This guidebook is designed as a contribution to future nation-building efforts. It is organized around the components that make up any nation-building mission: planning, military and police contingents, civil administrators, humanitarian and relief efforts, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and infrastructure development.

This guide is intended to help practitioners avoid repeating earlier mistakes, help political leaders evaluate the cost and likelihood of success in any proposed operation, and help citizens evaluate their government's consequent performance.

SUMMARY
Nation-building, as it is commonly referred to in the United States, involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms with the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.

Since the end of the Cold War, the pace of U.S. military interventions has risen to about one every two years, while the frequency of new UN peacekeeping missions is up to nearly one every six months. The duration of these missions has also risen, with most now lasting five to 10 years. The effect is thus cumulative: The United States finds itself overseeing three or four such interventions simultaneously, while the United Nations must manage up to two dozen different missions at the same time.

The character of these undertakings has also evolved. During the Cold War, UN troops were usually deployed to separate combatants, to police demilitarized zones, and to monitor ceasefires. In recent years, the objectives for these missions have expanded to include reuniting divided societies, disarming adversaries, demobilizing former combatants, organizing elections, installing representative governments, and promoting democratic reform and economic growth. U.S.-led operations have also become larger, longer, and more ambitious in scope. ...

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Praise for The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building
No challenge in international relations today is more pressing or more difficult than that of supporting weak states. James Dobbins, one of the leading practitioners of the art, offers a set of clear, simple prescriptions for helping to build a stable peace in the wake of conflict and disorder. Drawing on the often painful lessons of recent history, Dobbins brings a new level of rigor and openness to this essential subject, and provides a useful tool for all in the United Nations who are engaged in meeting this challenge.
—Kofi A. Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

I cooperated closely with Ambassador Dobbins in facing the challenges of postconflict stabilization in the Balkans and then Afghanistan, and came to greatly value his expertise. This latest RAND study draws upon that expertise and demonstrates his deep insights into the field of nation-building.
—Joschka Fisher, Visiting Professor at Princeton University, former German Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor

FORWARD
The U.S. occupation of Iraq was marked by a series of unanticipated challenges and hastily improvised responses. U.S. officials did not foresee the looting that accompanied the fall of Baghdad, were not prepared for the disintegration of the Iraqi army or the collapse of most other Iraqi institutions, failed to appreciate the impact of years of sanctions and misgovernment on the Iraqi economy, and were surprised by the emergence of organized resistance. U.S. troops stood by while Iraq’s public property was ransacked. U.S. occupation authorities moved to disband the Iraqi military and dismiss thousands of senior Iraqi officials.

Washington first assumed that Iraq’s reconstruction would be largely self-financing, and then initiated the largest bilateral U.S. aid program in history. Responsibility for managing this rebuilding effort was assigned to the U.S. Department of Defense, an agency without modern experience in postwar reconstruction.

A casual observer might conclude that the United States lacked experience in the field of nation-building. Appearances to the contrary, however, Iraq was not the first but the seventh society in a little more than a decade that the United States had entered to liberate and rebuild. In 1991, the United States liberated Kuwait. In 1992, U.S. troops went into Somalia, in 1994 into Haiti, in 1995 into Bosnia, in 1999 into Kosovo, and in 2001 into Afghanistan. Six of these seven societies were Muslim. Thus, by the time U.S. troops entered Iraq, no country in the world had more modern experience in nation-building than the United States. No Western military had more extensive recent practice operating within Muslim societies. ...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lead author James Dobbins is director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND. A veteran diplomat who has held senior White House and US State Department positions under four presidents, he most recently served as the Bush administration's special envoy for Afghanistan.

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