Beetle:

I was interested in an NYT review by Rob't Kagan:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/bo...ok-review.html

What interested me about it was how little people who claim to be in the know actually know about the things they jabber on about.

US Reconstruction of the South after the Civil War as proof and models for US nation-building? Either someone took a hit of acid when they read a brief Wiki on this, or they are just poorly informed.

US Reconstruction in the South was, perhaps a better model of what we actually did in the South (punative, victors and spoils, repressive) contributed to the lack of modern economic development in the south until well into the 20th Century when Councils of 100 and Economic Development/Infrastructure/Education finally started to take hold to bring the south into a normalized relationship with the rest of the US.

The real history of the Marshall Plan begins with the initial punative allied effort to completely dismantle Germany's industrial capability and return it to an agrarian and pastoral area no longer capable of war. It only changed later, when faced with the reality of the millions who would die or be dispossessed by this approach, riveted attention on the need for a new plan.

In both Japan and particularly Germany you had a skilled and educated society, similar in many ways to our own (or like Japan, looking for a better model), and a high degree, from inception, of collaboration between US occupiers and indigenous local community and business leaders.

The above paragraph's opportunities, I believe, existed much more in Iraq than we initially understood, and possibly in Afghanistan, but we missed every boat that sailed bye, whether by hubris, ego or distraction.

I really wish that, at some point, these military think tankers actually took the time to understand how real nations and regions work, before they throw all the soup knives and tea cups around in support of Nation-building. It really misses the whole point of why, when not properly targeted, our valuable resources get mis-deployed, mis-applied, and mis-successful.