Nation-Building Elevated

[Beelzebubalicious]

To me, the biggest factor in all of this is time. You can't really make a tree grow faster than it naturally does and I think the same goes for nations. We're always trying to engineer things to be faster, but it doesn't really work b/c it is against the nature of the thing.

Ukraine just had another election and the same old characters are there. Having Hilary as a pen pal didn't help Yulia. Nothing much will change. Over time, these people will move on (shuffle on quickly please) and a new generation will take control and they will be a bit more evolved than the last (we hope) and so on....eventually, there will be a critical mass of political evolution and things will change. But it takes time to dig out from the soviet legacy.

[M-A Lagrange]

Now let’s look at the economical theories of development and how they link up with politic development.

First of all Nation Building has for aim not to bring development but to build the mechanisms that fund a State and its administration.

Secondly because I am lazy, I will just take the two main theories of economical development:
- Rostow and linear development (Capitalist theory)
- Samir Hamin and centre and periphery (Socialist theory)

Rostow theory is based on a Western centred historical approach of development.

You start with the prehistoric period to end up in a 7/11 like mall. The basic idea is being that with several stages of economical development (and technological development) comes political development.
1) Stone Age: No technology, no economy: no State
2) Antiquity: basic technology, basic trade economy self centred: the concept of Cite (in Greek in the text).
3) Middle age: limited technology, proto capitalist economy: kingdoms
4) Renaissance: birth of modern technology, birth of capitalism: kingdoms with centred administration.
5) Modern times: limited modern technology, take off period: birth of democracy
6) Contemporaneous times: full modern technology, full capitalist economy: democracy.
(It’s a resume)
The main idea of Rostow is that economy and governance are linked. His approach and assumption is that if a country becomes rich then it will become a democracy.
Rostow basically putted on paper the general gut feeling of what is development in West.
Unfortunately, China has proven he was partially wrong: having a capitalist economy does not imply that you get a democracy. China has even proven the inverse: a strong capitalist economy can lead to a strong dictatorial regime.

But were Rostow is right is on take off period. You need a healthy economy to support a strong State apparatus. That’s the move Chinese made in the early 80 when they started to drop communist economy for capitalist economy. (And what led USSR to its end). Unfortunately, State apparatus and State economy nature are not linked.

Samir Amin theory is the critic of Rostow and is middle East centred (He wanted it third world centred but took Egypt as model…).
It is also an historical based theory of development.
1) Self centred development: you exploit your own resources to build your economy.
2) Predatory development: you exploit neighbours resources to build you economy. Actual example is Rwanda development strategy.
3) Mercantile: you impose to your neighbours to trade with you to develop your economy. Basic example is the colonisation.
4) Centre and periphery: you have economical centres which are in advance and which pull up peripheral areas. Capitalism.

To make it simple: it’s the base of the drop oil theory.
The good thing in Samir Amin is that he completely separates political evolution from economical development.
Personally, I have a tendency to prefer Samir Amin to Rostow. In fact, Rwanda and Uganda are applying Samir Amin theory and it works well.
But the 4 dragons of Asia did apply Rostow (Germany and Japan also in some extends) and it worked out also. But in fact, the 4 Dragons had a mix between Samir Amin and Rostow.
Politically, economic wealth did lead to democracy. But economically, those countries had to 2 policies:
- auto centred heavy industry development (pure Rostow: initiate take off through internal employment and sector 1 development)
- center and periphery industry development for export: they developed economical niches to generate strong external trade to attract hard currencies. (A little like Colbert)

On that, I would recommend Arghiri Emmanuel, David Ricardo and the economic theory of underdevelopment. (basically to know what to not do! Like Haliburton in Iraq...)

Now, let’s look at what we are talking about: Nation Building.

Nation Building is aimed to build a State apparatus in order to create an interlocutor for Weberian modern Nations (China included).
The economical component of it is aimed to:
- fund the State apparatus
- stabilize a country by establishing a strong economy that will reduce the use of violence to survive by ordinary people.

Funding the State apparatus is simple (?): you impose taxes. That requires a strong administration that can collect transparently taxes and a strong legal base to legitimate taxations.
Already we do have a problem:
- Strong administration means qualified and dedicated people.
- Strong legal base means that the State does not act predatorily but on legal base.
In most of failed States and post conflicts context, you are missing both.

Secondly you need to have something to tax! In most failed states, you have a predominance of the informal economy. So there is no legally formal body to tax. And then you have a majority of the population living with such low revenues that you just cannot tax them.

So you need to have development programs to build an economy that will support the State apparatus that you are building.

