Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

From nation-states in conflict to conflict in nation-states: The United States of America and nation building from South Vietnam to Afghanistan

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Politics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article engages with the latest (post-Cold War) debate about the theory and practice of nation building (state building). This is linked to a discussion of the shift in US foreign policy towards Afghanistan relative to Iraq between late 2008 and late 2009. Afghanistan is currently a major focus of nation building efforts and counter-insurgency programs led by the United States of America. Meanwhile, the discussion here ranges from South Vietnam to Colombia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and explores some of the ghosts that now haunt the US presence in Afghanistan 9 years on from the start Operation Enduring Freedom at the end of 2001. We argue that the possibility of successful nation building in Afghanistan is both far-fetched and far-off. In fact, what is required is the reorientation and reduction (even termination) of Washington and its allies’ direct commitment to Kabul. Washington and its allies should focus on a grand strategy for the Middle East and Asia that attaches far less importance to Afghanistan. This should occur in the context of understanding the history of the emergence, universalization and contemporary crisis of the nation-state system. Nowhere are the limits of the nation-state system and the failure of nation building more apparent today than in Afghanistan. In this context a whole new approach to questions of war, peace and progress is in order. The comprehensive elaboration of a new security-development framework is beyond the scope of this article, but we conclude by elaborating some of the main elements of a new framework: this will include a point of departure for research and policy to move beyond the current crisis of the nation-state system and nation building.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. According to The Correlates of War Project there were 129 full-scale wars in the twentieth century. Over the same period there were 35 wars between non-state actors and states and 141 recorded civil wars.

  2. While varying from year to year, serious conflicts or civil wars have fallen from close to 200 at the beginning of 1990 to 100, many of which are small (only about 25 battle deaths annually – the latter number is regarded by some observers as the ‘threshold’ for including a ‘conflict’ in the annual calculation).

References

  • Arquilla, J. (2008) Worst Enemy: The Reluctant Transformation of the American Military. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ayoob, M. (2007) State making, state breaking and state failure. In: C.A. Croker, F.O. Hampson and P. Aall (eds.) Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, pp. 95–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. (2003) Decolonization, modernization and nation-building: Political development theory and the appeal of communism in Southeast Asia, 1945–1975. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (3): 421–448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. (2004) The Battle for Asia: From Decolonization to Globalization. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. (2007) Keeping the world safe for primary colors: Area studies, development studies, international studies and the vicissitudes of nation-building. Globalizations 4 (4): 429–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. (2008a) From nation-building to state-building: The geo-politics of development, the nation-state system and the changing global order. In: M.T. Berger (ed.) From Nation-Building to State-Building. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. (2008b) The real cold war was hot: The global struggle for the third world. Intelligence and National Security: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal 23 (1): 112–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T., Burgess, K., Mauldin, J. and Sullivan, M.P. (2007) ‘Déjà Vu all over again’: Counterinsurgency and ‘the American Way of War’. Intelligence and National Security: An Inter-Disciplinary Journal 22 (6): 910–931.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, M.T. and Rodriguez, N.I. (forthcoming) The last Latin America Guerrilla? The rise and demise of insurgency and counterinsurgency in the Americas. In: P.B. Rich and I. Duyvesteyn (eds.) Routledge Companion on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency. London: Routledge, in press.

  • Bremer III, L.P. (2006) My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. New York: Threshold Editions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boas, M. and Jennings, K.M. (2007) ‘Failed states’ and ‘state failure’: Threats or opportunities? Globalizations 4 (4): 475–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Call, C.T. (2008) The fallacy of the ‘failed state’. Third World Quarterly 29 (8): 1491–1507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castells, M. (1997) The Power of Identity, (The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture volume 2). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coyne, C.J. (2008) After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crews, R.D. and Tarzi, A. (2008) The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbins, J.F. (2008) After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan. Washington DC: Potomac Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbins, J.F. et al (2003) America's Role in Nation Building: From Germany to Iraq. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, p. xix.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobbins, J.F., Poole, M.A., Long, A and Runkle, B. (2007) After the War: Nation Building from FDR to George W. Bush. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doyle, M.W. and Sambanis, N. (2006) Making War and Building Peace: United Nations Peace Operations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Economist. (2008) Central African Republic: Beyond a failed state. 26 January: 46–47.

  • Failed States Index. (2008) Foreign Policy: Global Politics, Economics (July/August): 64–73.

  • Failed States Index. (2009) Foreign Policy 86 (July/August): 80–84.

  • Fordham, B.O. (2008) Power or plenty? Economic interests, security concerns and American intervention. International Studies Quarterly 52 (4): 737–758.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fukuyama, F. (2004) State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukuyama, F. (2006a) Guidelines for future nation-builders. In: F. Fukuyama (ed.) Nation-Building. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 231–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukuyama, F. (ed.) (2006b) Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghani, A. and Lockhart, C. (2008) Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleditsch, N.P. (2008) The liberal moment fifteen years on. International Studies Quarterly 52 (4): 691–712.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodson, L.P. (2001) Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodson, L.P. (2006) Lessons of nation-building in Afghanistan. In: F. Fukuyama (ed.) Nation-Building. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurr, T.R. (1993) Minorities: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts. Washington DC: Institute of Peace Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurr, T.R. (2000) Peoples versus States: Minorities at Risk in the New Century. Washington DC: Institute of Peace Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hameiri, S. (2007) Failed states or a failed paradigm? State capacity and the limits of institutionalism. Journal of International Relations and Development 10 (2): 122–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hippler, J. (ed.) (2005) Nation-Building: A Key Concept for Peaceful Conflict Transformation? London: Pluto Press, p. xi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, S.D. (2008) Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kilcullen, D. (2009) The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kraxberger, B.M. (2007) Failed states: Temporary obstacles to democratic diffusion or fundamental holes in the world political map? Third World Quarterly 28 (6): 1055–1076.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laitin, D.D. (2007) Nations, States and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lederach, J.P. (2006) Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCormick, G.H. and Fritz, L. (2009) The logic of warlord politics. Third World Quarterly 30 (1): 81–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, S. and Brown, K. (2007) Greater than the Sum of Its Parts? Assessing the ‘Whole of Government’ Approaches to Fragile States. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, G. (2009) Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. New York: St. Martin's Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petraeus, D.H. (2009) The general's next war. Foreign Policy 170 (January–February): 48–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, B.R. (1994) War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundation of Modern Politics. New York: The Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rashid, A. (2008) Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. New York: Viking Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricks, T.E. (2007) Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricks, T.E. (2009) The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008. New York: Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, W.I. (2004) A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, B.R. (2002) The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2nd edn. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 45–58, 58–78, 111–280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rubin, B.R. and Rashid, A. (2008) From great game to grand bargain. Foreign Affairs 87 (6): 30–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shankar, P. (2006) The Twilight of the Nation-State: Globalization, Chaos and War. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, B.D. and Botea, R. (2008) Tilly tally: War-making and state-making in the contemporary third world. International Studies Review 10 (1): 28–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. (1975) Reflections on the history of European state making. In: C. Tilly (ed.) Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. (1992) Coercion, Capital and European States, 1990–1992. Cambridge: Blackwell, p. 12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, G.H. (2005) Engineering Peace: The Military Role in Postconflict Reconstruction. Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, S. (2006) Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zartman, I.W. (2005) Cowardly Lions: Missed Opportunities to Prevent Deadly Conflict and State Collapse. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Captain Jonathan Adams (US Army) and Lt. Colonel Dilawar Khan (Armed Forces of Pakistan) who participated in extensive discussion of the issues examined in this article. We also appreciate the feedback of Kristian Berg Harpviken (Director of the International Peace Research Institute – PRIO) and the participants in the 2-day seminar on State Failure and Regional Insecurity held at PRIO in Oslo, Norway, 11–12 December 2008. Finally, we thank Nancy I. Rodriguez (Research Assistant in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School – Monterey, CA) for her input. Of course, the article does not reflect their views, nor does it in anyway represent the views of our employers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA

    Mark T Berger

  2. University of British Columbia, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

    Mark T Berger

  3. 101st Airborne Division, US Army, USA

    Justin Y Reese

Authors
  1. Mark T Berger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Justin Y Reese
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark T Berger.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Berger, M., Reese, J. From nation-states in conflict to conflict in nation-states: The United States of America and nation building from South Vietnam to Afghanistan. Int Polit 47, 451–471 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2010.21

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2010.21

Keywords

Search

Navigation