Being sick of war seems to be the key difference between the Balkans and Afghanistan. Another difference is that the Balkans regions had an ethnic and cultural identity that provided a basis for cohesion. But in a very real sense, nations were built where they didn't exist. I'd suggest that the baseline was far higher in terms of an educated population and a willingness to accept a new government.

The proximity of the EU and benefits offered is a key difference between the Balkans and Afghanistan. What's the opportunity for the Afghans, integration with the economies of Iran and Pakistan? That's like moving from a tenet to a double wide; not a bad idea but low on the incentive scale.

Thanks for the insights.

...(all the relevant western and south asian populaces would appear to be thoroughly so, though there are powerful interests to the contrary) and whether anyone's ever started this far down the development chain before. Additionally, not so sure that either Iran or Pakistan want to integrate Afghanistan - traditionally they have used it as a buffer and I rather suspect that neither is feeling so frisky as to try to change that in any meaningful way - rather tends to lead to a zero sum game.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

those examples are somewhat different than more modern, and pertinent, examples. The biggest difference being all of those were actually defeated militarily before being rebuilt. They surrendered.

Great examples but these were nations at the top of their form, they thought anyway, just years before the rebuilding process began. While they couldn't return to their prewar political systems, the lower level functionaries were still around to form the basis of an ongoing government.

The tragic history of war in Afghanistan since 1979 makes the prospects dim for any type of nation building. What does it take to build a nation after 29 years of widespread violence and destruction?

It's an awful choice for our "rulers" since we're the last standing of the warring factions over that 29 years. The nation building requirement articulated is a direct outcome of our handling of the occupation. If we simply leave without an alternative in place, we're saying 'Sorry for the coming bloodbath, but we're done.' But if the administration says that they can rebuild that nation based on past performance, they're not serious.

It's time for a heavily resourced international solution that involves Pakistan, India, and Iran at the forefront. That would involve people familiar with the Afghans and the region and would cost much less than whatever "new" program pops out of the White House sometime soon.

That's a key point. Why would we be expected to do anything different this time around?

The point on the Balkans is a good one with regard to Albania. All that bombing and diplomatic effort just to end up with a criminal state - http://www.ciroc.nl/presentaties/20061220%20arsovska.ppt

But we did get a mega base

"They have no idea how to construct the institutions that the Japanese and Germans intuitively understood before they began rebuilding."

That's the perfecta - they can't do it and even if they could, the people wouldn't appreciate it as offered. The Afghans have the unadulterated right to the human dignity and political autonomy that the Germans and Japanese wanted. But the cultural basis for rebuilding, including education, plus the common goals of a viable nation, were so much stronger in the WWII nations than they are in Afghanistan today.

"they are stuck there ... they just don't want to publicly admit they don't know what the hell they are doing over there, much less how to gracefully get out of it."

It's like Peter Dale Scott says about 'deep' policies that get started and survive for years, disconnected from much outside realty; we just saddled up and did what we do without much thought about the evolution of the process or even the specific goals.

After all, if we'd just wanted to find bin Laden, we could have sent a couple of hearty guys with shovels.

But I am not sure they are the ones being articulated.

The science (for lack of a better word) of insurgency simply hadn't been developed in the mid-1940s. If it had, we might have seen a German insurgency that would have made the rebuilding of that country much more difficult. Instead, the resistance moved to Argentina.

In Japan, the changes were huge. The idea that the Japanese were somehow already on board with the changes that were made in that country is simply not the case. We can argue which factor was greater, but the hardships endured by the Japanese in the war may have left them less willing to continue any fight. But, more importantly, they had a system that was particularly vulnerable to change by military victory: the unique character of their religious beliefs.

Unlike the religious fanatics who believe in a god in heaven and a long departed messenger on earth (who can't be defeated), the Japanese believed that the Emperor was god - or at least, a god. A god who, by definition, could not lose. Yet, he lost. That caused tremendous dislocation for the Japanese people, and created a climate for looking favorably on the suggestions/orders of the conquerors. People don't make a transition, like (for example) the changes in the Japanese laws regarding women, without a heightened receptiveness to cultural change. They had that because their god, the Emperor, was defeated.

Further, the rebuilding after World War II was done under the direction of great men. Not Halliburtons, and men who distanced themselves from reality.

The thing is that the German elites were aggressively integrated into the non-Soviet world and a large number of very bad Nazis got away through a well organized octopus -- South America and elsewhere.

