Haitian child carries meal distributed by Soldiers as part of humanitarian relief after January 2010 earthquake DOD (Fred W. Baker III) DOD (Fred W. The Case for Nation-building Why and How to Fix Failed States
By Paul D. Miller
ation-building has a bad reputation. The phrase conjures up images of well-meaning but hapless U.S. Soldiers or United Nations (UN) peacekeepers involved in an expensive, N complicated, and ultimately futile effort to fix other people’s problems. Worse, nation- building is often seen as both dangerous and peripheral to anyone’s vital national security interests. Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti are routinely trotted out as proof that such missions are doomed to debacle. In the post-Iraq era of softer power and tightening budgets, it seems prudent to set aside notions that the United States or UN can or should deploy force to remake countries abroad in the liberal world’s image.
Paul D. Miller is an Assistant Professor in the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University. Dr. Miller is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Unfortunately, the need to engage in of weakness in literally dozens of other states, nation-building is inescapable. State failure nation-building should remain an important incubates serious threats to regional and inter- and viable policy option for the UN and national order, such as insurgent movements Western powers. (West and Central Africa), organized crime and drug-trafficking networks (Southeast Europe, Why Build Nations? Central Asia), piracy (East Africa, Southeast After the terrorist attacks of September 11, Asia), pandemic disease (AIDS), and ecologi- 2001, it quickly became received wisdom that cal disaster—to say nothing of the occasional failed states are dangers to the world. In truth, global terrorist organization. Time and time few failed states generate the kind of global again, history demonstrates that state failure, menace that al Qaeda was, and some scholars, when left unaddressed, causes demonstrable including Aidan Hehir, Anna Simmons, and harm to neighbors, whole regions, and occa- David Tucker, have since argued that state fail- sionally the international order itself. ure is not a significant cause of transnational terrorist threats.1 But even if al Qaeda and Afghanistan were highly unusual, it is none- the challenges that the international theless true that weak and collapsed states community faces in the 21st century pose other dangers to their neighbors, whole provide an ideal opportunity for a timely regions, and occasionally the world. For exam- reappraisal of nation-building ple, some 20 million people, including 600,000 Americans, died of the Spanish influenza of 1918–1920, a disease that surely spread faster Happily, the popular image of nation- and lasted longer in part because of Europe’s building is largely founded on a few famous weakness and poverty following World War I. examples of dramatic failure. A closer look The disease killed more people than the war at the history and practice of nation-building itself. Today, epidemics such as AIDS or a illustrates that the international community potential bird flu outbreak could kill millions, has learned key lessons and improved its ability cripple poor states’ health care systems, and to foster stability and democracy in states con- destabilize regions as armies and governments fronted with violence, illegitimacy, poverty, lose human capital. Keeping such diseases in and institutional breakdown. The challenges check is as much a governance problem as a that the international community faces in the scientific and medical one. 21st century provide an ideal opportunity for a Some threats are more direct than disease. timely reappraisal of nation-building, its goals, The Mafia arose in the lawless regions of Sicily prospects, and uses. As the international com- in the late 19th century and became a blight munity begins to work with the new state of of organized crime and gang warfare in 20th- South Sudan; plans for a post-Qadhafi Libya; century Italy and America. The illegal opium continues reconstruction efforts in Haiti; over- trade flourished in the weak and ungoverned sees peace-building efforts in Côte d’Ivoire “Golden Triangle” border area between Laos, and Lebanon; faces persistent weakness and Burma, and Vietnam in the 20th century— violence in Afghanistan; and monitors signs until Afghanistan’s collapse created an even
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more inviting environment for global narcot- But failed states also pass costs on to their ics traffickers in Central Asia in the 1990s. neighbors, the region, and even the world. Civil The collapse of the Soviet Union and rise war and state failure typically cause neighbor- of nonstate armed groups outside the writ of ing states to increase spending on defense as a weak post-communist states led to civil unrest, precaution, which can trigger a regional arms violence, and regional instability from the race while decreasing resources available for Balkans to the Caucasus and Central Asia, social welfare and investment. War itself is killing hundreds of thousands of people in infectious. Instability in one country is an ideal the Balkans, reigniting nationalist chauvin- condition for marginalized groups from a neigh- ism in Russia, and creating a clutch of frozen boring country to take refuge and launch their conflict zones that serve as havens for crimi- own insurgencies. Refugees from failed states nals and smugglers. West Africa collapsed in are a considerable economic cost on neighbors, the 1990s as Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte and even more so if they are carrying infectious d’Ivoire exported lawlessness and insurgent diseases such as HIV/AIDS, as they often are. movements to each other. Central Africa saw State failure disrupts cross-border trade in the one of the most lethal wars in the continent’s region, which can be a major economic burden history from 1997 to 2003 in part because the because most countries’ largest trading part- Democratic Republic of the Congo was unable ners are their immediate neighbors. Citizens of to uphold basic law and order or protect its failed states buy fewer goods, produce less for borders. And piracy along the east coast of the world economy, create no businesses, and Africa has increased over the last two decades invent no products, but have more opportuni- since Somalia’s collapse into anarchy. ties to contribute to crime and political vio- These threats collectively take a massive lence that crosses borders.3 human toll in the states directly affected. States also grow poorer. According to Paul Collier, “During civil war countries tend to grow around failed states may eventually present 2.2 percentage points more slowly than during a systemic risk to the liberal world peace.” Per capita incomes fall and production order, of which the United States is the of food, among other goods, declines. Instability principal architect and beneficiary causes capital flight: citizens with means shift up to 10 percent of their private wealth abroad. It also causes the flight of human capital: the Failed states are sinkholes in the world. most educated and skilled citizens tend to be They contribute nothing good and positively the ones most able to emigrate, leaving the detract value from the region, much as a con- country bereft of the talent pool that it needs demned building used by criminals spreads for reconstruction. And, of course, people who blight and drags down home values throughout live in postconflict failed states are less healthy, a neighborhood. Moreover, failed states may less educated, have fewer opportunities, and die eventually present a systemic risk to the liberal younger. For example, infant mortality rises by world order, of which the United States is the an average of 13 percent during a civil war, an principal architect and beneficiary. The threats effect that lingers long after war ends.2 emanating from failed states are likely to spill
PRISM 3, no. 1 Features | 65 Author U.S. Air Force (Adrian Cadiz)
over international boundaries more frequently because globalization has reduced states’ insularity from each other. The 21st century is likely to see a steady increase in cross-border low-intensity conflict, transnational drug- and human-trafficking, piracy, international refugee flows, pandemic disease, environmental disaster, and terrorism. That is why state failure is a national security problem to be taken seriously in Washington.
