Can someone give me some examples of nation building in history that has actually worked? And I don't mean nation building like the Marchall help, I mean nation building the Iraqi way.

The Marchall help was just sending money to non-puppet governement's who spended it wisely. The governement's were respected by the public and the whole population of those countries worked with the governement to get the country on it's feet as fast as possible.

The difference with Afghanistan and Iraq is that it's not the population that's doing the nation building, like building schools,hospitals, or power plant's. It's the occupier. On top of that the governement is hardly respected by the man on the street and the "Nation builders" are being attacked on a daily basis.

Is it at all possible for a foreign occupier/liberator to build a nation while the population doesn't work allong.

Is there an example in history of something like that succeeding? Does anyone know how it worked in Japan after the war? Who builded the nation there?

How about Liberia? Its a mess now, but it was a viable state for over a century.

Sure it is possible, if you stick around long enough. The Romans were quite good at it.

So it was possible in Colonial times and in the Roman era.

If always thought people who became ruled by the Roman empire mostly conformed to their new situation pretty quickly. Don't know about Liberia though, but I don't think they were blowing people up already.

Does anyone has more modern examples comparable to Iraq?

The rebuilding of (West) Germany, Italy, Austria and Japan after WWII were all very successful.

On Japan -- After WWII, the United States and Australia invested a huge amount of money in rebuilding Japan, then mostly left after six months. (However, A few American troops stayed until 1952 and the Ryukyu islands weren't abandoned by the US until 1972.) Short occupation time is one of the key aspects of nation-building; if you stay too long, you're not a friend, you're a foe.

The most succesful nations are those which built themselves; Iraq runs the risk of being doomed to failure... unless they depose their government or break into smaller nations.

It's actually funny that the myth about the U.S rebuilding alone Europe is falling because of the consequences of the war in Iraq. I guess that's what people call irony.

More seriously speaking, it's truely hard to find a good comparison of Iraq in terms of Nation Building. I think the best examples are those of the colonization actually. The thing is that during colonization, local economies were built but only so that the colonizer could make profits... it wasn't built for the native people of the colony.

Iraq could get back on it's feet...if only the terrorists stop blowing up pipe lines and burning the oil field. Don't they know the gulf war is overly and they lost both times? :rolleyes:

Iraq could get back on it's feet...if only the terrorists stop blowing up pipe lines and burning the oil field. Don't they know the gulf war is overly and they lost both times? :rolleyes:The problem is that there are really a large numbers of "terrorists" in Iraq right now. They are so numerous that journalists don't leave their hotel anymore in Baghdad by fear to get taken as hostages. No, on that level, I'm not sure we can still consider it's terrorism, I think it's more objective to say that it's a total chaos.

You know, Spain, Portugal and Greece didn't need any nation-building help to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy

I wonder if the Zulus need any help with the transition from desoptism to democracy? :rolleyes:

The rebuilding of (West) Germany, Italy, Austria and Japan after WWII were all very successful.

On Japan -- After WWII, the United States and Australia invested a huge amount of money in rebuilding Japan, then mostly left after six months. (However, A few American troops stayed until 1952 and the Ryukyu islands weren't abandoned by the US until 1972.) Short occupation time is one of the key aspects of nation-building; if you stay too long, you're not a friend, you're a foe.

I don't think you can compare the postwar experience with what is known as 'nation building' now - in all these countries, there had already been at least some experience with democracy and the institutions of civil society were already there. Also, all these countries were ethnically homogeneous, and the potential for civil conflict was only present to some extent in Italy, where the Communists were very strong. Moreover, all these countries had a distinct identity and common history, even though political unification came fairly late in Italy and Germany.

Countries like Bosnia, Iraq , Liberia all miss several of these characteristics. So I can't say nation building has been effective anywhere yet, but it's obvious that the process takes decades.

Moved to History.