America's Role in Nation-building: From Germany to Iraq

Why America’s Nation Building Office Failed and What Congress Had to Do With It

“…2 Recalling the ambitious postwar efforts in Germany and Japan, the U.S. offered enormous support helping to build power, water, and telecommunications infrastructure, restart agricultural sectors, introduce new currencies, and build securities markets (Smith 2013;The Washington Post 2013;Dobbins et al 2003;Michaels 2008). 3 The U.S. also attempted to construct new governments, not just holding elections but re-writing whole constitutions.…”

The Bald Eagle Nests: The United States Role in State-Building: Germany, Kosovo, and Iraq

“…The U.S. support surely had a major impact on rebuilding Germany and Europe in general, but Germany was already highly developed, an economically advanced society. This certainly explains why it was easier to reconstruct Germany than other states [2]. However, a very decisive indicator was the Germans themselves.…”

“…After World War II, Germans taught their children not to display the German flag or cheer for their beloved German teams in sport events. Kurt Vonnegut's (American soldier during WWII) novel Slaughterhouse Five (1969) 2 portrays the heavy fire bombings of Dresden where dozens of innocent German civilians were killed, but the Germans never complained about this loss of innocent life; they simply accepted defeat, remained silent, and moved forward. There was no insurgency in Germany.…”

“…American political scientist Francis Fukuyama defines state-building as the creation of new government institutions and the strengthening of existing ones -states exist to ensure law, order, security and wellbeing for their citizens [1]. From post-World War II onwards, the U.S. has taken major responsibilities for state-building, such as in Germany, Kosovo and Iraq -having a tremendous success in Germany, followed by some mistakes, such as in Bosnia, a mediocre outcome in Kosovo, or as James Dobbins calls it a "modest success, " [2] and a devastating failure in Iraq. All interventions were geopolitical concerns.…”

The Politics of Bureaucracy and the failure of post-war reconstruction

“…(see Dobbins et al 2003). Tullock's analysis of bureaucracy indicates that, while these variables are indeed important, their effectiveness is constrained by the organizational limits of bureaucratic activity.…”