The cause of the failure was when, in 2003, the US decided to focus on an entirely unnecessary war of choice (aggression, really) in Iraq (and a whole bunch of propaganda own-goals scored in that war that affected the US particularly in the Islamic world reinforced that.) Nation building was always an element of fighting the Taliban, not mission drift, since having something stable and broadly supported in place was the key to prevent a resurgence.
If I were going to go about nation building, I would “export democratic values” some 20 years in advance of any military action by way of film, literature, etc. Cynics can think of this as propaganda, but really it’s just giving Afghans or whomever a more accurate taste of western life. When enough people had a good idea about what democracy was concretely and were ready to support it, I would then provide for military support with the expectation that the democrats would need sustained assistance for many decades.
Of course, there might be lots of reasons why this still isn’t a good idea, especially that we might be able to do more good per dollar elsewhere. But I don’t think “we tried it (poorly) for 20 years and it didn’t work out” is a good criticism—we shouldn’t expect the kind of requisite culture change to happen over a single generation.
Germany and Japan were occupied (excluding the post-1955 nominal occupation of Germany because the Cold War prevented agreement on a formal end) for less time than Afghanistan when you add them together. To the extent something worked there but not in Afghanistan, it had nothing to do with it taking “generations”.
Germany and Japan were also quite a bit more successful at actually ending the organizations occupying troops found unacceptable.
Kuomintang' China, South Korea, South Vietnam, Iraq, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. You name it! Every single local government supported by the U.S. was and is being accused of being corrupt. You know what? They are all corrupt judged by the western standard. Corruption is the norm in the countries need U.S. support. If, for God's sake, they can build a government which is not corrupt (like a consituational republic???), what kind of society would that be? Why would they even need U.S. support in the first place?
And you know what? Corruption is not a choice of the central government. It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not. It is a reflection of the society it is in.
It is just shameful that because of this extremely naive accusation, the U.S. government made countless foreign police mistakes.
Often, it is.
> It is not like the central government can choose being corrupt or not.
Sure it is. It can also choose how much energy to devote to rooting out corruption at lower levels, but in many of the cases at issue it was the very top leaders that were deeply corrupt, so corruption was, in fact, a very direct choice of the central government.
You must mean "installing puppet government". The Taliban were before, the puppet government lasted two decades, and now the Taliban are back. If it had been done with more diplomacy it might have succeded, but after the Twin Towers attack there was a push to overreact, and to profit from the sudden political capital.
https://instagram.com/p/CSj-3bgsxKQ
this is absolutely astonishing to me. im honestly surprised the us didn't conduct airstrikes on the vacated armories and hangars. they just got a leg up from antique firearms and fertilizer bombs into modern weaponry and air force.
i expect all of this to show up in Iraq, Syria, etc
It shouldn't be a surprise since you need a society that wants to actually break from the same continued cycle, unfortunately Afghanistan isn't it due to many reasons.