The best - and often worst - scientists were brought into the US intelligence structures via Operation Paperclip in particular - for rocket research and psychological research as well. Allen Dulles was totally down with all of this, had been a fixer pretty friendly to Germany and its bankers all along.

Meanwhile there was also a 'Madrid Geopolitical Centre' which was set up in the mid 1940s as a kind of hegemonic backup plan. (described here)

The worst move in World War II's finale may have been trying to coopt Reinhard Gehlen, an SS general who claimed to have all the goods on a vast Soviet war machine. He was engaged in threat construction, the Soviets were weak, and he fed the new CIA lots of inflated BS (The CIA gave presidents virtually unedited, unsourced reports of Gehlen's concoctions). This was a key, key prop of the beginning of the Cold War - and it let authoritarians gain control over a huge array of resources in Washington. The 'missile gap' was, in part, a PSYOP run by Nazis!

Gehlen wouldn't let his buddies in Germany pull anything against the occupation force. The Madrid group center sent out a bulletin talking of how the Nazi remainders could play the US off the Soviets.

The Gehlen Organization ran for the CIA after World War II, but what happened to it? UK journalist Chris Story on Worldreports.org claims it became something called "DVD" associated with mystic Germanic authoritarian orders like Skull & Bones, other European elite schemes. Story also claims the EU is a revision of a Nazi-style geopolitik confederation proposed earlier. Likewise he says the Soviet Union's controlling elite 'folded back' and turned to economic warfare, bringing us the Russian mob, and a new EU that basically resembles the Soviet Union. [that new president guy they fabricated looks a lot like Gorbachev!]

Maybe it is too hopelessly naive to believe that these wicked structures and elite networks break apart or just turn into atomized guerrilla cells once America Wins. In Japan they let the Zaibatsu keep running, in Germany they let the SS guys build up again, and in Russia the KGB/GRU are still the central structures of the post-Soviet sphere. The PSYOPS expertise used against the American public today is a descendant of these programs imported after WWII.

--
Hongpong.com

The GJI material above argues very well against any serious comparison between WWII nation rebuilding and what's in store in the ME and South Asia.

"when and where we have the right to intervene and 'build' a nation."

That's the question the public should be asking, better yet screaming, the very next time there's an adventure planned. I would argue that the time is now thanks to Obama's "thoughtful" hesitation. We laid waste to Iraq and what have they received as a result of the 'liberation'-- an election or two and 1,000,000 less civilians able to enjoy the democracy that we provided. Afghanistan was in terrible shape when we arrived but just had to stay. As a result, things are no better than the shambles that we inherited. Through the magic of that special twist of logic, "American exceptionalism," there are actually those who propose that we fix things, e.g., nation building.

The notion that we get to invade other nations in the arrogant and bombastic fashion that we invaded Iraq is truly stunning. It betrays a fatal mind set. The initial action in Afghanistan made sense until bin Laden was given a green light to move on according to CIA agent Gary Bernsten. What was our point of being there?

Other than self defense, we need to stay home and mind our own business. I'll bet that Obama's insistence on Afghanistan as the "good war" is a key part in his recent drop below 50%. At this point, we can only "hope" for "change" in the very short term and expect some responsiveness in the mid term as the numbers slide down for ignoring campaign promises and the clear public will.

...in the early state formation of the 60's. That state was an elite construct, centred on the cities, particularly Kabul. What one then needs to do is figure out how to keep the countryside from strangling the nascent state in its crib, which is a bit of a trick in the particular situation of Afghanistan.

As to the folks who drew the borders not knowing what they were doing, they knew exactly what they were doing - they were seeking to make the formation of a state in their buffer zone difficult. I'd have to say they succeeded admirably. Similarly, I've heard any number of comments from folks out in RC East indicating that the guys who drew the line understood their military geography quite well all the commanding heights are on the Pakistani side of the line.

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass

of the ends to those wars helped things along. I think that goes back to shared cultural and social constructs. As much as WWII threw out many of the agreed-upon rules of war, there were still a few very deep points of consensus about how reality worked among populations of both sides that enabled the wars to end and rebuilding to begin.

This is not to say that the current wars the US has started and continues are against people who are fundamentally different than us--only that the points of commonality do not cover the same ground that allowed for WWII to end as it did.

And I still think that the most important factor here is the self-interest of the US.