Why “State-Building” is the Proper Term
As a Foreign Service Officer assigned as a Senior Advisor at PK-
SOI over the past two years, I have had the privilege of working
on several lines of effort related to stabilization and governance
in fragile and conflict-affected states. I have collaborated with
the interagency in Washington on stabilization policy, worked
with various Geographic Combatant Commands on stabili-
zation lines of effort in military exercises, participated with
the U.S. Army War College (USAWC)’s Center for Strategic
Leadership on stabilization in regional tabletop exercises, and
taught on these topics at the USAWC. One lesson I learned in
Afghanistan ten years ago has served me well.
Some of the wisest words I ever heard about Afghanistan were
that while it might be a state on the map, it is not really a na-
tion. Nationhood derives from the word “natal”—other words
include “native” and “nativity.” In other words, it is where you
were born—your national identity. Often, if you ask an Afghan
where he was born, or how he identifies himself, he is likely
to give you the name of his village and the name of his clan or
tribe. He does not necessarily identify himself first as a native
of Afghanistan, the way an American would describe himself
as an American in the first instance to a foreigner asking that
question.
in both Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and prior to that in
Vietnam, Bosnia, and Kosovo. My premise is that this term has
been incorrectly used; it is by definition, as outlined above, an
impossible task. We should consider the fact that the United
Nations does not use this term because it has long understood
that no outsider can build a nation. The American people have
intuitively understood that our “nation-building” efforts have
not been successful, and they are weary of the USG’s unending
presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, as it implies that no lessons
are being learned and no policy course corrections are taking
place. Actually, that is not the case, and U.S. interagency offi-
cials are consistently adjusting and refining their policies and
strategies. One way the USG could make its case more clearly
to its own population would be to use the correct terminology
to identify the nature of its assistance efforts in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Namely, Washington should call its long-term stabiliza-
tion efforts what they really are: “state-building.”
Handbook
for
Military Support to
Governance, Elections,
and Media
One prominent social scientist points out that for a nation to be
legitimately defined as a nation, at least 85 percent of the popu-
lation needs to self-identify as belonging to that nation-state.
Further, nations “accrete” over centuries, like stalagmites; they
are not “built,” particularly not by outside forces. It is simply
not possible for government officials or soldiers from other
countries to create a nation where it does not already exist; that
is, where the great majority of the inhabitants of a state or terri-
tory do not already center their personal identities at a national
level.
This fact is not well understood by many Americans, or in-
deed by some U.S. Government (USG) officials. The term
“nation-building” has been often and cavalierly used as the
name for USG and Coalition post-conflict stabilization efforts
Unified Action
Handbook Series
Book Two
19 February 2016
14