But as the economy is weak, the State remains weak and then it is an open door to corruption, black economy and so on… Also, the new Elite you have promoted are making much more money in a failed State than in a fully installed modern State ran by Rule of Law (Cf Iraq and Afghanistan). So they do not work hard to establish a formal State. As the State is weak and corrupted, it looses its legitimacy in the eyes of everyday people. So you promote insurgencies which weaken the State… And so on and so on.

Fortunately, there is a solution. (to be found if you listen to me)
The actual model of development used is Canada and the natural resources based development to build a strong Democratic State.
Just 2 critics (not really elaborated):
- Natural resources centred development is basically neo colonialism with a new clown costume. Samir Amin theory.
- Canada as a model is just believing that because you have a democratic model all other countries following that model will be democratic. Rostow theory.

Result: nothing new since 1970!
It’s time for a change!
By the way, Fukuyama is a nice guy who use complex words to reinvent the wheel and explain with capitalist vocabulary what the Marxist economical theorist of development have already said.

[Surferbeetle]

M.A.,

Greatly appreciate your tour de force posts on nation and state building; your explanations are very instructive and have shed some light on things for me.

In support of the digital SWC library I ran down some Google Books links for some of the authors you cite. One doesn’t need to cart around a desktop/laptop/netbook to read these or take notes anymore…an iTouch will get it done…. I used to use a library card and a typewriter back in the day…just amazing....well it looks like my reading list has grown

Aristotle - Politics

Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan

John Locke - Two Treatises of Government

Jean Jacques Rousseau – The Social Contract

Walt Whitman Rostow - Politics and the stages of growth

Samir Amin – Google Books appears to be light on complete digtal copies of his works


My 0.5 cent formal philosophical education for what its worth, included:

Voltaire – Candide

Niccolò Machiavelli –The Prince

Hermann Hesse – Siddhartha

During OIF1 in Iraq it was my observation that the dying limbs of the Iraqi state tree were triaged and kept viable with external IV’s and tech support. As a result of necessity a local shadow economy grew, flourished, and appeared to come to dominate much of the state’s economic system. Mass privatization via shock therapy methods combined with the simultaneous disintegration and attempted reformation of the political system (formal institutions and informal network structures) resulted in a Hobbesonian environment which made me question what I know about Locke’s thesis regarding the orderliness of man’s nature. Rostow’s construct (more familiar to me as engineering/business approaches), although reminiscent of the underpants gnome's business model in some respects, was in my opinion the way to go for the public works and utilities area in which I worked. My unit, lead by an amazing general, was able to provide security while using a balanced approach and as a result our oil spot/province experienced some level of stability during our time there….overall it was an invaluable on-the-job-training (OJT) experience.

[M-A Lagrange]

Steve,

Thanks and sorry for the bad English and spelling… (Have a ####ty computer at work. Luckily, I also suffer from insomnia and a recent computer at "home").

Now let's make the last move: the link between State building and war: COIN.

There again, I'll come back to CvC. What is the aim of war? To impose a political dictate to an opponent disagreeing with you (Sorry Wilf, I do not have the book with me).
How do you achieve it? By imposing either a policy to an enemy or by imposing a government favorable to your views.
This drives us back to the article at the beginning of the threat: "winning peace".

Basically the new paradigm of war is that for modern armies, the technological, the firepower, manpower and training difference is so huge that the conventional confrontation phase (Shock) is no more a problem. Cf Iraq, Afghanistan…
What are the new strategic phases are the "hold" phase and the "build" phase.
Hold should be the imposition of a monopole of violence by a new actor creating the condition to build a Weberian State. That's basically what nobody is good at. Especially when you face two main oppositions:
- First, one or several bodies not willing to let you be the new owner of the monopoly of violence. Cf Iraq and the "insurgency" led by Sadam Husen in a first time then the civil war that followed when there were no traces of the former State apparatus. All the Shia/Sunny conflict in Iraq is based on that competition between the US and each communities/cite (in Greek in the text) to have the monopoly of violence on a limited piece of land. In addition to that, you had the Al Quada threat which was willing to challenge the US on its capacity to be the external owner of the monopole of violence. (It's a resume).
- Secondly a context/cultural opposition (mainly Afghanistan) based on the opposition of Stateless societies to State society. Basically the tribes/warlords/druglords being opposed to any kind of centralized State.
In some extend Radical religious ideology can be more or less assimilated to Stateless actors (that's what they what to make us believe). But as JMM demonstrated in fact, the Caliphate or what ever else form of Religious Government is a Sate based society.
This is where State and Nation building enter in the game.

