There are few less fashionable phrases in international relations today than “nation building.” In the U.S. and Europe, politicians and generals are still struggling to put the ghosts of their interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq behind them. At the United Nations, international officials talk about promoting “resilience” or “sustaining peace” in volatile societies. Only a brave observer would make a full-fledged case for the need to build functional states, let alone “nations,” in the face of such widespread skepticism.
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