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Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul member secures area near bridge construction site
In response to these threats, the international community has few good options. On one end of the spectrum, the Western powers could simply ignore the problems, allow anarchy to consume failed states, and pay ever higher costs to isolate themselves and repair any damage after the fact. But this option is shortsighted, ignores the realities of globalization, and is sure to cost more in the long run than is necessary. On the other end of the spectrum, the international community could resurrect
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a trusteeship or mandate system under which crime). It is a pragmatic exercise of hard power regional powers assume responsibility for keep- to protect vital national interests. ing order in their respective neighborhoods. This option, too, is unrealistic because there Can It Be Done? is no political will for renewed imperialism, by But none of this matters if nation-build- whatever name, among either the great powers ing is impossible. Sometimes the best policy or the developing world. option on paper turns out to be the worst in Between these two extremes lies a moder- reality because it simply cannot be done and ate solution. The least bad alternative is for the efforts to implement it waste time and money international community to address the root while the problem gets worse. Other options, causes of state failure and foster the growth even if suboptimal, are better if they can actu- of responsible and accountable governance in ally be implemented. the places where it is most sorely lacking—in Nation-building is hard. The United other words, nation-building. The international Nations famously bungled operations in Liberia, community embraced this option quickly after Angola, and Somalia in the 1990s. The second the Cold War but abruptly grew gun-shy after UN Angola Verification Mission oversaw a poor implementation in a few early missions presidential election in 1992, the unfavorable caused policymakers to doubt its feasibility outcome of which was seized upon by Jonas and relevance. But seen in proper perspective, Savimbi’s rebel group to renew its decades-long nation-building is not international charity. civil war, suggesting that rapid elections in a It is not a superfluous, dispensable exercise in postconflict environment can exacerbate ten- appeasing Western guilt, an expensive tribute sions. The UN Observer Mission in Liberia to humanitarianism, or an act of unvarnished drove the country’s peace process toward an selflessness and goodwill. Nation-building is a election in 1997, but failed to disarm factions necessary response to the danger of failed states first. Charles Taylor, the most ruthless and well- armed warlord in Liberia, simply terrified the citizenry into electing him. In Somalia, the UN the experience in Somalia has been and United States failed to deploy anything especially influential in shaping scholars’ that country needed to impose order over frac- and policymakers’ attitudes toward tious warlords and restart the nonfunctioning nation-building government. In all three cases, the states in question ended up worse off after, and because of, outsider meddling. that threaten regional stability. It is a strate- The experience in Somalia has been espe- gic investment in weak states to increase their cially influential in shaping scholars’ and poli- capacities. It is an effort to target countries cymakers’ attitudes toward nation-building. whose weakness threatens international order The Battle of Mogadishu in October 1993, to improve specific abilities, such as their abil- the American public’s understandable confu- ity to provide public security, defend their bor- sion about why U.S. Soldiers were dying in an ders, produce and sell goods, and suppress illicit East African country with which they were activities (including terrorism and organized not at war, and the Clinton administration’s
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abrupt pullout from the country cast a long for how all nation-building interventions are shadow over future international peace-build- doomed to play out. ing deployments. In the 18 years since the Nation-building has proven to be a viable failure of the UN operation in Somalia, it is and successful option in the past because most routinely cited as evidence that some states are interventions do not have to contend with so far gone that outsiders cannot impose peace Somalian levels of anarchy, and the United and democracy on them. For example, Fareed States and UN have also learned to operate Zakaria, a Harvard-educated political scien- tist who writes widely on international affairs, the nation-building effort in Somalia saw recently wrote, “The trouble with trying to fix failed states is that it implicates the United the deployment of the most inept UN States in a vast nation building effort in coun- mission to the world’s most failed state tries where the odds of success are low and the risk of unintended consequences is very high. with a measure of greater sophistication. The Consider Somalia. [That operation] highlights failures have been big, public, and humiliat- the complexity of almost every approach to ing, but in the last two decades, the United failed states.”4 States and UN have racked up better out- But it does not. We might call this the comes in Namibia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Somalia Fallacy. Despite its dramatic public Salvador, Guatemala, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, impact, the