The confrontation is no more based on military legitimacy but on people legitimacy. War among the people is not only a war taking place among the people as a theatre of operation but the battle for the domination of the people as define in CvC trinity.
Some simplistic minds take it as reversing CvC: the use of force to establish/legitimate leadership on people.
The problem is unfortunately more complex as the CvC trinity is not dissociable, works in both senses (there is always a looser) and is the root of the cite.
So you have to challenge the previous cite by a new cite model.
This is where my personal obsession for Foucault comes from. (The critic of elections as a technical tool to build democracy like Weberian State).

State Building/Nation Building and COIN:
COIN, as the Surge, is based on State building: build a State apparatus that will have the characteristics we want (Elite, copycat administration, rule of law as primary policy…)
Population centric COIN is based on COIN + the new end of Modern State: the responsibility to protect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_protect, http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/20...m11701.doc.htm, http://www.operationspaix.net/IMG/pd...e-16-Final.pdf...).

The main challenge of Nation building is to build this responsibility to protect while State building is to build the State Apparatus that will allow to develop/impose (pick up the one you like) an economy that will support it.

PS: you also made me touch the very limits of my underground culture. I love South Park but was much unaware of the underpants gnomes business model. Too much time in field I believe and not enough in front of TV.

M-A

[jmm99]

with much to think about.

What I glean is that the discourse hinges on the concepts of the "nation-state", the "nation" and the "state". The Wiki Nation state (no "bible") tosses out some concepts and issues.

I suppose that the questions revolve about the whether and how of building, assisting, supporting: (1) a nation-state; (2) a nation; or (3) a state. Like most high-flying questions, the amount of theories and perceived "best practices" abound - often conflict, but are interesting.

Still, all of that flies far above (but the results will surely affect) the village I'm currently thinking about. That is a place with a guy, his kid and wife with their two donkeys; and the former spearchuckers clustered with their cattle at the watering point (AKs and RPGs may or may not be left hidden in the underbrush). Then we have the village: umbrella huts surrounded by a prickly brush barrier - juxtaposed to adjacent steel structures of indifferent repair. So, my village is certainly a collage - and, perhaps, a mallage.

I do, however, have some doubt as to whether the theory and practice of the Westphalian nation-state will enter into that village's Narrative and become one of its Motivating Causes (borrowing from another thread, which is closely linked to this one).

The nation-state - the 500m target; the village - the 25m target. I'm still plinking, but enjoying the discussion.

Regards

Mike

[Steve the Planner]

Well....

Probably just icing on Dahayun's cake, but I come out of two edu-theories of nations and national structure/wealth.

Without dispute, a nation that soaks itself dry, which produces nothing, adds nothing to a civic path, is, if not failed, failing. Plenty of examples of nations lost in their own issues, and going nowhere.

The goal in US nation-building is, in most cases, to supplant indigenous leadership, and initiate a substantive (and secular) change in a place that, already by self-selection, is a problem child, if not a basket case.

But our military and foreign policy objectives are not grounded in basic history of the emergence and vitality of successful places/regions or nations, and the routine transformative local or regional drivers, or unique comparative resource, locational or economic advantages that differentiate a failing area from a prospering one.

In Iraq, as I met many of the senior technocrats, they were proud of their role in twice rebuilding their country after major wars, even against the restraints of embargos, and arbitrary dictatorial government. Might not be paradise to us, but they were proud of what they had done, and on many levels, antagonistic to US civ/mil efforts that kept them from their duties/pride in rebuilding their country themselves. VP Mahdi was in Washington yesterday, and unambiguous about their self-determination, and getting the US forces out---to fly, they need us to get out of the way.

As MG Caslan (MND-North) said last month on his public post-tour debrief, he was skeptical of turning things over to Iraqis, but Gen Odierno impressed on him how important it was for the Iraqis, and the zeal they had for self-rule and independence (even with risks of instability).

Smoke and mirrors aside, Iraq has substantial resource, locational and cultural elements that, if they don't tear it apart, will drive it forward---with or without us.

But Afghanistan is a different problem all together. Current Afghans are born into economic, geographic, logistical and resource limitations, despite that it may have been prosperous once. But our strategy does not succeed by helping them to tread water----they have to grow, change, reinvent themselves in remarkable ways to meet our objectives---and it is not happening.

I don't believe that it is not happening because of them, but because of US. We are back to the same old top-down, project and program thing that drove so much of the criminality and corruption---no effective focus, synchronization of actions,or measuarble and sustainable goals.

