Appetite for construction.

• Author: Abramowitz, Morton
• Position: Essay

WHAT IF George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice were right the first time? Remember when he said in the second debate with Al Gore back in 2000,

I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building.... I mean, we're going to have some kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. You don't hear that rhetoric from the mainstream on either side this time, as candidates from Giuliani to Obama have rushed to pick up nation-building's fallen standard.

You also don't hear a more critical question. Not whether Western democracies should interfere in the affairs of collapsed states--it seems we will often have no choice--but whether in fact we can accomplish anything like what the phrase "nation-building,", with all its cando Americanism, implies.

Nation-building is not for wimps. It's time we ask ourselves whether it is for modern democracies.

It demands attributes that states like ours are increasingly likely to lack. Chief among these are pragmatism and political staying power, which combine to produce the ability to spend lots of public money freely, over a long period of time, on sometimes unsavory means towards modest ends. We also need a particular kind of in-depth political and cultural knowledge--not just familiarity with language and culture, history and players (though those are crucial), but the ability to see another culture in its own context, as it is, not as we imagine it could be if its citizens watched American Idol. That kind of pragmatism, national humility and long-term vision are not American strong points.

Yet commonly held beliefs make us persist in engaging in nation-building. States with functioning government and civic institutions are less likely to serve as way stations for terrorists, drugs, guns and germs; countries with settled identities are less likely to become exporters of conflict and radicalism. Nor is it moral to ignore humanitarian emergencies or true to our ideals to forget our attachment to democracy--thus the temptation to set about building or strengthening institutions where they are weak or nonexistent.

Since we are that "City upon a Hill", we also like the romance of nation-building: creating new states or restoring states broken by wars or terrible leadership.

But reality is a far cry from romance. This administration mounted not one but two massive nation-building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq they did so largely alone. They deployed even grander nation-building rhetoric in support of a more audacious goal--reshaping the nations of the Middle East in our imagined democratic image.

With what results? We now face intense violence, ill-functioning governments, and pillaged and unrepaired infrastructure. Regional publics are intensely skeptical of any American stamp, and our public is increasingly dubious that we can or should reshape the inner workings of other nations.

Some Delusions of Nation-Building

THE CORE of our addiction to nation-building is constructed on a bipartisan set of romantic misconceptions. Indeed, we have often confused nation-building with a variety of enterprises--from preventing starvation to fighting terrorism--that do touch our deepest interests and values and call us to find ways of stopping massive violence and state collapse. That can entail a range of activities, from short-term humanitarian assistance, to long-term help in rebuilding institutions, as well as military, support and peacekeeping.

But we will not get much of that right unless we stop believing that what we are doing is "building nations", and instead recognize some hard truths.

The first is our addiction to short-term fixes. They may be unavoidable where conflict rages, but they often lead to unintended consequences and are unlikely to produce long-term results. We consistently underestimate--sometimes purposely--the...