WASHINGTON, April 17 (UPI) -- The idea of using nation-building as a tool to combat terrorism rests on dubious assumptions, and instead of deterring terrorist violence such policies toward failed states are more likely to create incentives for terrorist activities, according to a recent policy study from a Washington think tank.
In the report, "Old Folly in a New Disguise: Nation Building to Combat Terrorism," Gary T. Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, says proponents of nation-building draw false analogies with past policy efforts to support their position.
"There are some people that kind of get carried away with the thinking that with enough money and troops and enough effort, we can solve these problems," Dempsey told United Press International. "My argument would be that the cases where it has worked are distinct on many levels from the cases where people try to apply it today."
He believes that the situation calls for a more "realistic" understanding that states and individuals will use violence as a means to their ends when it seems to be a viable option. In addition, he writes that attempts to shape countries though promoting democracy and financial assistance "will not necessarily stem the tide of terrorism" and may actually serve to "export fresh targets," as shown by our experiences in Lebanon, Somalia and the Balkans.
Dempsey says that only through "credible deterrence" can state-sponsored terrorism be stopped. Instead of viewing countries without stable regimes as threats, Dempsey argues that we should recognize that such situations make terrorists within such borders more vulnerable to military and police attack.
But proponents of nation-building believe efforts to rebuild war-torn strategic states are an integral part of the overall policy strategy to promote U.S. interests worldwide. Without it, they contend, those with interests antithetical to America's policy goals are likely to gain control of such failed states.
Robert Orr, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that he is not "terribly impressed" with Dempsey's arguments against nation-building as a tool, and stressed that it is part of a broad strategy to combat terrorism -- including deterrence -- that should not be dismissed easily.
"I don't think that anyone is asserting that nation-building is the defense, but (should be) packaged with deterrence (measures)," said Orr. "We definitely need military deterrence, intelligence collection and working with a lot of actors on a lot of fronts. What I think we should be talking about is building capacity for containment. We need to work with others to be able to combat terrorists."
Anatol Lieven, a senior associate for foreign and security policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, agrees with Orr's analysis on practicality grounds.
"It seems to me self-evident that we have the threat of deterrence to a limited extent, but when push comes to shove there are a limited number of ways that we can actually use military deterrence in these circumstances," said Lieven. "The United States cannot occupy and deter the whole Muslim world."
But Dempsey believes the assertion by some that efforts like the Marshall Plan can be duplicated to create self-sustained peaceful states is a perfect example of the fallacy of arguments for nation-building. He says that this approach ignores the basic fact that many countries and cultures -- especially the Islamic states from which the current worldwide terrorist problem has arisen -- do not have the historical backgrounds to become bastions of democratic principles.
He says that the Second World War was a fundamentally different situation than the multi-party, intra-country conflicts that have dominated the world in the past several decades. According to Dempsey, what Western governments have accomplished in Bosnia, for instance, would be the equivalent of having made the French and Germans live under a single government following World War II.
He said countries like Japan and Germany had homogenous populations to build upon and were not composed of warring religious or ethic factions, as is the case in many of the countries where nation-building techniques have been applied in recent years.
"What we are doing in Bosnia is forcing the (disparate) groups to live together," said Dempsey. "Afghanistan is a similar situation. We are saying we can go in (with no supporting history) and create a self-sustaining democracy."
Another important difference between now and the post-World War II era, according to Dempsey, is that skilled labor was widely available in Europe and Japan in 1948 and could be used to rebuild a country's economic base. And in Europe there were democratic, cultural and economic ideals of law and property rights that existed before the war.
These are not present in most Muslim-dominated states like Afghanistan, he says.
Lieven agrees with Dempsey's assessment that the Marshal Plan model does not apply to the needs of nation-building today, but says this does not mean that nation building is not useful as a policy initiative.