Our operational focus is not to transform Afghanistan, but to deliver projects and programs already sold somewhere else. Right now,our deliverable is "boots on the ground", and dollars deployed, but we have no realistic transformative strategy or plan that can create 1+1>2 dynamics. Right now, we are still struggling to make 1+1=1, and that isn't going to achieve what we need.

In economic geography, we learn that resources, linkages, transporation and trade patterns, nodality, populations, all create and shape the economic bones of a place, and the collection and connection of those places creates the hierarchy that is a nation, and the reason to bound and defend it as a nation distinct from the "other" places.

Similarly, but from a different perspective, is Jane Jacobs, whose epic tome, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, derives from the shopkeeper, sidewalk interactions, and local associations,interactions and businesses that builds the framework for a city (not to exclude modern suburban distributed city forms), and the city drives the region, which adds up to the wealth and connectivity of nation.

Last April, I had the opportunity to talk with John Adams, em. prof of econ geography at UMinn about US military/foreign policy strategies for building nations in the top-down, just add water approach. It simply defies history, reality and functional evidence. You have to first find and develop some unique economic value, or hope for one, in a place to set that place in motion, and the rest of the places have to raise to a level that regional interactions can become transformative drivers (1+1>2).

If we want to see Afghanistan become something other than what it is, we need to get smart and focused, and become very Afghan-oriented. Maybe, but who will drive and deliver that?





Long ago, I learned that knowledge is transferable, but wisdom is not.

But, this business of implementing unstructured and unfocused projects and programs, for the last decade in Afghanistan and Iraq has shown that 1+1<2 if poorly conceived, unsynchronized to any viable local attributes.

The more I watch the logistic dog collar pulling back on our limits in Afghanistan, the more sure I am that, unlike Iraq,

[William F. Owen]

There again, I'll come back to CvC. What is the aim of war? To impose a political dictate to an opponent disagreeing with you (Sorry Wilf, I do not have the book with me).

Well at least you're trying!

How do you achieve it? By imposing either a policy to an enemy or by imposing a government favorable to your views.
This drives us back to the article at the beginning of the threat: "winning peace".

Allow me: Ideally you do it by "destroying his armed force" - that is kill/capture them, until they give up. Works and proven to do so. - but you may have to settle for something less as the setting forth of policy can also change the policy.
If you are not using violence, you are using diplomacy.

[M-A Lagrange]

Allow me: Ideally you do it by "destroying his armed force" - that is kill/capture them, until they give up. Works and proven to do so. - but you may have to settle for something less as the setting forth of policy can also change the policy.
If you are not using violence, you are using diplomacy.

Wilf, we are talking about the hold/build phase. They already have given up military, at least most of them.

Dayuhan,

Look at it from the other direction. What if the state we want to build contains multiple societies? What if these multiple societies are traditional rivals? What if they distrust each other, or loathe each other? These conditions are going to have a very real impact on the capacity to build a state, a nation, or an economy.

This answers to your first comment. The trick and what is fooling us is that we look at countries as a homogenous body while in many failed state, it's a patchwork of small entities more or less federated by a central inefficient State.
The cite can be restricted to the very core Aristotle definition: the agora. A land: a village, a leadership: the elders, an army: the men of the village (in CvC trinity).

Mike,

Still, all of that flies far above (but the results will surely affect) the village I'm currently thinking about. That is a place with a guy, his kid and wife with their two donkeys; and the former spearchuckers clustered with their cattle at the watering point (AKs and RPGs may or may not be left hidden in the underbrush). Then we have the village: umbrella huts surrounded by a prickly brush barrier - juxtaposed to adjacent steel structures of indifferent repair. So, my village is certainly a collage - and, perhaps, a mallage.

I think you are targeting the right level. But it appears that we want to first fixe the 500 m target before going to the 25 m target. Funding also come into the question. It's much cheaper to fix the State apparatus before fixing the problematic of all the small villages.
Afghanistan is a very good example of this. The assembly was created to bring together all the potential Elite that could enter our definition of it and ease the establishment of a centralized State. But we did not look at the lower level: do those people represent more than a village or a fragile structure based on violence domination a combination of Stateless entities and Charismatic/traditional domination.
Afghanistan like many others failed States is like an onion. You have several layers of complex societal organization and we come to impose another one, just because it is the one we are familiar with.

I can see "technical" problems also. It's difficult to build both State administration and Nation at village level. But not impossible, just more expensive.