mission in Somalia is not a use- Timor Leste, Liberia (the second time around), ful historical analogy to generalize about failed and Sierra Leone (which came back from the states and nation-building. To make a useful brink of failure). Few of those countries are generalization, we should start with a typi- fully rebuilt, modern, stable liberal democracies. cal failed state, or, better yet, several of them. Civil unrest still occasionally flares up. Most Somalia is not a typical failed state; it is an are not particularly nice places to live. But the extreme outlier. It has been nearly the most international interventions changed their trajec- completely failed state on Earth for almost tories. None have reverted to large-scale politi- two decades. Even more, the UN Operation cal violence. Their peace agreements have held. in Somalia (UNOSOM) in the early 1990s They have all held relatively open and competi- was not a typical UN intervention; it was a tive elections. Most have seen positive postwar singularly, uniquely inept one marred by an economic growth. A few have shown improve- inadequate mandate, poor resources, unclear ments in the quality and accountability of their command and control, and no political will. governance, according to the World Bank’s gov- The nation-building effort in Somalia (under- ernance indicators, probably the hardest task of taken by UNOSOM II, which deployed sepa- postconflict reconstruction.5 rately from and with a broader mandate than The bottom line is that these countries the prior U.S.–UN famine relief effort) saw the are better off now than they were at the nadir deployment of the most inept UN mission to of their respective wars and failures, and they the world’s most failed state. It is unsurprising are generally improving, not backsliding. This that what resulted was a famous catastrophe, is a realistic, achievable, and useful standard of but observers should not treat it as a blueprint success that policymakers can use to determine
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if an intervention is worth the cost and effort. but to varying degrees. Thus, organizations Using a sliding scale also enables us to distinguish such as the Fund for Peace measure a range between utter failures (for example, resumed of variables associated with state failure, war in Angola), middling outcomes (Cambodia, including demographics, refugee populations, which has settled on an undemocratic peace), economic decline, security incidents, and so shallow successes (Nicaragua, which enjoys peace forth, aggregate them into a single score of and political freedom but economic stagnation), failure, and rank all countries in the world, and outright victory (Sierra Leone, Germany). most failed to least, in their Failed State That makes a real difference in human lives Index.6 In 2011, Somalia topped the Fund and is typically good enough to secure whatever for Peace’s list, followed by Chad, Sudan, the regional or global interests led to the interven- Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, tion in the first place. Zimbabwe, and Afghanistan. The Failed State Index illustrates the prob- lems with this approach to state failure. Somalia nation-building is one of the most and Sudan present polar opposite problems. complex undertakings a state Somalia’s failure is one of too little government; can attempt it is literally anarchic. Sudan’s failure is one of too much government of the wrong kind; it is Understanding the Problem tyrannical and genocidal. Afghanistan, mean- while, is waging a counterinsurgency, while Nation-building is one of the most com- Zimbabwe is collapsing from incompetent klep- plex undertakings a state can attempt. There is tocracy. Putting these diverse states together on no secret to success. There is no silver bullet or a single list of “failure” does little to illuminate single variable that explains all cases of success the vast differences between them or suggest and failure—not the rule of law, availability of ways of resolving their problems. Instead, it health care, amount of paved roads, timing of encourages a cookie-cutter approach to nation- elections, gross domestic product growth rate, building that overlooks the different problems and not even the security environment. The each state faces, and therefore the different UN Mission in Haiti in 1994, for example, solutions required. ultimately failed to restore political stability not It is clear by now that different states because of violence, insurgency, or civil war, but fail in different ways. To clarify the different because of endemic political gridlock and insti- types of state failure, it is helpful to think of tutional weakness that the UN failed to address. statehood as comprising five complementary Successful nation-building requires close aspects: security, legitimacy, capacity, pros- attention and responsiveness to local condi- perity, and humanity. To put it somewhat tions. This will require a reorientation in how abstractly, states must be able to exercise coer- we think about state failure. Scholars and cion; articulate a theory of justice to legitimize policymakers tended in the past to view state their coercion; operate institutions to provide failure as an easily defined condition. State other goods and services; exchange and use failure, in this view, is a singular, monolithic goods and services; and orient their activities phenomenon; states all fail the same way, toward human flourishing. They are mediators
