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Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq QUOTES

Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq QUOTES

1 " In all postconflict reconstruction, the ultimate goal is to create a minimally capable state in four key areas: (1) security; (2) governance and participation; (3) social and economic well-being; and (4) justice and reconciliation. "

― Francis Fukuyama , Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq

2 " Given the novelty of this organization, lines of authority were confused. Although Bremer nominally worked for and reported to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, he increasingly dealt directly with the White House staff and bypassed the Pentagon bureaucracy. Relationships with the local U.S. military command were reportedly both strained and confused. The massive U.S. military presence and its role in providing law and order were regarded as increasingly oppressive by the Iraqi people, and this perception played a role in stimulating violent resistance. And then, with the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004, this entire, large bureaucracy had to be dismantled and its functions handed back either to Iraqi ministries or to the new embassy/ country team. This once again created substantial confusion as roles and missions were reassigned to a different bureaucracy. "

― Francis Fukuyama , Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq

3 " As Sunil Khilnani demonstrates in The Idea of India, the notion of India as a nation-state was something that was invented under British rule.4 Prior to Britain’s arrival, the subcontinent was a hodgepodge of princely states, languages, ethnic groups, and religions, with the Mogul Empire’s writ limited only to parts of northern India. Under the British, India got a sense of itself as a single, unified political space (even if that space was carved into Muslim and Hindu areas at Partition) and acquired a common language, a civil service and bureaucratic tradition, an army, and other institutions that would be critical to the emergence of a democratic India in 1947.5 "

― Francis Fukuyama , Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq