaphors (build/fix) might reflect a mindset that's causing us some problems, and that we might do better to draw our metaphors from an agricultural context emphasizing state growth as an organic process, not something that one "builds" or "fixes".