"Nation-building comes in many shapes and sizes, just like nations," said Lieven." The Marshal Plan as such is clearly not applicable to, by far, the greater part of the world. But saying that specific model is no good is not to say that (all) efforts at state building, or at using aid to spotlight issues and countries, is completely irrelevant and should be abandoned."
Dempsey and other critics contend that recent efforts at nation building often ignore the fact that the failing states from which terrorism erupts are sometimes the consequence of civil wars, and faulty borders that were defined through earlier colonialist activities.
In the case of Afghanistan, he says, the basic fault in trying to build a democratic state in the country is that such efforts presuppose that a functioning state once existed to be built upon.
"If you don't have a reason for a state, the premise that you can create it out of nothing leads you into a situation where you will end up interminably building because you can't build the environment you need to be self sustaining," he said. "It is simply not viable. The fundamental problem is that these countries are fake."
But Orr and others believe the United States has a need to ensure that the "power vacuums" that develop following civil wars, regional conflicts and other such disputes, do not result in regimes with purposes antagonistic to its policy needs.
"If the United States does not engage to fill these vacuums, they will be filled with others that do not have our interests at heart," said Orr. "The main point is that for a fairly modest investment, the United States, has essentially put in place a number of systems that are helping us root out terrorists, not only in the Balkans but also worldwide."
He noted that Afghanistan was left to rot following the end of the Soviet conflict, which lead to the fighting between factions for control of the country and established the power vacuum under which the Taliban gained power.
Dempsey also cautions that generous foreign aid and nation-building "could create tempting new targets for looting that could feed the cycle of violence," despite the fact that such funding is aimed at stopping the poverty and ignorance that some contend is a root cause of terrorist activity.
He cites a recent World Bank study that looked at 47 civil conflicts between 1965 and 1999, and found that rebellion and civil war most often occur in countries with lootable sources of cash, including Angola with its diamond trade, and Columbia with large profits from cocaine harvesting.
Dempsey says that such generous Western state funding was precisely the cause of the escalating violence in Somalia in 1992 to 1993. The battling warring warlords in the country siphoned off cash from nation building efforts supported by the United States and run by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, he writes, and used those funds to continue their infighting and to support attacks on allied troop activities.
But Orr calls Dempsey's belief -- that intervention by the United States and other western powers in conflicts like Bosnia has made this country more vulnerable to terrorism -- "crazy," because they ignore the possible benefits of having a presence in dangerous failed states.
"We have seen the facts show the opposite," he said. "By having a strong presence in Bosnia we have been able to foil a lot of problems. His argument about creating potential targets is a backward one."
Orr also cites the U.S. government's lack of knowledge until recently about the ties between al Qaida and the diamond trade in Sierra Leon as a prime example of why the country needs a presence in such critical nations, despite the risks of providing more targets worldwide.
"We can do all the beautiful money laundering laws in the world but that won't stop trade in arms and diamonds in parts of the world where the banking system is not used, he said. "If we had a presence in a place like Sierra Leone we would have picked up on this earlier. It is astounding that the U.S. was not aware of this earlier."
In addition, he said that nation building and diplomatic engagement has the added benefit of developing relationships with other countries in the region of the failed state, which also have a vested interest in that country's stability.
Both Orr and Lieven were highly critical of another major component of Dempsey's argument -- that unstable regimes work against terrorists because the United States can easily gain unrestricted access to these groups or individuals if there is no government to protect them.
"The logic that by leaving a failed state alone they will continue to be a failed states is pointedly wrong," said Orr. "Failed states don't stay failed states for long The people that use failed states are almost without exception those that don't like the international system that the U.S. helps to run. How are you better off with a failed state that is opposed to you?"
Lieven was even more critical of Dempsey's argument for letting borderline countries fail.
"I think it is fascist," said Lieven. "That is the most wicked argument that I have ever heard. It simply has contempt for international law and the order with which the U.S. has been bombarding the world over the last 20 years. That is a recipe for keeping the entire Muslim world in a state of permanent anarchy and impoverishment."
