This book is destined to be a classic, studied in our embassies around the world. At the same time, its a fast-moving, engrossing read in the style of Graham Greene, with a host of charactersthe noble, the cunning, the nave, and the corruptpursuing goals, some idealistic, some selfish, and all elusive.
Bing West, best-selling author of The Village and coauthor with Jim Mattis of Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead
Keith Mines has been an omnipresent figure at nearly every nation-building enterprise the United States has attempted for the past forty years.... Mines has established a record of unparalleled service in the worlds most difficult places, recounted here with great insight and compassion.
James Dobbins, former American special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan
If you want to understand how a true aficionado sees the need to shape our strategy and tactics for the coming decades to deal with failed states, insurgencies, and terrorism, read this very important and well-crafted book for a host of ideas and wisdom.
Thomas R. Pickering, former under secretary of state for political affairs and ambassador to Russia, India, the United Nations, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, and Jordan
Mines speaks from almost unparalleled experience.... The result is a book that nation-building aficionado and nation-building doubter will find equally rewarding, in the lessons it provides, the questions it leaves unanswered, the real-life stories he tells so well.
Robert Malley, president and CEO of International Crisis Group
For on-the-ground experience in activist diplomacy in what he terms the post-Westphalian world, few can outdo foreign service officer Keith Mines. In accounts ranging from El Salvador, Colombia, and Haiti during the late Cold War to Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Darfur in the post-9/11 era, Mines presents a vivid narrative of personal involvement in the successes and failures of our helping fragile states defeat insurgencies and stabilize.... This is a riveting account by an exceptional, expeditionary Americanan outstanding read understandable both to the public and to those who share similar experiences.
Rufus Phillips, author of Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned
Keith Miness major premise is that many of Americas security challenges abroad will not be manageable unless we address root causesweak governance and institutions, political-criminal collaboration, organized violence and corruption, and abysmal educational efforts. Having viewed these problems as a soldier, foreign service officer, and expeditionary diplomat, Mines candidly assesses past successes and failures to distill how the United States can tackle similar problems we will face well into the future. Scholars and practitioners alike will find this book invaluable and very readable.
Roy Godson, professor emeritus of government, Georgetown University
ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series
Series Editor
Margery Boichel Thompson
Since 1776, extraordinary men and women have represented the United States abroad under widely varying circumstances. What they did and how and why they did it remain little known to their compatriots. In 1995, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training ( ADST ) and DACOR , an organization of foreign affairs professionals, created the Diplomats and Diplomacy book series to increase public knowledge and appreciation of the professionalism of American diplomats and their involvement in world history. In Why Nation-Building Matters, Keith Mines explores the need to integrate elements of our soft powerdiplomacy, economic development, and political consolidation in failed and fragile stateswith our war-fighting hard power into a full package that can be deployed effectively against threats in an increasingly fragmented world.
Why Nation-Building Matters
Political Consolidation, Building Security Forces, and Economic Development in Failed and Fragile States
Keith W. Mines
Potomac Books
An ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Book
An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press
2020 by Keith W. Mines.
The opinions and characterizations in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the U.S. government, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, or DACOR .
Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image courtesy U.S. Army / Jerome Aliotta.
Interior photos courtesy of author.
All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mines, Keith W., author.
Title: Why nation-building matters: political consolidation, building security forces, and economic development in failed and fragile states / Keith W. Mines.
Description: Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of University of Nebraska Press, 2020. | Series: Diplomats and diplomacy series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019054497
ISBN 9781640122826 (paperback)
ISBN 9781640123373 (epub)
ISBN 9781640123380 (mobi)
ISBN 9781640123397 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH : Nation buildingCase studies. | Humanitarian interventionCase studies. | Economic development projectsCase studies. | Failed statesCase studies. | Postwar reconstructionGovernment policyUnited StatesCase studies.
Classification: LCC JZ 6300 . M 56 2020 | DDC 327.1dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054497
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
For my parents, Herman and Maxine, whose decency and humanity guided me in tough places.
For Cecile, who inspired my better ideas and redirected the bad ones.
For Jonathan, Joshua, Rachel, and Daniel, who never let me take myself too seriously.
And for Dinesh, whose sacrifice helped secure the freedom of a grateful people.
Contents
It is a long way from the Westphalian town halls of 1648 to the San Salvador Zoo of 1995. But it is a journey worth making.
The bloodletting of the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648 was on a scale that might seem familiar to us today after the Somme, Auschwitz, and Rwanda. But at the time it was unlike anything Europe had experienced, including under the sword of the Huns and Mongols. As many as eight million Germans died in the long struggle, 40 percent of the population, compared to 12 percent in the Second World War.
An interim agreement to bring the conflict to a conclusion, the Treaty of Lbeck, was signed in 1629. Lbeck is a few kilometers from Grinau, the region my German ancestors inhabited for centuries. The treaty removed Denmark from the conflict, but Sweden quickly took its place, and the war dragged on, bringing religious and political experiments and leaving behind marauding mercenaries and devastation. Our family history affirms that the people of Grinau, lying directly in the path from Scandinavia to Central Europe, suffered tremendously during the period.
The Peace of Westphalia that finally ended the conflict took over four years to negotiate. The signing ceremony on October 24, 1648, itself took three weeks to prepare and reflected the harsh divisions of the signatories to the end. My ancestors were not plugged in to the larger geopolitical issues at play and probably would not have been impressed if they were. But the structure of the world was changing, for them and everyone else.
