(The Recorder) WASHINGTON — Over the decades, the concept of “nation-building” has been in and out of favor with successive American administrations. President Donald Trump says he wants no part of it in Afghanistan.
But past presidents have found that when it comes to foreign interventions, it’s very difficult to achieve and sustain military gains in the absence of a stable, functioning government and the institutions that go along with it. That’s one of the main arguments in favor of nation-building — or state-building, as some, including President George W.’s Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chose to call it. […]
“What he’s saying is that he’s not interested in values and principles” on which Afghanistan’s system of governance is based, said Harris Mylonas, associate dean for research at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the author of “The Politics of Nation-Building.”
The message from the White House, Mylonas said, is a stark one: “We don’t care on what basis you build a functioning state.”
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