Steve,

In Iraq, as I met many of the senior technocrats, they were proud of their role in twice rebuilding their country after major wars, even against the restraints of embargos, and arbitrary dictatorial government. Might not be paradise to us, but they were proud of what they had done, and on many levels, antagonistic to US civ/mil efforts that kept them from their duties/pride in rebuilding their country themselves. VP Mahdi was in Washington yesterday, and unambiguous about their self-determination, and getting the US forces out---to fly, they need us to get out of the way.

As MG Caslan (MND-North) said last month on his public post-tour debrief, he was skeptical of turning things over to Iraqis, but Gen Odierno impressed on him how important it was for the Iraqis, and the zeal they had for self-rule and independence (even with risks of instability).

Smoke and mirrors aside, Iraq has substantial resource, locational and cultural elements that, if they don't tear it apart, will drive it forward---with or without us.

But Afghanistan is a different problem all together. Current Afghans are born into economic, geographic, logistical and resource limitations, despite that it may have been prosperous once. But our strategy does not succeed by helping them to tread water----they have to grow, change, reinvent themselves in remarkable ways to meet our objectives---and it is not happening.

You describe exactly what I am talking about.
Empirically, I see two main kind of State building contexts or a context of State building (Iraq) and one context of Nation Building (Afghanistan), to make it simple.

As Steve clearly explains, Iraq was a "developed State" with all the characteristics of a Weberian State before the war. I did live in Iraq in 1978 and it was an average Middle East country with high potential (and yes I was a little boy at that time, so what? ).

Pre war Afgahnistan is a Stateless country with an attempt of Weberian State. (Cannot say it worked out nor any of us did support it. We were much too busy defeating USSR at that time).
In such context, the remark of Dayuhan takes all its sense. What is the cite? Basically the village Mike is thinking of.
In my perception, we should approach such contexts as a sea of sand and rocks with island and look at it with a Carl Schmitt approach. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Schmitt) Each village is a land with its specific and limited imperium and le land between each village an open space: a sea with a constellation of islands to be conquered. (Land and Sea. Simona Draghici, trans. (Plutarch Press, 1997). Original publication: 1954.)
Taliban or any insurgents are pirates, just like in Grotius and the right of gents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Grotius): a group of armed people without land and looking to take treasure but not an imperium.

M-A

[Steve the Planner]

MA Lagrange:

Very good analogy.

As a relative youngster, Uncle Sam decided that I would enjoy wandering the Countryside in Germany, in and around Hof (the interior German Border). As I walked through the forest between the little castles, I would come across these interesting little buildings in the forest with steep onion domed roofs, and slathered with religious themes of safe-guarding travelers from bandits.

That's how western europe, and especially german areas functioned for centuries. Constant inter-town and mini-state squabbling and wars. Travelers between faced the deadly risk of a night in the forest with the bandits that lived between. The steep roofs prevented them from waiting above to pounce on the travelers when the came out.

It is the history of the world. The fact that some places are still in that mode should not be surprising, and must be understood.

Tom Ricks, for example, is always going on about Iraq's "unravelling." I enjoy his work, but Iraq's history (dating back fro millenia) is of strong city-states and the regions they control, and not of our high school text book version of "democracy." Even during the Salah ad Din and Ottoman days, major cities like Mosul ran themselves---much more complex governance structure than appears to the outsider.

So what if Iraq decided, when all was said and done, to basically return to a city/region structure, loosely bound by national trappings and exigencies? Would that be an unraveling, or just a further refinement on a long-standing historical pattern and practice.

Today's Wash Post explained how the Afghan Reconstruction effort is grinding against the reality of illiteracy, lack of phones, mobility, etc... to extend government.

If all of our "advancement" is predicated on literacy, and only the school kids will have it, we run the risk of creating a little-kid technocratic dictatorship that local customs, practices and leaders will chew up and spit out for breakfast in the same manner as Afghan reactions to communism and secularism in the 1970s.

Where's that headed?

Steve

[Dayuhan]

To me, the biggest factor in all of this is time. You can't really make a tree grow faster than it naturally does and I think the same goes for nations. We're always trying to engineer things to be faster, but it doesn't really work b/c it is against the nature of the thing.

Very true. I was just saying this on another thread, but it fits as well here... one of the problems in the current American interventions is that American leaders are more concerned with legitimizing their actions to their own populaces and the international audience than they are with looking for a realistic solution to the problem. Of course the American people want to hear that we are going to be out of there in a few years and leave a nice functioning American-style democracy behind. It just ain't gonna happen... continuing the tree analogy, it's like announcing that you're gonna plant an acorn today and have a big ol' oak tree by Christmas.