With Afghanistan in the news because of the elections and the latest policy debates back home, I’ve been pondering why nation-building is so hard even though failed states are the exception and not the rule.
Part of the problem is often arbitrary colonial borders, but I think there’s a deeper issue. Generally speaking, we are trying to build modern nations. Absent ethnic or sectarian cleansing, this requires a state that can cross racial and religious lines. When not going for a pluralistic empire, nationalism is the way to cross such lines.
However, at the same time, nationalism is a very effective anti-occupation force. Identifying with one countries naturally sets one in opposition to other countries to some extent and to any occupiers to a much greater extent. This force, in combination with guerrilla warfare, historically is most known for helping to bring about the end of colonialism, but it does act as a natural enemy to even more humanitarian occupations.
On the whole, I think this will make occupations extremely difficult in all but a few cases. There are other forms of military intervention, for example peace keeping missions, that seem to be more capable of avoiding this problem. I think I may need to do some reading up on nationalism, if I’m right about its dual-edged nature, there may be patterns in its appearance in opposition to actions by superpowers even when direct occupation or colonialism isn’t an issue.
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