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of violence, justice, the social contract, eco- mandate, and political naïveté. After insur- nomic exchange, and human community. gents from the Revolutionary United Front State failure can be understood under the (RUF) took several hundred UN peacekeep- same headings. States can fail in any of these ers hostage, the United Kingdom intervened, five aspects of statehood, suggesting a typology transformed the mission from peacekeeping to of five types of failed state: anarchic, illegiti- peace enforcement, dealt the RUF several seri- mate, incompetent, unproductive, and barbaric. ous military defeats, and followed up by deploy- Anarchic states lack security as, for example, ing a long-lasting and robust training mission Iraq did in 2006. Illegitimate states cannot com- for the Sierra Leonean security forces. The UN mand the loyalty or consent of the population expanded UNAMSIL’s size and handed it a because of some perceived injustice—perhaps more aggressive mandate and the mission was including Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011. ultimately a success. Incompetent states lack functioning institu- The lesson is not that the international tions and simply cannot deliver goods and ser- community always needs to take sides against vices, such as Haiti. Unproductive states are not an insurgency, or prefer peace enforcement over simply poor; they have malformed economies peacekeeping. That strategy would be inappli- because of war, looting, smuggling, and black cable and irrelevant for the post-earthquake markets, such as West Africa in the 1990s. mission in Haiti, for example. The lesson is Barbaric states murder their own citizens on a that the UN and United Kingdom executed a large scale, such as Sudan. surprising midcourse correction to account for These different types of failure imply the realities on the ground instead of sticking different strategies of state-building. What to a rigid template. Iraq needed in 2006 was different from what Haiti needs today. The international com- munity must be able to study the situation on unproductive states are not simply poor; the ground, understand the type and degree they have malformed economies because of state failure, and tailor a nation-building of war, looting, smuggling, and strategy accordingly. Such a strategy, accord- black markets ing to Georgetown University Professor Lise Howard’s study UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, Institutionalizing Success requires a culture of institutional learning, a bottom-up approach in which missions in the There are encouraging signs that the field design themselves as much as headquar- international community has recognized the ters in New York or Washington design them, need to address state failure and take nation- and more rapid decisionmaking.7 building seriously. But because of the popu- Such a strategy was on display in Sierra lar suspicion of the concept labeled nation- Leone in 2000. The United Nations Mission building, policymakers and bureaucrats call it in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) initially started by different names. The Department of State out with all the weaknesses that brought down established an Office of the Coordinator for the missions in Liberia, Angola, and Somalia, Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) including insufficient resources, a weak in 2004 and pledged to begin developing
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a deployable and expeditionary civilian deployments. In 2008, the Department of response corps for contingency operations. Peacekeeping Operations published a new The next year, the Department of Defense “Capstone Doctrine” for peace operations.9 issued Directive 3000.05, making “stabil- Despite the various labels, these efforts ity operations” a core military mission. from the United States and UN all refer The White House issued National Security to roughly the same thing: powerful liberal Presidential Directive 44 the same year, states deploying financial and (often) military updating the Clinton administration’s guid- resources to compel weak states to govern more ance (Presidential Decision Directive 56) on effectively and accountably. These moves col- interagency efforts in reconstruction and sta- lectively give cause to hope that the interna- bilization missions. In 2006, the U.S. Army tional community is slowly improving its abil- issued Field Manuel 3–24, Counterinsurgency, ity to rebuild failed states after two decades of the primary objective of which is to “foster frustrating efforts with mixed results. the development of effective governance by a legitimate government”—that is, nation- Conclusion: Learning from History building in wartime. It took the risk of failure in Iraq and The United Nations has done its own Afghanistan to overcome the legacy of Somalia soul searching, with its own lingo. The and prompt the United States to take recon- Brahimi Report on UN Peace Operations struction and stabilization seriously again. Now in 2000—written during the crucible of the distaste for the decade-long efforts in those Sierra Leone mission—concluded that the countries threatens to tar nation-building at complex peace operations of the post–Cold the same time that budget constraints are put- ting new pressure on the government to cut Germany and Japan stand as irrefutable programs that are unpopular or perceived to be proof that nation-building can be needless or futile. But the United States and UN should beware that they do not continue successful and contribute to vital to overreact to the recent past. national security interests In particular, it bears remembering that nation-building was a vital and successful tool War era needed more realistic mandates, of U.S. policy long before the end of the Cold better resources, closer integration with UN War. Most famously, the United States rebuilt political operations, and new headquarters Germany and Japan after World War II. Critics capacity.8 The General Assembly formed the skeptical of nation-building often dismiss these UN Peacebuilding Commission in 2005 to examples as the exceptions that prove the rule. improve international coordination on, and However, to paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, excep- heighten attention to, postconflict peace- tions do not prove rules; they disprove them. building efforts. The United Nations designed Germany and Japan stand as irrefutable proof integrated missions, in which civilians from all that nation-building can be successful and con- of its agencies and departments serve along- tribute to vital national security interests. Japan side UN peacekeepers—equivalent to U.S. is an especially provocative example. The United whole-of-government and counterinsurgency States built a democracy in a non-Western
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society where there was no heritage of it, fostered to avoid these costs, the United States could prosperity where there was complete devastation, have abdicated responsibility for Germany and effected a fundamental shift in the Japanese and Japan altogether, effectively adopting its people’s understanding of their relationship to post–World War I strategy of isolationism government and the role of armed force. and ceding power and influence to the Soviet The nation-building missions in Germany Union. That option had its own costs: it was and Japan, and the concomitant Marshall rightly considered an unacceptable risk to U.S. Plan (nation-building on a continental scale), security. Nation-building, though costly, was clearly served vital national security goals: cheaper than either the Morgenthau Plan or enhancing the capacity of key allies was part isolationism. In short, nation-building after of the U.S. Cold War strategy and bolstered its World War II was a relatively cheap way to strategic position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. contain the Soviet Union, demobilize the The German and Japanese economic miracles unsustainably large wartime Army, and avoid and German rearmament were vital parts of garrisoning Europe for generations. the U.S.-led alliance system that contained There are undoubtedly many unique the Soviet Union and ultimately led to the aspects to the missions in Germany and defeat of communist totalitarianism. Nation- Japan, and they offer no easy template to be building was not a luxury indulged in by the uncritically reused today. But they put beyond victor enamored of its own power and virtue; doubt the question of whether nation-building it was a strategic necessity. can be possible, useful, or cost-effective—it Finally, the postwar efforts illustrate that emphatically can be all three. The question is nation-building can be comparatively cheap. how and when to undertake nation-building The Marshall Plan cost some $120 billion (in to best effect. today’s dollars), and the military occupations The United States and the liberal world untold billions more. That is a massive sum, order do not face a monolithic threat like the but it was spread out over a decade and was Soviet Union, and so far they lack a grand strat- smaller than the costs of the other options. egy such as containment into which nation- American and British policymakers gave seri- building would fit neatly. But they do face the ous consideration to the Morgenthau Plan, challenge of growing anarchy and state failure under which the Allies would have de-indus- in much of the world, which is as much a threat trialized Germany and kept it poor and weak: to security and liberty for the average person in nation-destroying rather than nation-building. day-to-day life as communism was. Policymakers If the Allies had adopted the plan, they would who expressed concern for Haitians after the have had to foot the entire bill for Germany’s earthquake, Darfuris trapped in war, South food and defense needs and robbed themselves Sudanese seeking to build a new country, the of trillions of dollars of trade and investment global ocean-going trade menaced by piracy, or from the future German economy. It would Afghans seeking security should not neglect the have required the United States to minimize tools at their disposal to manage these problems. its postwar military demobilization and keep Policymakers may choose not to intervene in much of its World War II Army in the field, some of these crises; but if they want to retain a hugely expensive proposition. Alternately, the option to intervene at all, they need to keep
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the tools and budgets to do so in place. As U.S. policymakers review budget and force structure in coming years, they should recognize that nation-building is a pragmatic option that can meet the needs of the hour, and it can do so successfully and cost-effectively. PRISM Notes 1 Anna Simons and David Tucker, “The Misleading Problem of Failed States: a ‘socio-geography’ of ter- rorism in the post 9/11 era,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2007), 387–401; Aidan Hehir, “The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom,” Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 1, no. 3 (2007), 307–332. 2 See Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy (Washington, DC: The World Bank and Oxford University Press), chapter 1, available at
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